An ISP of their own (was RE: [rescue] Being jobless)

[Joshua D. Boyd]

On Wed, Jul 30, 2003 at 07:02:32PM -0400, Phil Stracchino wrote:

> Remember, with ISDN, it's not the monthly fee that kills you -- it's the
> per-minute connect charges.  The only way to avoid the per-minute
> charges is to go with an ISP that offers Centrex ISDN, which makes you
> logically part of their internal phone system as far as the telco is
> concerned.  I wouldn't even CONSIDER non-Centrex ISDN, because if I
> could afford non-Centrex ISDN, I could afford a fractional T1.
> 
> The telcos and the Feds, between them, have effectively killed ISDN in
> the US as a data service.

Verizon's Virtual Office ISDN package supposedly gets rid of the per
minute charges.  However, the hours I spent on the phone with them, I
kept getting "helpful" people who did me the "favor" of transferring me
to the residential ISDN people.  The VOISDN package is supposedly
supposed to be a special deal for people operating a remote office.  In
effect, I want to be a remote office of my company (plus use it for
personal reasons), but they say that, oh for just working from home, I
need residential ISDN to save money.  I might belive them, except
DSLreports is full of stories about people getting VOISDN cheaply after
many hours of trying to keep Verizon from giving them metered
residential service instead.