Ok, a couple of other options. Verizon Wireless offers a wireless internet connection, say about half as fast of DSL, for $80 a month. Useful if you don't get DSL or Cable, and very portable for a road warrior.
For me, satellite internet wouldn't work because the latency would slow my VPN connection to a crawl, but it was available.
Presently, I have cable TV and cable internet service, and use Vonage for my office and home phone lines. Wife likes the fact that she can get an 800 number for home use for just $5 on top of her regular number. It was kinda iffy when we were out in Borrego, but here in DHS, with a new DOCSIS 2.0 modem, its working pretty spiffy!
For cels, we have a couple of verizon wireless phones (one of which I need to cancel) and a new Virgin Mobile like you have.
$80 is not bad at all. I wonder how they break even with their kb/sec versus Dollar factor there. The wireless web services I had seen so far were all quite limited. You had x MB download volume and after that it cost big bucks.
Unfortunately when you can't get cable and DSL it usually means a more rural setting, like here. Cell phone converage become somewhat realiable only a short time ago. Still, here in the house I only get about two bars.
If those phones just weren't so tiny. My Nokia 2115 is only 4" long, the ad had said 5". But its mike still catches my voice for some reason.
Thell them that you've got a heart condition and your doctor needs to wire you up to some sort of home monitoring equipment.
--
Paul Hovnanian mailto:Paul@Hovnanian.com
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Applying information technology is simply finding the right wrench
to pound in the correct screw.
-- Paul Hovnanian mailto: snipped-for-privacy@Hovnanian.com
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UNlimited weekends and nights. Our family all lives 1000 miles East of here so nights aren't a big problem. We can talk for hours without paying an additional dime.
WHy would *anyone* pay roaming fees if they're not moving from their house?
Missy Bell was $48/month, by the time we paid for usage. One cell phone was cheaper, regardless of LD. Two are *far* cheaper including LD. VerizonWireless, BTW.
Free here. When one's family is all out of state... Even my son lives in NH, but does have a VT phone number.
What analog? What over-the-air? Ok, they exist, but I know *NO ONE* who actually receives TV off-air. They simply don't exist here.
I have a dial-up ISP for traveling and my email. But that wasn't the issue. There *ARE* choices. Again, cable Internet service costs $5 more per month for those without cable TV. Are you saying that you run your business via dial up? Yes, satellite Internet service is expensive, but is the same price everywhere. You're not contracting with the local company. You *choose* not to buy their service because it is too expensive. Ok.
Defacto monopoly. Because you have the cheapest available service dos *NOT* mean that you're held hostage by some evil monopoly. You *DO* have a choice. Because that choice doesn't make economic sense WRT to what you already have doesn't mean you're at the mercy of some evil monopoly. The fact is that there
*is* choice, and far more than there was ten (or thirty) years ago.
They are. ...at least for the purposes of the government telling you what you have to pay (to subsidize those in east bumfuck). There are clearly alternatives though, much to tha chagrin of the phone companies (who still must provide service to east-bumfuck). This is why I say the missy's are going to die. They want regulation, but don't at the same time.
Nothing funny going on, other than government's need to try to regulate the world.
Indeed. IIRC, $28/month basic rate plus $.022/minute prime time $.005/minute after 9PM, up to $10/month, plus all applicable Spanish/American War and AlGore taxes.
Yep. $40/month for cable Internet was a deal. When the brat moved out the original line went and we went cell.
We're seriously looking at Kentucky or Indiana (still open though). I've done this enough and there is no incentive to stay. If I could find a half-time consulting or Internet engineering deal, I'd be gone in a flash (even if I did have to pay $160/month for a satellite Internet connection). The plan for this summer is to get the house in shape to sell and we're gone.
Yeah, I originally investigated when we were looking at some property in Borrego which was 'way out there' about 5 miles form town. Had power 'sorta' nearby, but would require a well. Finally had decided to 'rent' a little space in a building in town, and put in some long range WiFi gear to set up a link between a cable modem and the site.
Then found out that the little dashed lines along the east and west side of the plot map meant active earthquake fault, and the property was straddling it! Bought elsewhere that had full utilities available. Then found out what all was involved in building my own house (about $45K in fees BEFORE you could break ground!) and went and bought a house in a development back in civilization!
I have found that I often need to cup my hand between my Kyocera and my mouth, esp. outdoors in the wind. But it works...
Depends on your view pattern. Ours is: Turn TV on at 10:00pm, watch local news, turn it off at 10:45pm. That's pretty much it.
