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  #31   Report Post  
Old December 24th 17, 03:13 AM posted to uk.radio.amateur,rec.radio.amateur.homebrew,alt.folklore.computers,uk.rec.models.engineering
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Posts: 1,067
Default Pepper and Salt! (Condiments of the season) :-)

On 12/23/2017 3:01 PM, Ralph Mowery wrote:
In article ,
says...

On Fri, 22 Dec 2017 15:39:08 -0600, Charles Richmond
wrote:

[snip]

Back in the bad old days, two houses on different sides of the same
freeway... a phone call from one house to the other... was a
long-distant toll call !!! That is sort of analogous to speaking
dialects !!! :-)


I always thought that that nonsense could have been solved by
using a better zone system. A call to the same zone or only one zone
away would be local; the others would be long distance. Set the zones
to allow for cities and geography.



In the 1980's I knew 2 brothers that lived next to each other. The
houses were seperated by a small field maybe 100 yards wide. They were
long distance from each other by the phone companies. Each one had a
different phone company.

Where I am at now I can not get ATT as its service starts about 1/4 of a
mile or less from me. I am on another phone company, or was before I
switched over to the internet phone. That was a very good thing for me.
I get free long distance, but best of all they block most robot calls.
The phone rings once and quits. The number is on the caller ID box and
if it really is something I want, I can dial them back. Also it is easy
to go on the internet and tell the phone company I want to block a
number. I don't do it, but a friend does, you can have the home phone
number send it to your cell phone after a few rings.


Do you mind if I ask which VOIP company you're using (reply by email if
you wish). I'm considering switching both my home and business numbers
to another company. Verizon has gone VOIP but they're expensive (and
have fewer features).

--
==================
Remove the "x" from my email address
Jerry Stuckle

==================
  #32   Report Post  
Old December 24th 17, 04:25 AM posted to uk.radio.amateur,rec.radio.amateur.homebrew,alt.folklore.computers,uk.rec.models.engineering
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First recorded activity by RadioBanter: Nov 2012
Posts: 989
Default Pepper and Salt! (Condiments of the season) :-)

Jerry Stuckle wrote on 12/23/2017 9:10 PM:
On 12/23/2017 2:06 PM, rickman wrote:
Gene Wirchenko wrote on 12/23/2017 8:08 AM:
On Fri, 22 Dec 2017 15:39:08 -0600, Charles Richmond
wrote:

[snip]

Back in the bad old days, two houses on different sides of the same
freeway... a phone call from one house to the other... was a
long-distant toll call !!! That is sort of analogous to speaking
dialects !!! :-)

I always thought that that nonsense could have been solved by
using a better zone system. A call to the same zone or only one zone
away would be local; the others would be long distance. Set the zones
to allow for cities and geography.

Would this have been workable?


The phone company has no incentive to make this work better for users.
Their profits are regulated and they have no competition. I have a place
in a very rural area and when I first bought it computers used dial up. I
got very lucky and there was a local exchange that was not quite as local
as the others so I could reach a provider. Otherwise it would have been a
non-long distance toll call. For many others on the other side of the
lake it was a toll call. It's still that way some 30 years later. TPC
has no incentive to increase the non-toll region even though it costs them
nothing in equipment which was upgraded decades ago. They just have to
change their billing.


You still pay for long distance? We've had unlimited (domestic) long
distance on our land lines for years. And that was long before Verizon had
competition.

Now they've changed us to fiber - no more POTS line; rather it's VOIP. Works
fine (better than the old copper) but the battery dies after about 5-8 hours
of power outage, depending on how much we use it.


If you have "unlimited" long distance, you are paying for it. I have a land
line still but have no long distance. I pay $15 a month which is basically
to keep the business number until I decide to do something with it like
VOIP. I was looking at Google Voice the other day but I digress... You are
most likely paying some $30 or $40 a month to get your "unlimited" long
distance. A service that comes with my cell where voice calls are unmetered.

Funny, it was the over charging for long distance that prompted competition
in the market and led to the breakup of Bell Telephone. Now long distance
is so cheap they practically give it away.

