When Grex's modems moved to Ypsilanti, Grex suddenly became a long-distance call for a number of people who live to the west of Ann Arbor. Speaking for myself, it just never occurred to me that that was going to happen when we moved the phones. It should have, but it didn't. I don't think disenfranchising those users is OK. I think we need to find a way to maintain a modem presence in Ann Arbor. This item is for discussing options.59 responses total.
Option 1: A terminal server located in Ann Arbor. Getting a machine
to run it on should be easy; space to house it might be a
little trickier.
Option 2: (Possibly) Our new host, provide.net, has a local telephone
presence through much of Michigan, I presume including the
disenfranchised areas. I wonder if we could make an arrangement
with provide.net to piggyback on that -- i.e. user would call
and connect to provide.net, then telnet to whatever our ip
is within their LAN.
"It's a long way to Ypsilanti, a long way to go..."
Are you quoting Lucifuge by Danzig?
Re #1: If we have a terminal server in Ann Arbor, can it automatically telnet right to Grex, just like the old terminal server did? If so, that just means we need someone with a dedicated internet connection to house it.
And a phone line paid for by Grex. If we went this route could we cancel one of the phone lines at Provide and instead pay for a line for the terminal server? Do we know, approximately, how many people are now left out of the local area? Anyone know how much it would cost for Grex to get an 800 number, on one line?
Er, that should be, "Do we know, approximately, how many of our dialin users are now unable to connect as a local call to Provide?"
Re #4: Yes, a terminal server in Ann Arbor could be set to telnet directly to Grex. I think that option 2 listed above is worth exploring. It might not be available, but if it is and the price is reasonable, it could mean that our phone coverage is the same as provide.net's, and we wouldn't need to house and maintain our own modems or terminal server.
How many dialin users are there total?
Why not just get the phone company to add permanent call forwarding from the old Ann Arbor number to the new number?
Let's move GreX to Canada.
http://www.grexforcanada.org/
That'd be the simplest way to take care of it, if the phone company here does that sort of thing and the price is reasonable.
UNLUC<KY
SIMpole
AHAHA< MOER LIKE BIGPOLE
re #9 Don't be so logical!
grex should have a long term goal of phasing out dialins. The numbers of people who have no other internet service and actually need to dial in are not proportionate to the costs of having dial in lines anymore. Hasn't mnet eliminated dialin lines altogether? I think grex need not spend any extra money do what is suggested. aruba are you saying it is too much trouble for you to telnet in from your isp instead of dialing in? Are you not simply just used to old habits>?
Grequez should have a short term goal of phasing out richard.
I don't dial in anymore, Richard. Part of Grex's charitable mission is to provide minimal internet service for people in the Ann Arbor area who otherwise couldn't afford it. Our dialin lines are a public service.
that was grex's charitable mission thirteen years ago. Don't you think its logical that with the passage of time, and given how grex itself has changed, that the definition of grex's charitable mission would and should change? Grex isn't what it was all those years ago. I would argue that Grex lacks the funds and the facilities to continue being a free dial in-isp for the entire ann arbor/ypsi area and there is not the same need for it to be anymore. There are doubtless many many more internet options for citizens of the a2 area than there were years ago. Here's what you can do. Study the dialin stats for the last year. See how many people actually dialed in from Ypsi who can no longer dial in now. Subtract from that list yourself and others who admittedly primarly telnet in. Then look at the total numbers. It is not fair to assume the need for a public service. Substantiate the need. Prove it exists.
I have a choice of dialin (when it is working) or telnet and I almost always choose dialin. My telnet connections often have a lot of lag (not right now). Everything will freeze up for 30 sec at a time every few seconds, on bad days. (To grex or my other shell account - it is not due to grex). I therefore dial grex and then telnet to sdf (where I can get larger mails and where I have a larger website). Two friends that we set up with grex dialin are now forced to use telnet and they don't like it. One says her Windows telnet program has little scrawny text (I explained how to make it bigger) and prints white on black (she prints out most of her email to save it). The latter is a paying grex member but might stop being so if she has to keep telnetting to read her mail. I know of at least two other grexers (I think both paying members) who do not have ISP service at home. That is four of us paying for one phone line already and there are probably others. As long as the phone lines are being used, this shows there is a desire if not an absolute need for them. If grex eliminated phone lines, I might conceivably decide to pay sdf $7/month for 56K access via dialins.