Then I guess the 10 minutes is a typo. But yes, for personal use those after-hours freebie minutes are great. Again it depends on usage patterns. I use maybe 300 landline minutes per month LD for biz, plus international. Private use is another 200-300 minutes but mostly for ministry work, not much for chatting.
If you stay at your house, that's correct. However, often people use their phone on a trip (that's the only time I ever use my cell) and I know quite a few who had that "oh s..t" experience when opening their cell bill afterwards.
But only weekends and night. Not for business during the day.
Lots of them out here.
I have DSL for biz. Quasi monopolistic situations arise for various reasons. One is the "local franchise" structure where local jurisdictions are milking carriers for fees if they want to play. So some decide not to play. I believe that ought to change. The other is mergers. Our international carrier and our Missy Bell just married a few month ago. Gone are the perks. The cable company was in bed with AT&T some time ago AFAIK. Don't know how the equity situation is now. But, AT&T is now also our Missy Bell.
No hostage feelings here. But where there is more competition there are broadband deals under $30. And I don't mean teaser rates. Not here :-(
It's almost like electricity where they charge around 15c/kWh just because they can. There is nothing the users can do about it, other than move.
Ours is $11 plus $6 if fees, a.k.a. taxes. And this is the blue state of California so your situation must be worse.
Maybe you shouldn't wait too long. Out here the overheated housing market is starting to slam the brakes. Plus there may come a time when more of those adjustable rate mortgages go kablouie and the foreclosed homes linked to these show up on the market.
From my experience as a consultant I can only say that distances don't matter much anymore. Most of my work is transferred back and forth via the web. I design, clients prototype and when happy I send it to the layouter, he sends the Gerbers back to me and the client, client sends them to the fab house, done. The rest is done by Fedex. Occasionally I have to fly to clients. But it doesn't matter much whether they are 500 miles away or 2000 miles. What is important is that you can get to an airport with reasonable connections within a modest drive (around an hour for me).
Anyway, please let us all know when you find "the" place where living is good and, most of all, the climate is entrepreneur-friendly for small business and consultants. Maybe some of us will come and join you.
I could bet they'd want to receive a fax with that prescription first. We had that issue with the rotating power outages in California. For people on ventilators that was a real scare. Well, we got ourselves a new governor after that and no more outages ;-)
I live in the bluest of blue states (Vermont), home of Bernie (I'm a Red) Sanders, Pat (security leaks) Leahy, Jumpin' Jimminy (which way is the Senate) Jeffords, and Howie (is Connecticut in North America) Dean. Any more questions?
Yeah, I'm trying to get the house together (many projects started a few that need starting) and I'll be off. If I have my way it'll be by the end of the year. We'll see.
We have direct employees around the country too. They take their workstation and laptop and work from wherever. A friend shows up around here once every six months or so. It's scary at times for them though. When layoffs roll around, face time can mean the difference.
Have to recall from memory, might not be 100% accurate since it's been a long time. Fact is, we did not have a single outage after that election. Before it sometimes felt like Romania. OTOH, it taught many how to cook without power (we already knew that) ;-)
Many things. Among the important ones was a streamlining of the approval process for new plants and distribution facilities. IOW, get rid of unnecessary red tape.
Then the utilities were allowed again to enter into long term delivery contracts. Before, they were very limited and had to buy spot market. I never understood the rationale behind that. Some called it plain stupid. It was like going across Nevada not knowing how much gas is in the tank.
Comment from the CleanPower campaign after he vetoed AB2006:
"AB 2006 was silent on the issue of allowing the state's largest consumers of electricity to bypass local utilities and buy it from independent producers, an arrangement known as direct access. Schwarzenegger strongly supports this right."
This was necessary, as exemplified by an angry statement from a large corporate stakeholders (IIRC Intel) to the previous governor that went something like this: One more outage and we won't create one more job here.
Of course, we are going to pay off that mess that was created before Schwarzenegger for years to come.
I don't think so. Even Jim recently admitted that AZ is becoming more blue. If I move it has to be a state with a solid conservative majority that is unlikely to change anytime soon. At least not until I can retire.
ONLY if the Demoncrats succeed in getting illegal immigrants designated as voters ;-)
...Jim Thompson
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| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC\'s and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona Voice:(480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax:(480)460-2142 | Brass Rat |
| http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |
I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.
Go tell your mother to wash out your mouth with bar soap ;-)
...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC\'s and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona Voice:(480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax:(480)460-2142 | Brass Rat |
| http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |
I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.
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