--

Rick C

Viewed the eclipse at Wintercrest Farms,
on the centerline of totality since 1998
  #33   Report Post  
Old December 24th 17, 04:41 AM posted to uk.radio.amateur,rec.radio.amateur.homebrew,alt.folklore.computers,uk.rec.models.engineering
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First recorded activity by RadioBanter: Jul 2006
Posts: 702
Default Pepper and Salt! (Condiments of the season) :-)

In article ,
says...

Do you mind if I ask which VOIP company you're using (reply by email if
you wish). I'm considering switching both my home and business numbers
to another company. Verizon has gone VOIP but they're expensive (and
have fewer features).


The company is/was Time Warner Cable that was bought or merged with
Spectrum. I only had the internet before the merge and it was about $
60 and the land line phone with another company was about $ 40 or $ 45
or just the basic service. No caller ID and 10 cents a minuit for long
distance.

By bundling the internet and phone I am paying about $ 69 per month for
both services and that includes a surcharge for the wifi modem and
probably because I wanted to keep Earthlink as the ISP instead of going
with them which I think is Roadrunner.

https://www.spectrum.com/home-phone.html

They advertise $ 29.99 each for some cable TV, phone , and internet if
you bundle them together. There is no contract or anyting. Not sure
how long they will hold that price as it has only been a few months.
Did not want the TV as using Direct TV and the wife wanted to keep it.

Only drawback I can think of now is if the cable line goes out I have to
use a cell phone to call them.



  #34   Report Post  
Old December 24th 17, 05:06 AM posted to uk.radio.amateur,rec.radio.amateur.homebrew,alt.folklore.computers,uk.rec.models.engineering
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First recorded activity by RadioBanter: Oct 2012
Posts: 1,067
Default Pepper and Salt! (Condiments of the season) :-)

On 12/23/2017 10:25 PM, rickman wrote:
Jerry Stuckle wrote on 12/23/2017 9:10 PM:
On 12/23/2017 2:06 PM, rickman wrote:
Gene Wirchenko wrote on 12/23/2017 8:08 AM:
On Fri, 22 Dec 2017 15:39:08 -0600, Charles Richmond
wrote:

[snip]

Back in the bad old days, two houses on different sides of the same
freeway... a phone call from one house to the other... was a
long-distant toll call !!!Â* That is sort of analogous to speaking
dialects !!!Â* :-)

Â*Â*Â*Â* I always thought that that nonsense could have been solved by
using a better zone system.Â* A call to the same zone or only one zone
away would be local; the others would be long distance.Â* Set the zones
to allow for cities and geography.

Â*Â*Â*Â* Would this have been workable?

The phone company has no incentive to make this work better for users.
Their profits are regulated and they have no competition.Â* I have a
place
in a very rural area and when I first bought it computers used dial
up.Â* I
got very lucky and there was a local exchange that was not quite as
local
as the others so I could reach a provider.Â* Otherwise it would have
been a
non-long distance toll call.Â* For many others on the other side of the
lake it was a toll call.Â* It's still that way some 30 years later.Â* TPC
has no incentive to increase the non-toll region even though it costs
them
nothing in equipment which was upgraded decades ago.Â* They just have to
change their billing.


You still pay for long distance?Â* We've had unlimited (domestic) long
distance on our land lines for years.Â* And that was long before
Verizon had
competition.

Now they've changed us to fiber - no more POTS line; rather it's VOIP.
Works
fine (better than the old copper) but the battery dies after about 5-8
hours
of power outage, depending on how much we use it.


If you have "unlimited" long distance, you are paying for it.Â* I have a
land line still but have no long distance.Â* I pay $15 a month which is
basically to keep the business number until I decide to do something
with it like VOIP.Â* I was looking at Google Voice the other day but I
digress...Â* You are most likely paying some $30 or $40 a month to get
your "unlimited" long distance.Â* A service that comes with my cell where
voice calls are unmetered.

Funny, it was the over charging for long distance that prompted
competition in the market and led to the breakup of Bell Telephone.Â* Now
long distance is so cheap they practically give it away.


Not significantly. It's running less than $60 for two lines. But that
is actually less then when we had POTS lines and were paying for long
distance. But I think it's still too expensive.

