Low Cost VOIP Providers

Maybe I can dumb this down a bit. I assume the free calls are only to people with SIP phones. If you need to connect to a POTS, there is a charge.

VOIP/SIP is complicated. My ISP has been trying to get me over to their VOIP for years, since that is their specialty. It just seems like too much work for me for no real savings since I have way too many minutes on my cellphone.

But here is something to contemplate. There are SIP apps for smartphones. You could get a plan like that cheap $30 T-mobile plan that only has 100 minutes of voice, and then use SIP from your phone on its data plan to use the VOIP vendor directly, or maybe VPN to your router and then VOIP as if you were at your house. Basically that is what google voice does, well except for them spying on you.

If you built a new house, hell yeah, just SIP all your phones and put an Asterik box in a closest somewhere. This is the future of telephony. In fact, AT$T claimed they were going to just dump pots and make their phone system totally digital. Of course they would bill you just like it was POTS.

There are people you can pay to set up VOIP systems. A friend of mine has done a number of large commercial VOIPs, even a campus one with security phones and direct connection to the cops HT if needed. But my point is you just pay someone to do this if it sounds too complicated.

This is how the game is played. If you can't do it yourself, you pay somebody to do it. That could be simply paying Ma Bell a high monthly rate, or it could be paying a company to set up the SIP.

If you go to WalMart, they have some contraption that is a like a wired cellphone. I saw it when I was looking at MNVOs before deciding just to renew my cellular contract. It is a box that is a voice only cellphone. You pay $15 a month for phone service from StraightTalk. I never met anyone that used it, so I can't vouch for it.

That is what most people don't realize these days. Cell phones are not a reliable backup in a longer outage. Once the tower run out of electricity the cell phone becomes a little brick and being able to re-chareg it from the car will not help.

The dial-up is only good if it connects to a modem in some distant city. I doubt that the local Missy Bell or ISP will UPS-feed the steampunk modem bank.

Mine not too expensive one even has that, but only to a dial-up modem.

That's problem #2. We do not have any interest whatsoever in their TV offerings and they don't really want to sell Internet without it.

Those will usually be out as well. At least that's how it is here when a larger outage occurs.

The LTE or DSL backup for me would only be if the cable Internet goes down because their last-mile infrastructure is a bit haphazard.

Yup. When Gray "Gray-out" Davis was still governor and screwed up the CA electricity market we got used to continue life sans power. One can cook a 4-5 burner meal in a Weber grill over charcoal, done it. that was a bit decadent but the power went outside the "normal" rolling black-outs just after my wife started to cook. Back then I felt like we had moved to Romania.

They just resell air time on one of the cellular networks. Basically, a docking station with the CDMA phone built-in (tethering). You plug it into your home POTS wiring in the same way as an ATA VoIP adapter. If you can tolerate the typical cellular audio quality and don't use an analog fax, it might work.

Maybe it would help to see where such things are going. My crystal ball needs a workout.

Shared wireless broadband is a concept that has been kicked around since the early 1990's. The first version was for a service provider to hang LMDS (27.5 - 31.3 GHz) radios on the poles, and provide short range (last 100ft) video, phone, and data service. There would be no wires going into the house and everything would be wireless. The concept was suppose to give some competition to the incumbent telco monopolies, but never took hold. Currently, LMDS is mostly used for backhaul and fiber backup:

Of course, there were problems. Not enough bandwidth to do the job, somewhat beyond state of the art at the time, and high cost. What made it unpopular was the realization that it wouldn't scale into becoming a 100% replacement for copper because of difficulties with frequency re-use. It's not totally dead yet as companies do keep trying:

The answer to the frequency re-use problem arrived with discovery of the unlicensed 67 to 64 GHz band. 60 GHz is the major atmospheric oxygen absorption hole. RF doesn't go very far in the 60 Ghz band, making frequency re-use possible and probably practical: About -10 dB/km. Add -5 dB/km more if it's raining. Not much effect if the radios are close but really lossy over any distance. Chipsets, prototypes, and consortia are already available:

The first use will probably be indoor wireless HDMI for wireless TV displays and computer monitors. The next step will probably be the promised integrated services (video, phone, data), initially inside the house from indoor wired access points, but later from service providers from outside on the poles.