For telnet, I recommend PuTTY. Do you still have lag on telnet since the co-lo move? I very rarely have problems now.
Richard - I don't have time to accumulate those statistics. THe data is publicly available, though, so feel free to collect it yourself.
Yes I often have bad telnet connections (or ssh). Type three lines and suddenly one of them appears onscreen. It is nearly impossible to correct typos. The freezes also affect browsing, where I can see that I alternate between 0 and 700 bytes/sec downloads, and are common around 11 am or 4 pm when WCC internet access is crowded. It is 'free' to students. $208 for a course gets you a year of included internet access. I now have 10 hours/mo free ISP for times like this. I have PuTTY but these two friends have not the foggiest idea of what a file is or how to download, unzip and install it and use the program. I tried to explain how to change the font and the colors (maybe white on black will print black on white?). My ISP usually works okay on weekends.
Grex has a broadband connection. I wonder if it'd be possible to use a VOIP service, such as Vonage, to provide modem service? With Vonage, the inbound, local, phone number is a matter of choice if you're locating within the area codes and exchanges that they offer. If they provide local Ann Arbor phone numbers, I could have one even though I live in Tecumseh. Todd Plesco could have one. I checked and Ann Arbor is on their list.
Does this mean the user pays something for this service?
Re #25 and #26: I'll chime in here since you all are talking about
VoIP and telcos, which I do know a little about. :-)
The Vonage solution would not cost the end-users. It would cost
Grex. Vonage is just a service that delivers you telephone service
over the Internet. At home, I use VoicePulse, which is much like
Vonage (but with a lot more features.) Basically, I plug my
regular phones into a special box they sent. This box hooks to
the Ethernet network at my house, which in turn has Internet access.
I pick up the phone, get a dialtone, dial a number, and it goes
through as normal. I have a Chattanooga phone number that I can
give to anyone, they call it with their landline or cell phone,
and it rings to me. They never know it's an IP phone.
However, I do not recommend we even explore that avenue. The
conversion of audio into IP packets, transmission over the
Internet, and conversion back to analog or TDM adds so much
latency that modems can't handle it. I see VoIP users pull their
hair out over their TiVo or DirecTV receiver that insists on
dialing up but can't. Some people have luck using DSL filters
back-to-back, or by limiting the modems to 9600bps, etc. But,
YMMV. Not a viable solution for Grex in my book.
First, I'd explore the solutions from Provide.net. I assume they
are a CLEC in Michigan (much like US LEC here in the southeast,
which we use in the office.) US LEC has a switch in Chattanooga,
and our phones come in over a T1. That same switch serves up
Cleveland (us), Chattanooga, Dayton, Rossville (Georgia) and other
exchanges. From Cleveland, it's long distance to dial Rossville or
Dayton. (US LEC lets us call all that free, but as far as the
ILEC, which is BellSouth, it's long distance.) The ironic part of
that is if you have BellSouth and dial our office number (which is
local), you're routed to the US LEC switch in Chattanooga. If you
are on BellSouth and dial a Dayton number for a US LEC customer,
you pay long distance rates, and are routed to that same switch.
Nice, isn't it?
That being said, it may be possible that Provide.net has their
own switch, and they could provide Ann Arbor numbers for you.
Also, another thought (and this is a bit late in the game, I
know): Could Grex keep the same modem numbers that we've had
for ages via Local Number Portability? It seems to me that
if Provide.net has Ann Arbor exchanges, then the old modem
number could be ported over to them. If so, we could pull all
references to the new number, and let the call forwarding work
until the numbers are ported to the Provide.net modem lines.
Whoever deals with Provide.net here needs to get ahold of them
and see if they can help us on that respect.
Aside from that, here's a couple of other solutions:
1) Find someone who has cable/DSL service at their house (and
would allow Grex to use some bandwidth) and would be
willing to allocate enough space for Grex's terminal server
and some modems. Move the old lines to their house, put
all the equipment in, and have the terminal server run
telnet across their connection to Grex. This would run
fine even behind a consumer broadband NAT router, since
all the terminal server will do is make telnet connections
out to Grex.