My business lines are still POTS and much more expensive (as you would
expect) - but they also don't have unlimited long distance. But Verizon
is going to force me to go VOIP on those lines, soon, also.

The difference is the copper in our neighborhood is over 50 years old
and having a lot of problems. Rather than replace the cable, Verizon
installed fiber and now they run everything - phone, tv and internet -
over the one fiber instead of twisted pairs and multiple coaxes.

Plus we have more TV channels available than we had with coax.

--
==================
Remove the "x" from my email address
Jerry, AI0K

==================
  #35   Report Post  
Old December 24th 17, 05:10 AM posted to uk.radio.amateur,rec.radio.amateur.homebrew,alt.folklore.computers,uk.rec.models.engineering
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First recorded activity by RadioBanter: Oct 2012
Posts: 1,067
Default Pepper and Salt! (Condiments of the season) :-)

On 12/23/2017 10:41 PM, Ralph Mowery wrote:
In article ,
says...

Do you mind if I ask which VOIP company you're using (reply by email if
you wish). I'm considering switching both my home and business numbers
to another company. Verizon has gone VOIP but they're expensive (and
have fewer features).


The company is/was Time Warner Cable that was bought or merged with
Spectrum. I only had the internet before the merge and it was about $
60 and the land line phone with another company was about $ 40 or $ 45
or just the basic service. No caller ID and 10 cents a minuit for long
distance.

By bundling the internet and phone I am paying about $ 69 per month for
both services and that includes a surcharge for the wifi modem and
probably because I wanted to keep Earthlink as the ISP instead of going
with them which I think is Roadrunner.

https://www.spectrum.com/home-phone.html

They advertise $ 29.99 each for some cable TV, phone , and internet if
you bundle them together. There is no contract or anyting. Not sure
how long they will hold that price as it has only been a few months.
Did not want the TV as using Direct TV and the wife wanted to keep it.

Only drawback I can think of now is if the cable line goes out I have to
use a cell phone to call them.




Ah, OK. I thought you had gone with one of the VOIP companies. We
don't have Spectrum here; there are some places on the other side of the
river in Virginia with them, but all we have available are Verizon and
XFinity. I think Verizon is the lesser of the two evils

--
==================
Remove the "x" from my email address
Jerry, AI0K

==================


  #36   Report Post  
Old December 24th 17, 05:15 AM posted to uk.radio.amateur,rec.radio.amateur.homebrew,alt.folklore.computers,uk.rec.models.engineering
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First recorded activity by RadioBanter: Dec 2017
Posts: 2
Default phone prices, was Pepper and Salt! (Condiments of the season) :-)

In article , rickman wrote:
You seem to fail to understand how "the phone company" operates. They have
capital investment. A regulatory board allows them a certain profit based
on that capital investment. If they make too little profit they can request
rate changes of the regulatory board. TPC doesn't lose money.


That was called rate of return regulation. In the US, only little
rural telcos still do that. Big phone companies have negotiated price
caps instead, which give them a new incentive to invest as little as
possible in the regulated network.

For the most part, mobile phone rates aren't regulated at all.

--
Regards,
John Levine, , Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail.
https://jl.ly
  #37   Report Post  
Old December 24th 17, 05:30 AM posted to uk.radio.amateur,rec.radio.amateur.homebrew,alt.folklore.computers,uk.rec.models.engineering
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Posts: 989
Default phone prices, was Pepper and Salt! (Condiments of the season) :-)

John Levine wrote on 12/23/2017 11:15 PM:
In article , rickman wrote:
You seem to fail to understand how "the phone company" operates. They have
capital investment. A regulatory board allows them a certain profit based
on that capital investment. If they make too little profit they can request
rate changes of the regulatory board. TPC doesn't lose money.


That was called rate of return regulation. In the US, only little
rural telcos still do that. Big phone companies have negotiated price
caps instead, which give them a new incentive to invest as little as
possible in the regulated network.

For the most part, mobile phone rates aren't regulated at all.


