VoIP and 911

A lot of people thinking of switching their phone service over to voice-over-IP (VoIP) are nervous about losing their ability to dial 911. While that used to be an issue it is not anymore, now that Enhanced 911 service is offered by most VoIP companies.

Our new home doesn’t have any landline service, so we’ve been relying on our mobile phones for dialing 911, simply because I hadn’t gotten around to configuring 911 service for our Asterisk-based home phone system. Well, I did that Monday night. It took a few clicks on the Vitelity webpage, some Asterisk-Fu to get the dialplan set up, and then we were in business. It costs an extra $1.49 per month but that all goes to support the 911 system. Which is a good cause, I think.
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Our outrageous phone bill

We just got our phone bill today – and boy, was it outrageous. It isn’t outrageously expensive, though: its outrageously cheap!

We’ve been charged $20 for our phone service. That’s right: twenty bucks … since May 15th! That’s $20 for ten weeks of service! And its all because we switched our phone service from AT&T to the Voice over IP (VoIP) provider Vitelity. We get two phone numbers, CallerID, and the ability for more than one simultaneous call.

Our base Bellsouth/AT&T bill used to be around $47.00/month. Long distance calling would tack on an extra $20 to that. Thus, our phone bill was often above $60/month.

Put another way, what we used to pay $60 per month for we now get for a jaw-dropping $8 per month! And through the magic that VoIP brings, we’re getting more features now for far, far less!

Voice over IP phone service isn’t rock solid, and it doesn’t always have the highest call quality. To save an extra 52 bucks each month, though, we can live with it!

Time for the Highlights of 2007

Its time for me to write my annual recounting of this year’s notable events. Putting this list together this year has amazed me at how many things I have to write about. Just to give you an idea, the AT&T billing nightmare and the bogus car warranty calls that I’ve been incessantly blogging about didn’t even crack the top ten! The Chinese proverb “may you live in interesting times” certainly applied to me this year.

With all that said, let’s get on with the list!

Annoyance Calls

For the past few weeks we haven’t just been getting car warranty calls. Another annoying situation has established itself where we’ll get a hang-up call at 9:15 PM on Sunday evenings, followed by one about 6 minutes later. Then, at 4:25 AM on Monday morning the phone will ring again and – just like the other calls – there will be nothing but a dial tone.

I’ve since configured Asterisk to block these calls so they will no longer get through. Even so, I plan to see how good the crackerjacks at AT&T are at tracking them down by filing a complaint with them. Back in my BBS sysop’ing days, I had a phone number to the phone company group that could track any number. I’m sure I can find the AT&T equivalent with a little effort.

This has gone on for weeks now and its time to fight back.

Off the hook!

I called AT&T Small Business Services today to check on the status of my long-standing unpaid-bill dispute (as well as my short-standing new bill dispute). After dealing with an initially confused rep by the name of Daniel, I got confirmation that I’m no longer listed as the responsible party for these accounts. Hallelujah!

I called the NC Attorney General’s office to update my file with this information. The specialist working the case asked me if AT&T was going to contact her with an update, to which I laughed. Huge corporations have little time to trifle with such things as the law, you know (thank goodness the telecom immunity bill has been shelved, for now at least).

Two steps forward, one back?

Just when I thought I was out of the woods with AT&T, I returned the second call I got yesterday, the one from Barbara Blatt. Ms. Blatt works at AT&T’s collection agency. I half-way listened to her spiel until her mention of the amount due brought me back from my daydreaming.

“Whoa, there,” I said. “This one’s $161.23? Is this something new?”
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Dual-homed home

For those of you who were waiting with baited breath to know how my AT&T FastAccess DSL was working for me (you remember, the $10/month plan?), I have been slack in updating you.

In short, it works great. Not fast enough to replace my cable modem, however, not with 768Kbps down and 128Kbps up. It wasn’t more than an hour or two before Kelly was complaining about the slow connection.
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Bellsouth $10 DSL trial run

I signed up Sunday for AT&T’s FastAccess Lite DSL Term, otherwise known as $10 DSL. It requires a 12 month commitment, is only 768 Kbps down and 128 Kbps up, and requires your own DSL modem, but for the price its a deal … especially if AT&T loses money on it, and I have my reasons for, uh, wishing that to happen. While its true that the $10 deal does not appear on the FastAccess page, if you enter your phone number in the availability box the Term option for $10/month does appear which is the one you need.
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General Assembly Moves To Limit Cable TV Competition

I cringed when I learned that Bellsouth would use the AT&T name. Though the new AT&T has little in common with the AT&T of old (aside from wanting to own the world), the name carries baggage for me. When I was in charge of phones at one former company, I was shocked to discover that AT&T had slammed my company – switching fourteen of our phone lines to their long distance service without our approval. I was so furious that I immediately filed a complaint with the N.C. Public Utilities Commission, after which an AT&T lawyer called to soothe my nerves. Had my employer not imploded days later (making the whole matter moot), I would have pressed the Commission to drop the hammer on AT&T. A similar case in Texas had recently cost a slamming telco $1.4 million. Seemed like a good starting point to me.
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Cheap Thoughts: Phone Booths

Its been a year since Bellsouth (er, SBC. Er, AT&T) and other phone companies got out of the payphone business, ripping their phones off walls and telephone poles. Its been even longer since telephone booths were ubiquitous. I recall the funny scene in Superman when Clark Kent races to the nearest payphone only to find it had no booth!

Nowadays people carry their phones with them. Geeks like me work in cubicles where every conversation is shared amongst coworkers. If you want to make a private call, you often have to take it outside. On days like this when its 25 degrees outside, that’s not very convenient.

I think for these reasons the phone booth might make a comeback. Put a few near your cube farm and not only will you make the caller happy, you’ll make all his or her coworkers happy, too, since they won’t have to be privy to the conversation. I’ve used the booths at bars such as the Carolina Ale House and 42nd Street Oyster Bar. They make it much easier to hear the call and keep the call from disturbing others.

Do any companies currently make phone booths?