2) Find out if your local ILEC (who provides the old modem lines)
will allow you to get "Call Transfer" added to the lines. If
you can have multiple transferred calls in progress at once,
this is even better. (You'd only need 1 line!) Put the line
at somebody's house along with a small box. This small box
would pick up on an incoming call, flash the line (as if it
were making a 3-way call), dial the new modem number, then
hangup. The original caller would be transferred to the
modems. Before anyone laughs, www.greatamericaconnection.com
uses that. I used it every day for over a year and a half to
call a g/f in Knoxville. You'd punch in her number and it'd
flash a couple times (and take about 30 seconds to go through)
but basically transferred from one node to another to avoid the
toll charges. :) Of course, this may sound awkward to callers
because of hearing a signle ring, two clicks, and then more
ringing, but it works.
3) Have the line put into someone's house and have simple call
forwarding added to it. However, here in BellSouth area,
they only allow 1 forwarded call active at a time. Forward
it to the new modem number.
4) See if the telco can create it in their switch as a virtual
forwarding number. In other words, no real copper pair will
be associated to it, it's a number that exists only in the
switch.
There are a lot of "hacks" that would enable this to work. But,
I motion that we contact Provide.net first, find out if they have
a solution or not, and then we'll start talking about hacks to make
it work if they don't have a way.
Local Number Portability does not apply in this situation:
Local Number Portability was defined in the Telecommunications
Act of 1996 as the "ability of users of telecommunications
services to retain, at the same location, existing
telecommunications numbers without impairment of quality,
reliability, or convenience when switching from one
telecommunications carrier to another"
(http://www.tekelec.com/ss7/lnp_default.asp).
We aren't at the same location, nor did we switch telephone service
providers.
Thanks for clearing that up! Seriously, I used to work for a dialup ISP about 5 years ago (just starting out in the field, and didn't know squat about telecoms) and when we moved our modem pools from our building to a co-lo, we couldn't port our number. Even though the new number we were assigned was in the same ratecenter. That "at the same location" (which was also not the case for us) is probably why we had to change. Actually, I didn't know that was even in there. Shows you how much I am up on laws and such. Guess I should pay more attention!
I spoke with our representative at Provide.net tonight and got some advice on the toll call phone situation. He advised we call our phone company and ask if the temporary forwarding we're now getting on the old number could continue, indefinitely. He isn't sure they do that or what it would cost, but that would be the simplest way to go. If that doesn't work he suggested we have that number transfered to another location in Ann Arbor, purchase the cheapest service package that includes call forwarding, hookup a phone, set it to call forward, then take the phone off the jack or turn off the ringer. This would mean we'd be adding the cost of another phone line to our expenses while still having but two lines into Grex. Provide has phone numbers that are essentially local to callers all over the state, but they buy those numbers in blocks of 25 phone lines per number. For Grex to buy such a block would be very expensive and overkill for our needs. I asked if our users could somehow call into Provide's lines and get routed to Grex. No can do at this point because of authentification issues. He also suggested those folks calling in could investigate what it would cost to have their phone service include a larger area, hinting it wasn't a whole lot. I mentioned we're having lots of line noise on the two lines we had installed. He said they have that happen on lines, now and then, and usually calling the phone company while on the obviously noisy line tend to get more action than reporting it on a clear connection. And that business customers tend to get more attention than regular folk. We can hope. Anyhow, I think Joe is currently working on making sure it isn't our wiring thats the problem. In terms of the other questions, I'll have time Wednesday morning to call SBC. Mark or Joe, if you have our account number handy and maybe a number to call for business service questions, please send it along.
One other possibility is to have two phone lines installed in Ann Arbor, connect them to a router, and go that route. It would mean finding housing for such a deal, but Ken Asher has already hinted he wouldn't mind doing this out of Communications Electronics. (This will bring back feelings of deja vu from those who were here, in the beginning.) Again, not sure what the end costs associated with this would run, but certainly it would mean another round of installation costs. But I think it's nice of Ken to be open to such a thing.
I think the phone company forwarding is least resource intensive if the price is *right*.
Many thanks to mary for checking into things!