You are confused. The cell phone companies are in a different business.
Verizon may own a public telephone company, but most of the US has public
phone companies owned by someone else. The phone companies providing
landline phone service are still regulated entities regardless of who owns
what.

--

Rick C

Viewed the eclipse at Wintercrest Farms,
on the centerline of totality since 1998
  #38   Report Post  
Old December 24th 17, 05:49 AM posted to uk.radio.amateur,rec.radio.amateur.homebrew,alt.folklore.computers,uk.rec.models.engineering
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First recorded activity by RadioBanter: Dec 2017
Posts: 4
Default Pepper and Salt! (Condiments of the season) :-)

On Sat, 23 Dec 2017 23:10:44 -0500, Jerry Stuckle
wrote:

On 12/23/2017 10:41 PM, Ralph Mowery wrote:
In article ,
says...

Do you mind if I ask which VOIP company you're using (reply by email if
you wish). I'm considering switching both my home and business numbers
to another company. Verizon has gone VOIP but they're expensive (and
have fewer features).


The company is/was Time Warner Cable that was bought or merged with
Spectrum. I only had the internet before the merge and it was about $
60 and the land line phone with another company was about $ 40 or $ 45
or just the basic service. No caller ID and 10 cents a minuit for long
distance.

By bundling the internet and phone I am paying about $ 69 per month for
both services and that includes a surcharge for the wifi modem and
probably because I wanted to keep Earthlink as the ISP instead of going
with them which I think is Roadrunner.

https://www.spectrum.com/home-phone.html

They advertise $ 29.99 each for some cable TV, phone , and internet if
you bundle them together. There is no contract or anyting. Not sure
how long they will hold that price as it has only been a few months.
Did not want the TV as using Direct TV and the wife wanted to keep it.

Only drawback I can think of now is if the cable line goes out I have to
use a cell phone to call them.




Ah, OK. I thought you had gone with one of the VOIP companies. We
don't have Spectrum here; there are some places on the other side of the
river in Virginia with them, but all we have available are Verizon and
XFinity. I think Verizon is the lesser of the two evils


You know nothing compels you to get your phone from your internet
provider. Microsoft provides unlimited worldwide service for
$14.99/month, plus $25 every three if you want a number that people
can call. Google has something similar.


  #39   Report Post  
Old December 24th 17, 06:02 AM posted to uk.radio.amateur,rec.radio.amateur.homebrew,alt.folklore.computers,uk.rec.models.engineering
external usenet poster
 
First recorded activity by RadioBanter: Dec 2017
Posts: 2
Default phone prices, was Pepper and Salt! (Condiments of the season) :-)

That was called rate of return regulation. In the US, only little
rural telcos still do that. Big phone companies have negotiated price
caps instead, which give them a new incentive to invest as little as
possible in the regulated network.

For the most part, mobile phone rates aren't regulated at all.


You are confused. The cell phone companies are in a different business.
Verizon may own a public telephone company, but most of the US has public
phone companies owned by someone else. The phone companies providing
landline phone service are still regulated entities regardless of who owns
what.


Yes, they're regulated, but most of them are under price caps, not
rate of return. So long as they don't exceed the price caps, the
regulators don't care what their capital investment or profit is.

--
Regards,
John Levine, , Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail.
https://jl.ly
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Old December 24th 17, 06:31 AM posted to uk.radio.amateur,rec.radio.amateur.homebrew,alt.folklore.computers,uk.rec.models.engineering
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First recorded activity by RadioBanter: Dec 2017
Posts: 2
Default Pepper and Salt! (Condiments of the season) :-)

On Sat, 23 Dec 2017 23:49:05 -0500
J. Clarke wrote:

You know nothing compels you to get your phone from your internet
provider. Microsoft provides unlimited worldwide service for
$14.99/month, plus $25 every three if you want a number that people
can call. Google has something similar.


That is an expensive option unless you make a *lot* of calls, there
are providers where you pay for all calls but the rate to most places is
under a cent per minute.

--
Steve O'Hara-Smith | Directable Mirror Arrays
C:\WIN | A better way to focus the sun
The computer obeys and wins. | licences available see
You lose and Bill collects. | http://www.sohara.org/
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