On Aug 13, 3:42 pm, chrisv <chr...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> bbgruff wrote:
> >While I have your attention, may I ask what you guys pay typically for a
> >telephone line and national calls? In fact, considering the size of the
> >U.S., perhaps we ought to say "unlimited calls withing the state!"?
Actually Intrastate calls used to be the most expensive, because those
rates were not regulated by the federal government and the telephone
company would make huge campaign contributions to the governer's race
to make sure that the Intrastate regulators weren't too "Consumer
oriented".
> Years ago, local phone service was subsidized by very expensive
> long-distance charges.
Actually, everything was just very expensive. Prior to divestature in
1983, you weren't allowed to use any phone but one from AT&T. You had
to RENT each phone, for about $10 per month, you also had to pay for
the primary line at about $20 per month, and you had to pay for
features like touch-tone at $3 per month. Keep in mind that these
were even the prices in 1972, when a gallon of gasoline cost 25 cents,
a loaf of bread cost 10 cents, minimum wage was $1.50 an hour, and a
new house cost about $15,000. So if you translate those phone charges
into today's money, it would be like paying $50 per phone per month,
$100 per month for the line, $15/month for touch tone. So your total
bill would be the equivalant of almost $200 for local services and the
ABILITY to make long distance calls.
Long distance rates were $2 for the first three minutes, and 50 cents
per minute after that. In today's money it would be like $10 per
minute, and $3 per minute after that. So a 30 minute call within the
United States would cost almost $100 in todays money.
Thanks to divestiture, deregulation, and aggressive competition in
both local and remote services, I can make a phone call to from almost
anywhere in the world to almost anywhere in the united states, for 2
cents per minute. A 30 minute call would cost 60 cents.
> That's pretty-much out the window, now, being
> replaced by flat-rate "call anywhere" plans. The traditional phone
> company is, of course, somewhat obsolete as well.
Even the "flat rate" plans are often exessive.
> I was getting gouged to the tune of $40 a month for traditional phone
> service that I barely ever used - I'd come home and ignore the
> telemarketers, basically. I switched to an Internet-based service
> which costs $19 a month after taxes.
I use skype, net2phone, or yahoo phone, and pay around 2 cents per
minute for outgoing calls. I have a phone at home which is actually
connected to my cable modem, and it's just part of my Internet/Cable/
Telephone bill. I get 30 megabit per second download speed, 10
megabit per second upload speed, about 200 cable channels, two cable
boxes, DVR, and telephone service for about $100 per month.
I can interact with almost anyone in the world at rates that are
faster than they would be if I were in the office next to them,
including phone, chat, and even video.
The appliance that lets me do this is a little Linux/Unix appliance
that puts it all together and a Unix appliance that provides Cable
tuner and DVR. I added a 500 gigabyte SATA drive to increase my
capacity for my DVR to almost 300 hours of programming. Yet I still
have to "clean out" about half the programming every few months,
because I've run out of storage and seen all the recorded programs.
In effect, the phone company's equipment has been replaced by a tiny
Linux box that's not much bigger than a book (about 5 inches by 7
inches by 1 inch high).
Also in that same room with the cable box, is a Linux box of similar
dimensions that provides WiFi connectivity. There are thee SAN
controllers, each a Linux server that's 3 inches by 4 inches by 2
inches, that control almost 5 terabytes of backup storage. There are
also 5 Linux servers, one of which stays on most of the time, and my
Wife's Windows PC. Then I have 2 hybrid Linux/Windows laptops, and a
Linux powered NetBook. When I travel, I take the 3 laptops, a WiFi
Linux box (that also has a plug-in for USB storage, and 2 2.5 inch
320 gigabyte hard drives,
Yet Microsoft thinks they have the "Monopoly" of the market, and
WinTrolls think that "Nobody uses Linux".
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