[ale] OT - Non AT&T landline

[Tim Youngblood]

I haven't had a home phone line for 2 years. I have 'naked' DSL coming into
my residence and I use Vonage and another VOIP solution for a business line.

I use Speakeasy DSL and they have excellent customer service and very rare
outages. It is more expensive due to their customer service but it is for
business, so it is worth it to have 99.9% uptime and a real live person who
gives a damn when you call their support number.

A couple of years ago what the first time that POTS line installation
actually went down in the US since Mr. AG Bell invented it. There is a
reason.

On 6/25/07, Jeff Lightner <jlightner at water.com> wrote:
>
>  OK that's nice to hear but I don't see how it addresses the question I
> asked.  I'm not looking for DSL ? just local phone service.
>
>
>
> However, since you bring it up ? ILEC companies such as Verizon,
> Bellsouth, SBC (BS/SBC = AT&T now) were very often accused of a severe lack
> of cooperation if not outright sabotage by most CLECs back when I worked in
> the Telecom industry.   Even the FCC complained bitterly about their
> non-compliance with the intent and letter of the Telecommunications Act ? up
> until you know who appointed cronies after the 2000 election.   Many CLECs
> gave up on the idea because it wasn't worth fighting the battle except for
> business lines.  These huge ILECs were supposed to open up local markets to
> competition to be allowed to sell long distance but never really did in a
> meaningful way.
>
>
>  ------------------------------
>
> *From:* ale-bounces at ale.org [mailto:ale-bounces at ale.org] *On Behalf Of *Jim
> Philips
> *Sent:* Monday, June 25, 2007 12:40 PM
> *To:* Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts
> *Subject:* Re: [ale] OT - Non AT&T landline
>
>
>
> I signed up with Eartlink's DSL/phone bundle back in February. Major
> mistake. First, it became nearly impossible to make international calls.
> Parties on the other end couldn't hear us. After a few hopeless attempts to
> resolve that issue, we just signed up for international service with a
> provider who could service our cell phone lines. Second, the phone service
> would just drop out periodically. When this happened, I was forced to call
> their nightmare technical support on my cell phone. They were always majorly
> resistant to bringing in a real tech to troubleshoot the issue. Third, my
> download speed for DSL was about half what I was used to. Nobody could ever
> explain that completely. One guy said that my earlier connection had
> probably been through a remote and that BellSouth had forced them connect
> all the way back to the switch when I cut over. Maybe. Fourth, I had billing
> problems one month and it took about 90 minutes of explaining and
> threatening to get them to correct it. At this point, Earthlink has got to
> be one of the most poorly run companies in the ISP business. Makes me sad
> when I remember what Mindspring used to be. I ended up ditching them before
> my contract was done.
>
> On 6/25/07, *Jeff Lightner* <jlightner at water.com> wrote:
>
> All the talk about broadband/DSL for AT&T/Bellsouth made me wonder if
> anyone on the list is using someone else i s using one of the 3rd party
> regular telephone providers and if so whether they would recommend others to
> use them.
>
> I' m not talking about Broadband telephone but rather the regular phone
> lines (POTS?).   Also not talking about providers like Windstream that own
> lines outside of Bellsouth areas ? I 'm in a Bellsouth area so wouldn 't
> be able to get them unless they also provided the kind of service I 'm
> talking about.   Basically I' m looking for a CLEC if you know what that
> is.
>
>
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