Grex Agora46 Conference

Item 102: Cheapest local phone service?

Entered by drew on Mon Jul 21 17:50:28 2003:

    I may have occasion to select a phone company. What is the cheapest,
bottom line, for the following?

Essential:
    300+ local calls per month, untimed
    Call waiting
    Unlisted phone number

Would be nice:
    Caller ID
    Three-way calling
19 responses total.
#1 of 19 by tod on Mon Jul 21 17:56:47 2003:

This response has been erased.


#2 of 19 by dcat on Mon Jul 21 20:04:56 2003:

Cell phone?  They're unlistable, always have caller id, and it's illegal to
telemarket to them.  Most have some form of call waiting, although I honestly
don't know how to work it on mine.

Untimed might be an issue, though.

#3 of 19 by slynne on Mon Jul 21 20:44:41 2003:

There arent any untimed plans that are cheaper than land lines or at 
least there werent the last time I did research on the subject.

#4 of 19 by sj2 on Tue Jul 22 18:12:35 2003:

I am looking for a PC-to-phone service. But what I REALLY want is to 
connect to the service provider over IPSec so that my local (and only 
ISP in this country, Oman) cannot monitor/block my calls.

Anyone know of such a service??

#5 of 19 by tod on Tue Jul 22 19:29:19 2003:

This response has been erased.


#6 of 19 by drew on Tue Jul 22 21:04:10 2003:

Somehow I don't think cellphones quite measure up yet, at least in cost.
The constant portion of my phone bill from SBC adds up to around $33 or
so *including all the taxes and fees*. Bottom line, except for itemized
long distance calls. Is there any reason to switch? To whom?

#7 of 19 by other on Tue Jul 22 22:05:23 2003:

#4: Do you have problems now with calls being monitored/blocked?

#8 of 19 by sj2 on Wed Jul 23 05:13:38 2003:

Re #5, Net2phone is a Pc-to-phone service but they do not provide any 
encryption.

Re #7, yes.

Even if I could get a service provider who gives me IPSec connectivity 
from where I can freely access the internet.

#9 of 19 by scg on Wed Jul 23 06:24:43 2003:

I've heard people talk about starting a pseudo-ISP providing VPN service --
that is, customers who already have Internet service would use a VPN client
to connect to a VPN server, thus being able to get encrypted traffic past
whoever their local network comes from, and maybe get some other services out
of it.  I'm not aware of anybody actually doing so, but it should be pretty
simple.

You'd need a VPN concentrator (or pair, for redundancy), a bit of rack space 
somewhere, and twice as much Internet bandwidth as your customers would 
think they were using (since the connections would have to go in and out).
The sticking point is that to makret it as a commercial service you'd have
to provide some sort of tech support for the users, and you'd have to be able
to fix the equipment fast if it broke, no matter what time that happened, so
unless this got very big very fast it would probably do much better as part
of some larger operation.

#10 of 19 by keesan on Wed Jul 23 14:51:01 2003:

My basic SBC service is $25 including access charges.

#11 of 19 by gull on Wed Jul 23 15:21:24 2003:

Re #8: What you need, I think, is a friend with a decent amount of
bandwidth that's willing to be the other end of an encrypted tunnel for you.

#12 of 19 by carson on Wed Jul 23 15:40:54 2003:

(Triangle Boy.)

#13 of 19 by sj2 on Wed Jul 23 17:22:34 2003:

Re#9, Yep. I know, thats exactly what I need. Now anyone know of such a 
service?? Would really be a BIG help. I pay almost a $ a minute here 
for international calls.

#14 of 19 by sj2 on Wed Jul 23 17:58:35 2003:

Here is what I need:
1. IPSec VPN Service
2. Routable IP address without any filters/NAT/Firewall
3. Signup thru the internet and pay through Credit card
4. Pc-to-phone service (optional). It would be helpful if the same SP 
provides pc-to-phone service so that my delay between the VPN Provider 
and Voice service provider is minimum.

Do let me know if anyone know of such a service for individual/retail 
customers.

#15 of 19 by tod on Wed Jul 23 20:37:53 2003:

This response has been erased.


#16 of 19 by sj2 on Wed Jul 23 21:37:03 2003:

And how does Blackberry help??

#17 of 19 by other on Thu Jul 24 02:46:10 2003:

You need Mac OS X (10.3) and iChat AV

#18 of 19 by sj2 on Thu Jul 24 05:17:57 2003:

Heh, I'd rather pay the local phone company than spend on a new Mac. 
All I need is someone who can talk IPSec and has one clear IP to 
allocate.

#19 of 19 by scott on Thu Jul 24 12:15:18 2003:

Ummm, OS X 10.3 isn't actually out yet.

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