Whether it will happen depends of course on the economics of the service and the ability of service providers to provide a fiber backhaul on the poles, both of which are currently unknown.

Yup. Though I am told you can get some "really really basic" TV service -- and just don't hook up a TV! (I suspect they want TV subscribers because "that's their business" and I imagine they also get a kickback from advertisers, etc. by selling your TV viewing habits, etc.

We seldom have large outages. They are sometimes *prolonged* (e.g., the last one was a result of the main distribution transformer for the neighborhood catching fire!) but usually just "this feed".

E.g., the folks around the corner are fed from a different branch so our lights will often be out while theirs are on -- or vice versa.

We keep 50 pounds of charcoal on hand (dry). Partly for the few times we grill outdoors (ribs, etc). But, also, as a means for getting hot food, boiling water, etc. during an outage.

I've been looking to pick up a small, single burner, propane "camp stove" for the bug-out-bag. I figure I always have bottled propane on hand anyway for the torch. Opting for something like a stove that burns white gas would mean I would have to store that *just* for use with the stove (wasteful if we never need the stove!)

Last outage, we tried using the toaster oven with a UPS. Worked OK (resistive load) but was awfully wasteful of that "reserve power". Next time I may try the microwave (more efficient use of power) but I'm not sure how reactive that load would be and how much I'd have to derate a UPS's capabilities to safely use one!

Probably, although they can get your habits only if you use their converter and it has a calling-home feature. Basic-cable has no box, I believe.

Here we have very little in localized outages. It's mostly a wildfire or something like that and then the whole village is out.

There hasn't been a winter which we didn't enter with at least 200lbs on hand. Because in winter charcoal is expensive, there won't be any sales, and I am a year-round barbecuer. When it is really cold and the wood stove cranks all day I often steal charcoal from that. Burning wood down to charcoal is also an option but even if "free" from yard cuttings that would be wasting energy.

Propane grills are for wusses :-)

Nah. Real men gather wood, make a fire, open a can of beer and then cook over the fire.

Fire up the old Weber. It's amazing what that can cook. Tonight we will bake bread in it again, followed by spicy chicken wings that will be eaten along with the fresh and still warm bread. Maybe also cheese-filled jalapenos.

Kinda hard to lug 50 pounds of charcoal *out* in case of an emergency! (I'd rather allocate that 50 pounds to something more important! :> )

We've set up our bug-out-bags for different layers of response. E.g., if we have to shelter-in-place, then we have access to everything in the house and just need some place where we can

If we have to *drive* out of the area, then we can probably only carry the items that we've had the forethought to pre-pack (assume emergency means "hurry"!). So, all the BoB's get thrown in the car along with two 5G containers of water (that we have to fill "as we depart").

If the car breaks down, runs out of gas (eventually) or if we have to leave here on foot, then we have a subset of the BoBs that we will take with us. I.e., always trying to take as much as is *convenient* -- without overburdening ourselves in the process.

A single burner propane stove and a few bottles of propane take up far less space/weight than an equivalent volume of briquettes (also generates a hotter heat, *faster* -- e.g., to sterilize a knife, boil utensils, etc.)

In an emergency, I'm not keen on carrying one pound cans of beer just so I can catch a buzz while fleeing :>

If we're operating without power, gas, etc., I'm probably not in the mood for a leisurely meal outdoors! I'd be more interested in keeping the house buttoned up (as cool or as warm as it is going to be in the absence of auxillary heating/cooling) and getting what needs to be done as efficiently as possible.

My "merit badge" days are *long* behind me!! :>