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From: Robert Heller on 18 Feb 2010 19:54
At Thu, 18 Feb 2010 17:58:27 -0600 John Hasler <jhasler(a)newsguy.com> wrote:

>
> Robert Heller writes:
> > Around here, the analog phone service is getting *less* reliable as
> > the physical infrastructure litterally rots. I kid you not. Verizon
> > is doing as little as they possibly get away with in terms of
> > maintaince. There are people in places where the phone service goes
> > down when it rains. There are cables that fill up with water and the
> > copper is litterally rotting away.
>
> Don't you have a utility commission? According to the proponents of a
> regulated economy part of the price of having their "natural monopoly"
> protected from competition is supposed to be offering universal service
> that meets specified minimum standards.

The utility commission is presently conducting a region-wide
investigation of Verizon. On one level Verizon wants to called on the
carpet -- it gives them an out because they want to unload the copper
infrastructure and if it is found that they cannot maintain it, it
removes a regulatory hurdle preventing them from selling off the
infrastructure. OTOH, the most that the regulators can do is fine
Verizon and Verizon can probably fight in court for decades. Right now,
Verizon's only real problem with pulling off a Reverse Moris trust game
with the copper in Western Mass is finding a buyer that will be willing
to buy only Western Mass and not demand that Verizon sell ALL of Mass.
as a single parcel. Eastern Mass has *profitable* FIOS, which Verizon
wants to hang onto.

Oh, Verizon has been playing games with the stats: they slack off on
residential service (failing to meet the 24 hour max downtime), but do a
better job on the business side and then average the number to meet the
24 hour max downtime *on average*. This is probably a cheat and may not
really meet with the state's aprovial.

Some interesting reading:

http://www.mass.gov/?pageID=ocamodulechunk&L=4&L0=Home&L1=Government&L2=Our+Agencies+and+Divisions&L3=Department+of+Telecommunications+and+Cable&sid=Eoca&b=terminalcontent&f=dtc_telecom_09-1FinalOrderOpenInvestRegSerQua&csid=Eoca

(Includes a partularly scathing comment from the Mass AG's office.)

--
Robert Heller -- 978-544-6933
Deepwoods Software -- Download the Model Railroad System
http://www.deepsoft.com/ -- Binaries for Linux and MS-Windows
heller(a)deepsoft.com -- http://www.deepsoft.com/ModelRailroadSystem/

From: The Natural Philosopher on 19 Feb 2010 21:17
Roger Blake wrote:
> On 2010-02-18, Robert Heller <heller(a)deepsoft.com> wrote:
>> With 56K tech, there are NO modem racks anymore. It is all done with
>
> That is pretty much irrelevant to the point that there is sufficient
> demand for dialup to keep the service going. (The actual hardware
> implementation on the server end doesn't matter.)
>
>> What is keeping those *virtual* modem racks humming is likes of
>> Verizon. Verizon *won't* upgrade the copper, *won't* install FIOS, and
>
> We do have FIOS in my area but it is too expensive. We ran the numbers
> when Verizon called us with their sales pitch, and maintaining a traditional
> land line plus dialup is still cheaper.
>
>> phone service. Analog landline phone service is actually much more
>> expensive than most VOIP services.
>
> And also less reliable. That is to be expected as analog phone service
> has had over 100 years of development and engineering go into it. I know
> several people who switched to VOIP and then went back to analog service
> due to reliability issues. But even if that were not the case, getting
> say a broadband cable connection plus VOIP is still going to be more
> expensive than our landline + dialup.
>
I'm paying about $50 a month for phone, ADSL and VOIP is free rental,
but PAYG phone.As is the phone line. I don't make many phone calls. VOIP
makes international calls no more expensive than local ones.

Voip for me is excellent. Only if my wife is watching streamed video
does it sometimes lose a few packets.

The copper line and the voip line feed a small PABX.
From: Florian Rehnisch on 20 Feb 2010 01:12
o Robert Heller <heller(a)deepsoft.com>:
> At Wed, 17 Feb 2010 17:52:26 +0000 (UTC) eixman(a)gmx.de (Florian Rehnisch) wrote:
>> o Robert Heller <heller(a)deepsoft.com>:
>> > At Sat, 13 Feb 2010 23:40:37 +0000 (UTC) Rahul <nospam(a)nospam.invalid> wrote:
>> >> Not in India.
>>
>> > And often unavailable in some places, like rural America. (That's
>> > right: much of rural *USA* does not have any sort of high speed internet.)
>>
>> Even rural Germany (hey, Mom's still using a 56k modem).

> What speed does she connect at? Is it mostly close to 56k? Here in
> rural Western Mass, people often connect at < 24K. In other words, a
> 56k modem buys you little over a 33.6K or 28.8K modem (only one cannot
> buy a 33.6K or 28.8K modem modem any more).

AFAIK it's good. And hey, she don't miss high speed internet.
And she's paying only $10 a month, if at all.
--
flori
Vim-Hilfe auf Deutsch http://www.florianrehnisch.de/vimhelp/
WARNING: PRGRAMMING BUG IN E2FSCK!
OR SOME BONEHEAD (YOU) IS CHECKING A MOUNTED (LIVE) FILESYSTEM.
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