The end is nearing. ATT or ma bell as I still call the old bitch, has been according to reports I can find, aggressively neglecting it’s infrastructure in a bid to force people to switch VoiP services. Or Voice over internet Protocol. Or to strictly cellphone service. They and others like Verizon who also offers or has offered, the old legacy copper line phone services…has been raising their rates, more and more. My family has been with the now, senile and vicious old bitch for a lonnnnnng time. In both, traditional land line services, cell phone and at one point…internet . Actually, I’m annoyed enough by the price of my current IP for the service I’m getting, for the price they are charging, that I may end up going back to the vindictive old harpy for internet again. MUCH faster speeds for a slightly better price.
We still have our old copper land line phone service. Even though the quality has deteriorated and the price has sky rocketed. Why? Let me see if I can make this so the younger crowd can understand. It’s got to do with a word called “reliability”.
There’s been a joke since the beginning of widespread cell phone usage “Can you hear me now?” As in, is the signal on this supposedly wonderous technological piece of shit strong enough I’m actually able to speak with you and you’re actually able to hear me? It was such a joke and bone of contention within the cell phone industry between providers and users, that one of the old carriers, Sprint, used it in their commercials to denote that with their service there was better coverage so you would always be able to clearly communicate with whomever you were calling. [which was a lie, even as much as have come to dislike ma bell, I ALWAYS had service where people with other carriers, didn’t] Or with whomever was calling you. Usage has become so wide spread now, I don’t know how much of an issue that is anymore. Cellphone usage has an achilles heel, a couple actually, especially in the gulf coast. If you get a big enough storm thru the area and it takes out enough transmitter towers? You ain’t talkin to no one, boy. Also if you’re going to be without power for an extended amount of time [more than 24-36hrs] how do you keep your cell charged? Yeah yeah, there’s portable battery packs to deliver charges to the phones to keep them running. depending on size, they’ll only deliver so many recharges. And with the power draw of your average smart phone…and how much and what they get used for? Battery life ain’t shit. Also do you even KNOW where your battery pack is or when the last time you put a charge on it was? Go ahead, I’ll wait. *snort*
Oh sure you can run your car, if you have a modern one, and use the integral USB ports to charge your phone, but then you’re wasting gas. Gas in case you haven’t been paying attention, has gotten, precious with the prices during 2020-2022; and you might NEED that gas to travel to someplace that hasn’t just been devastated by a hurricane, tornado or major flood, to get to ‘civilization’ as it were. Some place with power, and internet and other amenities.
Voice over internet Protocol? It has a similar issue as cellphones. It uses the internet to deliver a signal for you to communicate with. You lose power, you lose the internet, you lose your phone and then what? And if you’re elderly and alone and in distress, with no other way to communicate? If you’re of any age and injured or sick? Not to put too fine a point on it but, if you got VoiP and there’s no power? you be fucked.
The old copper lines, at least around here, tend to be buried. the advantage of the old copper land lines and phones that use them is, it doesn’t MATTER if there’s an area wide power outage. The phones draw their power from the copper line. Therefore they are in service when other types of phones are not. Using a landline and keeping it up during an outage does have one caveat. It will not power or deliver signal to cordless phones. you have to have an old style corded phone. so long as you have one though? you’re pretty much golden. or at least I am, so long as I live in this house and service continues. Or as long as I keep the service. Which probably won’t be much longer. Even MY patience with these tactics and intransience against this forced [and in my own mind, highly stupid] change, has limits.
ATT has been ignoring it’s lines for years and it was either them or maybe frontier that petitioned the FCC some years back, to discontinue service by this year [which has been pushed back since services are still up] and force everyone over to VoiP, fiber, what have you. Oh and the FCC granted that petition.
They’ve also been raising their rates for those legacy landline services. They’ll say because it’s gotten more expensive to maintain, which may actually be true, but they are also raising rates to force people off the services and over to either cellular or voip. I used to pay…50-60 bucks a month for my land line with long distance, call waiting and caller id. In the last several years, it went up to 80, then to 89. Now? In the last couple months? it’s $100. I’m actually arguing with the family about it. Because as much as it pisses me off, I’m not paying $1200 a year or more for this shit. With the cost of everything, I need that 1200 in other places. We get all that and more with our cellphones [with 3 cellphones across two different carriers] for the exact same goddamn price! So as much as it annoys the fuck out of me to do so? I’m actually trying to convince my family to do what the bastards are trying to force us to do anyway. For the sake of our family pocket book and my ever increasing levels of rage and blood pressure, at the situation.
So to end this, the end of a communication era is coming to an end, even as another newer one has already overshadowed it. In spite of the misgivings of people like myself, who can see the long term deleterious affects that sunset will have.
Sigh, such shortsightedness, and people wonder why I say these are the ravings of an ANGRY, sane man.
Rants, Raves and Diatribes 