Amber Robey wrote:
Hi Brian,
On 17-Jan-06, at 6:11 PM, Brian Mahoney wrote:
The bigger question would be : how does cable compare to dsl?
Well, I live in Vancouver, B.C. so we have the choice between Shaw
cable internet and Telus DSL. I chose Shaw 3 years ago and have
enjoyed great service ever since. It has only gone out a couple of
times for very brief periods during that time. They are very fast to
get it up and running again and the tech support is great most of the time.
My dad and a few friends have Telus DSL and have no end of problems.
Sometimes they had no service for days, although apparently it is
getting better. Also, the hold times were over an hour at times ! I
would never go with Telus on this.
I've got Shaw for cable and Telus for DSL. The Telus techies never
seemed to have a problem when I told them I have a mac (*back on
topic!!*) but the Shaw guys just looked at me strangely.
Very good service with Telus DSL but here's the kicker - they won't let
you have *just* DSL... you have to pay a $10-$15 monthly 'line
maintenance fee' if you want to get rid of your phone and use only DSL.
They may waive that if you have/get a Telus cellphone contract, though.
And they're near-impossible to get to change the physical phone line if
it craps out (basically, they'll fix the line from the outside right to
the outer wall of the building... then it's the landlord's cost
responsibility from the inner wall to the plug and the tenant's from the
plug to the mac).
One of the major reasons I went VOiP in the first place was 'cause the
voice quality on the land line was very static-y (though it never seemed
to affect internet connection) and my landlord has no desire to pay for
that upgrade.
Shaw, on the other hand, completely and quickly changed my physical
cable from the junction box to the TV. But when I tried to switch to
their internet service the techie showed up with a modem, couldn't
figure out how to really plug it in to get it working and didn't know
anything about macs (I figured if I'm paying them $69 for installation,
I might as well sit back and have him configure the modem and my mac).
So I phoned up the Shaw techies and the first guy insisted that their
modems and macs 'weren't supported'. Um. OK. Buy-bye cable internet :-)
My present VOiP company seems to strongly prefer DSL over cable in my
talks with their techies about improving voice quality. But I can't
figure out why, exactly, in simple words I can understand. But it seems
some of them at the company are mac-owners (*sorta on topic!!*).
I was horrified to find out, though, that there doesn't seem to be a
strong correlation between being a mac-owner and working for a VOiP
company that actually has very good voice quality :::gasp:::. (*sorta
kinda on topic!!*).
The next question for dsl folks is : how do you get a voip line by
itself without having bell as your normal phone company?
See above.
Basically, I guess they just do some wire switching in the boxes (I
live in an apartment building) and take you off Telus and put you on
Shaw's lines. They ask you if you want to keep your number or change
it. I opted to change it as I want to try and get rid of some harassing
phone callers.
Caveat: if your front door security system in your building relies on
your phone line, make sure it'll work with Shaw. There have been some
sad would-be VOiPers out there who can't control their apartment
building buzzer without an active land line connection.
Now... when I get outstanding voice quality in a small VOiP adapter that
I can plug discretely into my new 3rd Generation Intel-based G5 lap top
(which, who knows, may have a VOiP chip inside) so I can run around the
world and carry my phone number with me while on my exciting
assignments... I'll be very please <-- *more on topic maybe!!* WoO wOo
:::throws up hands in feeble triumph, turns to tap dance out stage left,
falls right into orchestra pit in a billow of dust:::
B.
shutting up now.
--
Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html>
Mac Canada info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/mac-can.shtml>
--> AOL users, remove "mailto:";
Send list messages to: <mailto:[email protected]>
To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/mac-canada%40mail.maclaunch.com/>
