{"id":45730,"date":"2014-10-12T18:01:02","date_gmt":"2014-10-13T00:01:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/10\/12\/living-with-a-dearth-of-ringy-dingies.html"},"modified":"2014-10-13T13:18:25","modified_gmt":"2014-10-13T19:18:25","slug":"living-with-a-dearth-of-ringy-dingies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/10\/12\/living-with-a-dearth-of-ringy-dingies.html","title":{"rendered":"Living with a dearth of ringy-dingies"},"content":{"rendered":"

On a regular basis, the happy-peppy folk from Comcast contact us to say, "Hey, you use our Cable TV and Internet Broadband services — why not go for a triple-play and use our VOIP phone services, too?"<\/p>\n

And my answer has always been, "Hey, our cable and\/or internet have intermittent problems, but our US West<\/del> Qwest<\/del> CenturyLink POTS phone service is always there, solid and stable."<\/p>\n

(And, yes, we want a land line. We live in a mobile phone pit — indeed, we got a Verizon femtocell to books mobile connections, which connected to the outer world, ironically, through our broadband. And I like having a phone connection that's not power-dependent.)<\/p>\n

So for the past few months we've been having occasional phone problems — partial rings, rings that don't connect when we pick up, etc. I had thought that it was a problem with our cordless phone system. Margie thought it might be a phone line problem, maybe associated with rain storms.<\/p>\n

And then, Thursday, we had a major, major rainstorm, and I got home from my business trip (delayed an hour by DIA being closed), and found Margie on her mobile with CenturyLink, because our phone service went completely out, though apparently the line was showing as busy. (Thus also confirming that her diagnosis of the problem was better than mine.)<\/p>\n

The CenturyLink folk, in turn, informed us that it would be a week before we could get someone out to even look at the problem. A week without landline service. Which is what we bother dealing with CenturyLink for.<\/p>\n

So one of their techs will be out on Thursday. And I strongly suspect it will take a subsequent trip to resolve the problem, at least. All of which, to be perfectly honest, makes me think that Comcast's VOIP service will be getting a much harder look next time they contact us with a possible deal.<\/p>\n

On the bright side, not having a land line is cutting down on a lot<\/i> of extraneous phone calls for political polls or touting one candidate or another, or for hail damage inspections \/ repairs. So maybe CenturyLink has done us a service …<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n
\n<\/a>\u00a0\n<\/div>\n

View on Google+<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On a regular basis, the happy-peppy folk from Comcast contact us to say, "Hey, you use our Cable TV and Internet Broadband services — why not go for a triple-play and use our VOIP phone services, too?" And my answer has always been, "Hey, our cable and\/or internet have intermittent problems, but our US West … Continue reading “Living with a dearth of ringy-dingies”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":45731,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[106,19,65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-plusposts","category-home-improvement","category-my-mobile-pda"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/switchboard+2.jpgimgmax=660.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":31137,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/11\/05\/my-repeated-encounter-with-a-group-in-the-news.html","url_meta":{"origin":45730,"position":0},"title":"My (repeated) encounter with a group in the news","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 5-Nov-12 11:35am","format":false,"excerpt":"Meet the \"Americans for Responsible Leadership,\" a \"social welfare\" charity (i.e., tax-exempt and sponsor-exempt) organization out of Arizona, which has garnered its biggest publicity by unexpected dumping huge sums of money into California's political races.I got a call from them last night. On my mobile phone. \u00a0\"Hi, this is a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12378,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/05\/16\/he_seemed_like_a_nice_you.html","url_meta":{"origin":45730,"position":1},"title":"He seemed like a nice young man, but …","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 16-May-08 3:24pm","format":false,"excerpt":"So, I got a visit by a nice young college student type from Comcast. Since I get at least one mailer a month from them saying, \"Hey, you already have...","rel":"","context":"In "Hi-Tech"","block_context":{"text":"Hi-Tech","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/hi-tech"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":134019,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/08\/02\/because-why-do-the-poor-need-mobile-phones-or-internet-connections.html","url_meta":{"origin":45730,"position":2},"title":"Because why do the poor need mobile phones or Internet connections?","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 2-Aug-17 7:52am","format":false,"excerpt":"I mean, it's not like such things are, I don't know, useful to get a job, pay bills, stay in contact with family, call 911, get access to remote education, or enjoy various services that we Normal People Who Don't Have the Gall to Be Poor take for granted.Thus, GOP\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":131533,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/09\/14\/beginning-to-look-at-my-next-mobile-phone.html","url_meta":{"origin":45730,"position":3},"title":"Beginning to look at my next mobile phone","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 14-Sep-16 9:22am","format":false,"excerpt":"My original generation Moto X is beginning to get a little long in the tooth, so I'm starting to look at new model phones coming out. The new Google Nexus Pixel phones are a real possibility, even if they use USB-C (which means yet more cable purchasing, though there are\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11990,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2007\/12\/17\/better_safe_than_sorry.html","url_meta":{"origin":45730,"position":4},"title":"Better safe than sorry?","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 17-Dec-07 4:11pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I continue to struggle with what it means to have a \"Beyond the Finish Line\" mentality toward Safety, since it seems to go from being usefully safe to paranoia and...","rel":"","context":"In "Hi-Tech"","block_context":{"text":"Hi-Tech","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/hi-tech"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/boom.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":20591,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2011\/03\/28\/phoning-in-italy-parte-seconda.html","url_meta":{"origin":45730,"position":5},"title":"Phoning in Italy, Parte Seconda","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 28-Mar-11 10:39pm","format":false,"excerpt":"So some developments since my original Phoning in Italy post ... Data Connectivity I've gone ahead and signed up to rent a mobile wireless \"MiFi\" hotspot configured for Italy with unlimited data, via XcomGlobal.\u00a0 It's costing me about $280 for the full trip, but the idea is to have instant-on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "My Mobile \/ PDA \/ eReader \/ tablet"","block_context":{"text":"My Mobile \/ PDA \/ eReader \/ tablet","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/my-mobile-pda"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/phones-300x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45730"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45730\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45745,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45730\/revisions\/45745"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}