OT: slow dial-up verification

We want to keep our cell phones, on Verizon, really good coverage, but add one of these to the house, so we can lose the Qwest rip off...

Anyone have experience with any of these products? ...Jim Thompson

Yikes! That's steep. I have naked DSL from Verizon and the entire bill is $19.95 (up from $19.65 a couple of months ago - ??). DSL sucks, but it's not too bad; cheaper than a phone line. If I could get cable here, I hear it's worse than DSL. The city just won a referendum to install fiber "to the house" and go into the TV and Internet business, so we'll see how that works out.

I dropped land lines about six years ago for cell phones. I've been considering a dock, too. I'm also considering a pay-go carrier since I rarely use my phone.

For business use, I'd be a little concerned about the sound quality of a cell phone, particularly the half-duplex issue.

Depends where you live. There is typically a vast over supply of cabled bandwidth in cities and a big shortage out in the countryside (a place where mobile coverage can be spotty). I get around 3.5Mbps on ADSL which isn't bad on ancient copper wire with rural junction boxes full of spiders and 12 miles to the exchange. The neighbouring village on a different exchange also have broadband in theory but the highest speed anyone can sync at there is a whopping 0.1Mbps (barely twice the speed of 56k and slower than bonded ISDN once compression is enabled). Their telco reluctantly admits there is a problem.

In the cities you have a choice of multiple carriers and up to 20Mbps (in reality closer to 10) over copper and 100Mbps over fibre.

The OP would probably be much better off with a 3G network dongle on a pay as you go charged per MB downloaded contract anyway.

Regards, Martin Brown

Been there; the "important" 56K and v.34 etc are partially undocumented and hidden and what is not hidden is quite different. I played a lot with what i could get to no avail - most variants from default were decidedly worse. And a new HD with fresh installation not only negotiates fast, it also communicates at 48K instead of the miserable 28.8K i have been experiencing for many months. And there are no behind the scenes initialization strings in present or "fresh" installs - which begs the issue to no end.

...i would say "bastardized" to be polite.

So, how in the *** does one use a cell phone for (high speed?) internet connection?

Qwest does not give a damn about customers, only the money. About $40/mo including all of the taxes, fees and taxes on the fees and fees on the taxes got POTS. ADD another "only" $20/mo (bait and switch introductory rate) for DSL. Undisclosed additional taxes and fees add to that. How the hell can DSL be "cheaper than a phone line" when it REQUIRES a phone line?

Amen. Especially if the other side is using a speakerphone in some echoing conference room. Being on a cell destroys the flow of the whole meeting and annoys everyone.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

My BlackBerry gives me about 100 kb/s, by using a USB cable and the BB manager software. It's great as a backup, e.g. during power failures, or when working on the road. Mine comes as part of the $39 unlimited data plan.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

You can get DSL without phone service, and some of the fees only apply to phone service.

I don't live in a city, and there are plenty of spare pairs. The UK may be different, but in the US people had pretty much abandoned fax machines and another line for their computer. Some get their phone service through their cable TV provider, as well.

According to the techs I've talked to, ISDN was crap from day one.

Multiple carriers? I can get a landline from Centurylink . Even if I used one of the 'alternative' companies, all the service is supplied by Centurylink, but billed by someone else.

How do you know that it's availible where he lives?

My LG VX9800 flips open to expose a nice-sized QWERTY keyboard and a speaker-phone. I've handled conference calls quite nicely while parked in my car while my wife shopped the mall :-) ...Jim Thompson

One doesn't... one uses the cable connection :-) ...Jim Thompson

Well, that describes all companies, whether they admit it or not. Customers are, however, the route to that money. I certainly would put AT&T (sorry, I said Verizon before) strongly in that category.

I was paying over $50 in VT (Verizon) for POTS. It was about $35 here until I got rid of it and went naked. ...but that's the PUC at work.

Like I said, that's what we pay for naked DSL, though the slowest (crappy) service. Not an introductory rate. It sure beat POTS, though.

PUC. Unlike POTS, It's a competitive service. More expensive and people buy something else. "It doesn't have to make sense. We're the phone company."

Wow, memories of teleconferences over SBS (Satellite Business Systems) come flooding back.

Is "unlimited" truly unlimited? I may have to re-think my phone-only blinders (they keep bugging me to sign a new contract).

Sort of. In some places when you try using the web browser, it says "This is a WiFi service only." Other places it works fine. I've never had it refuse to connect as a modem.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs