[BC] POTS reliability...

[RichardBJohnson at comcast.net]

I tried to have POTs where I lived, but every time it rained, there was no dial-tone and an attempt to call the number resulted either in a busy or an immediate off/on hook condition which made callers think I had picked up and hung up. Verizon "owns" the "plant" and they would not fix their cables because they were going to install fiber sometime in the next century.

I canceled Verizon and got AT&T, which meant that AT&T could force Verizon to fix their local loop. I had phone service for about a day or two and then it was back to the old problems. AT&T was worse for service. At least Verizon would occasionally burn out the water. AT&T never even bothered.

Therefore, I canceled after several months and got Vonage. About two weeks after I got Vonage, Comcast disconnected my cable, thinking it was my neighbor who had moved and canceled service. This left me with no Internet and no telephone service for about a week. Comcast contractors refused to accept that they had made a mistake so a supervisor drove all the way from Philadelphia to reconnect my cable. I live in Massachusetts!

BTW, Comcast uses contractors to connect and disconnect cable. When the "!@(*$^!*" contractor disconnected my cable, he pulled it out of the house as far as it would go and cut it off flush with the sill. This was an obvious attempt to do as much damage as possible so that everything would have to be installed at a high cost when someone wanted cable at the address. They were snookered, though, because I had installed my own interior cable, high quality, low-loss RG-6/U, and had left about 10 feet stapled between the floor joists in my basement. It was trivial to feed some more outside and put on a new connector.

Cheers,
Richard B. Johnson
Book: http://www.AbominableFirebug.com/

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jerry Mathis" <thebeaver32 at gmail.com>

I think the same way. And I had a wired phone from AT&T until a couple of years ago when I could no longer afford it. The phone company has priced themselves right out of business. You can't have any meaningful and convenient telco service for less than about $75 a month when you include a LD plan. You can get cell service for that, with a lot more features. It doesn't help that States and the Feds have nickeled and dimed telco service to death with a dozen or so niggling taxes and fees, either (THANKS, Algore  :(    ).