I'm waiting for our service representative to call me back. After hearing our story, he said he wanted to check into something, but that we'd probably not want to go the internal forwarding route. To have the number 761-3000 automatically forwarded, by SBC, would be both a monthly charge and a per-minute charge. Having a phone installed somewhere in Ann Arbor that is set to forward to our new number at Provide is an option. It would cost us somewhere around $25 month. We'd still end up with only two usable lines but we'd get around the long distance problem for one of those lines. Or we could go with having two lines in Ann Arbor on a router to Grex. Here we'd pay for only two lines. This seems more complex though and it would require disconnecting the two lines we have and paying installation on two new lines. So that's where it stands at the moment.
(Plus we'd pay the Internet connection cost for whatever feeds those two lines into Grex.)
How many people are actually affected by the lack of an Ann Arbor number? I know of charcat, who usually can telnet for free, and we have one friend in Chelsea who can also telnet for free. In charcat's case, would 10 hours a month free dialin internet fix the problem? Could someone trace (from the phone numbers) how many different people were dialing in before the switchover from areas that can no longer dial in free? If there are no more than 2 such people, it would be cheaper to offer them free provide.net accounts. 475 I think is a Chelsea number, 428 Manchester (was that also affected?).
Are there any ISP's around on the outskirts that would be willing to setup a userid that automatically telnets to grex rather than initiating PPP? I would imagine that would be cheaper if they exist. $25/mo is HIGH
bookie wrote to me and told me he can no longer dial in.
There goes your trifecta
Mark, was bookie's problem the bad lines or long-distance?
The rep from SBC called back to say the other options he explored would all cost us more than simply installing another line, in Ann Arbor, and forwarding calls from that phone to Grex. The charges would amount to $27.30 a month for the phone plus a one time charge of $42.10 for installation and a $84 trip charge. An unlimited Provide.net account is $14.95 per month. This would be a great solution for someone in Saline, Manchester or elsewhere who can no longer call to Grex as a local call. But if you can't afford it it doesn't matter how nice the service. I've contacted Provide to ask if they'd allow us to take out an accout to be shared among our few known non-local dialin users. They're going to get back to me.
I think the $14.95 is if you pay by the month and it is only $10/month if you pay by the year (provide.net). You can also pay $84/year to sdf.lonestar.org for direct-dialing in many many locations around the US, for a 56K modem connection from which you can then telnet or ftp or ssh to grex (but you do also need to pay them a one-time $1 or $36 depending what else you want to do there - kermit I think is included in the $1, ftp in the $36, but kermit allows file transfer). USOL in Flint is about $8/month for 30 hours/month ISP connection if you pay by the year. Access-4-free is 10 hours/month free plus $4.95 one-time signup fee.
Are these telnet accounts or are we talking about giving PPP accounts to Saline, Manchester or elsewhere users?
Thanx for following this up, mary!
Thanks, Mary!
Thanks Dave(id)!
Thanks, Brett!
Thanks, a la poursuite de scholar!
Thanks, Arc!
Thanks, this item has been archived offsite so you cannot eras e it. !
THANKS< THIS ONE TOO
Our Chelsea friend who was using grex email has now switched to provide.net email and I don't expect her to continuing being a grex member. Other than charcat and one other person someone mentioned, who else still wants to dial grex from Chelsea or other points west?
Prefixing a call with 1010629- routes it through a long distance company that charges a flat 4 cents a minute, no minimums, monthly fees, or other such gimmicks. This has been the best deal I've found to date.
I found another long-distance company that charges 4 cents for out of state but about 2.5 cents within Michian - I don't know if you can access it with a prefix or whether you have to sign up with them as your carrier. Thiry minutes a day of grexing at 4 cents is $1.20 x 30 days = a lot more than getting an ISP account. If you want 30 hours/month USOL in Flint will let you pay $8.33 (paid by the year), or for M-F 6-6 only $7/month.
I get LD (including inbound toll-free) for $.02/min. If someone wanted to get a phone line installed here at my house I could host a modem that would connect users to grex from the ann arbor exchange over my existing internet connection. It would be fairly easy for me to set up something where an inbound 800# goes to the existing Grex dial-in numbers, but I honestly think the best thing for people to do is invest in some higher speed internet access of some such, or switch to an unlimited LD plan which are fairly reasonable..
You can now get unlimited internet access via modem for $5/month, which is cheaper than any unlimited long distance plan that I know of.
Thanks for the offer and the advice, Jared. And nice to see you here!
thanks, mary 1
TROGG IS DAVID BLAINE
You have several choices: