Low Cost VOIP Providers

[Don Y]

Hi Jeff,

It's kinda tricky to energize a relay AFTER the power is lost. I
suppose I could charge a cazapitor and dump the charge into a latching
relay release coil if the power is lost. The only problem is that I
get only one chance to change the latching relay state.

Lots of ways to energize a relay after loss of (primary) power!
You just need *secondary* power -- whether from a big cap or
a "backup battery" that is busy trying to keep your VoIP
gateway running during a short? power outage (and, just before
it realizes it can't keep itself UP any longer, throws the
relay before shutting down)

Well, the average packaged relay burns about 350 mw in the coil. At
$0.17/kw-hr, that's 3 kw-hr per year or about $0.52 added to your
electric bill every year. I suspect the ecological damage caused by
the manufacture of the components needed for a more sophisticated
device substantially exceed this cost.

Again, if you've already got the electronics there doing other things,
what is the cost of a few hundred bytes of ROM? (for the algorithm)
You've already assumed the cost of the *relay*...

<http://www.ericofon.com/catalog/classic3/trimline.htm>
I have one of the WE desk phone versions. As I recall, the coil cord
on the WE version had a very large vinyl molded connector on the phone
end, and direct wired spade lugs on the handset. Are you sure yours
has a normal handset RJ22 modular jack?

Positive. The cord is on the desk here -- sans handset and base!

If nobody sees the phone, why do you care about the color of the coil
cord?

Nobody sees the color of the carpet in the trunk of my car, either.
Why didn't the manufacturer opt to put whatever he had lying around
in the shop in there when he built the vehicle? I'm sure he could
have saved a few pennies...

I also like all my tires "mounted white" or "mounted black" -- not
some convenient mixture of the two. :>

Again, I live in earthquake country. When he had our last big
shake in 1989, all the phones fell off their hangers and went offhook.
Nobody ever tested the software in the switch for such a massive off
hook condition. Of course, that triggered a bug which caused the
switch to continuously reboot. No phone service for several days
until the bug was fixed in the switch or billing machine (I forgot
which). Since then, all unattended phones get an elastic strap to
hold the phone in place in the event of an earthquake.


We do it better. I live in a forest. Most of our telco plant is
aerial (on poles). When the wind blows, the trees fall, breaking the
lines. It's not unusual to see 3 adjacent splice boxes on along the
cable. Also, lots of broken pairs.

Yup. That's how things are back East. All the utilities hang.
And, each time a drunk buys a telephone pole, someone loses
something for some period of time...

I used to work in a battery room in the 1960's.

OK. I recall seeing banks of batteries. And some sort of
*motor* in continuous motion (I think something to do with ring?)

Times have changed. A more recent tour:
<http://www.wap.org/journal/cotour/>

I would *hope* so! It's been >40 years since I was there! :>

I have some photos of the local CO, but I had to promise not to
distribute them. Basically, it's a museum. Lots of ancient hardware
just occupying space. Plenty of Strowger switches and crossbar racks,
some of which were powered on. When I asked what they were doing, I
was told "depreciating".

Ha! Yet, probably, still fully functional!

 

[Charlie E.]

With many things you can find good, low cost sources. But with some
things you have to choose... "good, fast, cheap - pick two" is common.

I've been Googling for VOIP providers and none of them seem to fair very
well unless they are a bit pricey with plans that remind me of cell
phones with limited minutes. There seem to be a few low cost providers
but they tend to get poor reviews on voice quality or dropped calls or
even completing calls. I've even read about one provider that only
requires a modest yearly payment, but makes it so hard to do that some
give up and subscribe all over again.

I don't get it. This is not new technology. Has anyone found a decent
VOIP provider? I'd like to use my existing phone number (seems not all
will let you transfer a number) and port the device with me when I
travel. Ideally it would support E911 and allow me to easily update the
info when I travel.

Otherwise I just need for it to replace my land line and not cost any
more. I'm only paying $15 a month to Verizon for that, and of course I
have to spit each time I write the check... I'm not a fan.

What are you using?

I have a Vonage line for the business, that includes an 800 number. It
is strictly a by the minute line, and usually averages about $21 a
month. Quality of the call correlates pretty well with the health of
your internet connection...

 

[Joerg]

Hi Joerg,



You will *notice* a mechanical ringer. "What the hell is that noise?"
Not "yet another chirping cricket".

Some of the basic piezo-ringer phones are amazingly loud. When on full
it knocks you out of bed like the whistles and trumpets at boot camp did.

Thrift stores are the route I've been taking. You can find lots
of cheap/crappy phones but few of the original WE units seem to
have survived (or, maybe folks just hold onto them?).

"Trimline" and "Princess" phones are relatively common. But, the
wall mounted variety seem harder to come by. I wouldn't trust
a traditional trimline mounted on a wall to retain the handset
(esp if you can't visually verify its placement "often")

We have a genuine 1927 Western Electric wall phone in the kitchen.
Works. Except you can't dial out, on account of a non-existent dialer.
They hadn't been invented yet. Had to disconnect the crank, of course.

[...]

We had rose bushes out by the front door. Never did well. I
finally decided to dig them up and plant something else in their
place (had been there from previous owner).

Imagine my thoughts when I discovered a slab of concrete about
12" beneath the soil level! "Sheesh! No wonder the damn things
never thrived!" (Apparently, builder had dumped all his surplus
concrete in that location, then covered it up with dirt...)

Make sure it's not an old septic tank

 

[Joerg]

Hi Joerg,

Don Y wrote:

[Actually, I've been looking for a new coiled cord for the WE phone
I've chosen as this "backup" but they only sell "vanilla" colors
for coiled cords, nowadays -- white, black, beige]

Model 500, 1500, or 2500 phone? I vaguely recall some vendor selling
replacement cords in assorted colors. I just tried "red telephone
coil cord" on eBay search with lots of hits including "vintage" WE
cords (for $12 to $25/ea ouch).

<http://www.ericofon.com/catalog/classic3/images/trimline/wall/trw_green.jpg>

Make sure your phone company will support pulse dial for the foreseeable
future.

So far, every place I have lived has been backward compatible in
that regard. E.g., I have an old handset from the early 20th
century (one of those HEAVY black *cast* phones) that still
works (I've been sorely tempted to put a little MCU inside it
to count dial pulses and generate touch tones -- just for the
head games it would play with users! I.e., you can understand
a pushbutton phone being able to generate DTMF or pulse. But,
having a *dial* phone generating DTMF? WTF???)

[I think pulse will work on noisier line conditions than DTMF.
Many years ago, we were having terrible phone service. Esp
with the dialup modems! (I *did* say "many years ago"!) A
tech came out to troubleshoot the line one day -- big orange?
box that monitors the condition of the line. He was just getting
ready to walk off with a shrug of his shoulders: "I don't see
anything wrong..." when the noise level shot through the roof.
I.e., you could barely hear *voice* on the line! I suspect I
would have still been able to dial out in those conditions
with the dial pulse phone! (tech ended up switching us to a
different pair and marking the old pair as out of service)]

In order to keep in sync with your level of automation provide a little
slot in the wall, with a big fat electrolytic down in there somewhere.
Power goes (or you push some button) ... *THWOCK* ... a flap falls down
.... phssssssssst .. click ... phone automagically glides out of wall and
locks into emergency position.

That would be cool if I could put it someplace "visible" (so it's
presence would tell me "something is wrong"). But, would require
a lot of work to make it "look good" in each scenario (retracted
and deployed) -- consider SWMBO. Not sure I would want to tackle
that (I have tried really hard to remove everything techy from the
walls, rooms, etc. Even removing the texture from the walls! :-/ )

I've been looking for a motorized projection screen that I could
recess into the ceiling in front of the bookshelves in the front
hallway. That would allow me to get rid of the TV in the living
room, too!

That's what has kept me from the much faster cable TV Internet. The
previous owners had cable TV and the just plopped the cable into the
landscape. Zero inch burying depth. Here and there one can see tooth
marks from who knows which critter.

Someone in the neighborhood is *always* complaining of an outage.
I don't know if this is a consequence of damage to the (shallow)
cables, faulty insulation/water penetration, etc.

And, they all have horror stories about trying to *contact*
the cable company for service (and, having to wait around
all day for someone to show up: "We'll have a guy there
between 8 and 5..." "Gee! Thanks! I was afraid he might
show up AFTER BEDTIME!!!")

DSL is hopelessly behind in technology out here. 1.2Mbit/sec down and
256k up.

We can easily get 12Mb service. I just don't like TPC (arrogant
bastards).

I am actually thinking about having both DSL and cable modem. Then I
could use cable and fall back to DSL if that goes bad. But DSL has crept
up to $38/mo now. It'll probably climb more because they are losing
market share. I don't think they've got LTE yet out here. That would be
the other option, drop DSL, get cable and have one smart phone contract
that allows a USB LTE stick in the laptop. Just for backup.

 

[Don Y]

Hi Jeff,

Yeah, something like that would work. Assuming a 5 year payback on
investment and $0.50/year savings, can you build such a device for
$2.50? If not, burning the power is cheaper.

The relay is necessary regardless -- you need to be able to
conditionally reconnect an analog phone in the event of a
prolonged outage, etc. So, you also need a driver to engage
the relay (trip a latching relay, etc.)

The cost then becomes one of the software to decide *when*
to trip it (you can buy a whole processor for $2.50! :> )

In a mass produced device, I would imagine some "circuit breaker"
style plastic button would pop up as an indicator that the
relay has been tripped *and* a means by which the user can
*manually* reset the relay after the outage (unless he never
uses that feature)

[I don't worry about bringing things to market. Just identifying
the issues that need to be eventually addressed!]

 

[Spehro Pefhany]

I do something similar. I have one phone with a hotspot plan on it. If
my main internet connection goes down I turn on smart phone hotspot.
I dont have everything but enough for me and the other half to keep
working until the main service comes back up. It's not cheap but worth
it for the backup capabilities. Plus we can always do email from the
phones.

FWIW, during our flood last month when power was off for about 10
hours, tethering notebooks to cellular data only lasted for some hours
before dying. The cable boxes on poles were flashing their red trouble
lights after 5-6 hours too. Nothing like the reliability of phone
lines, water and NG utilities. I still have dial-up account, but I
didn't try it (was too busy trying to rig up a supply for the sump
pump).

There's free Wifi at most coffee shops (at least half a dozen within a
short drive, many of them 24/7) but they close their doors if the
power goes out (a fairly rare occurence, maybe once a decade for that
length of outage).

Some routers have an auto-rollover WAN capability if you need
redundancy (gets expensive though).


Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany

 

[Don Y]

Hi Joerg,

I am actually thinking about having both DSL and cable modem. Then I
could use cable and fall back to DSL if that goes bad. But DSL has crept
up to $38/mo now. It'll probably climb more because they are losing
market share. I don't think they've got LTE yet out here. That would be
the other option, drop DSL, get cable and have one smart phone contract
that allows a USB LTE stick in the laptop. Just for backup.

We don't subscribe to cable -- too few hours in a day to spend
them watching TV :>

In a jam, I could fall back to dialup access to several "private"
systems that I have accounts on. Or, drive 2 miles to the public
library for access to their WiFi (and wired) network. Or, a mile
to the Kinkos or gelateria for their wireless, etc.

But, it's just as easy to live without the access for a few days!
:>

 

[Don Y]

Hi Spehro,

FWIW, during our flood last month when power was off for about 10
hours, tethering notebooks to cellular data only lasted for some hours
before dying. The cable boxes on poles were flashing their red trouble
lights after 5-6 hours too. Nothing like the reliability of phone
lines, water and NG utilities.

We lost our natural gas supply last winter (or the winter before?
I lose track of time :> ). Eery sensation -- you don't *expect*
gas to be unavailable. Complicated (and CAUSED!) by an exceptional
cold spell which drove demand up to levels that the supply couldn't
accommodate. IIRC, they ended up shutting *off* the supply to
parts of town so the rest of town had usable pressure.

I still have dial-up account, but I
didn't try it (was too busy trying to rig up a supply for the sump
pump).

I keep several large 12V batteries (some from cars, others gelled
electrolyte from electric wheelchairs, etc.) topped off in the garage
from a solar panel. Normally used to run the pump for rainwater
harvesting (paying for electricity to pump harvested water seems
like it defeats the purpose!).

But, in an outage, I drag ~1.5KVA UPS's out to the garage and plug
the batteries into the UPS's in lieu of the little dinky batteries
normally present in the UPS's. Neighbors get a bit annoyed seeing
the house lit up while they are in the dark :> (perhaps the only
*good* reason to have CFL's on hand. I've yet to have a battery
exhausted with them as loads!)

IIRC, many sump pumps have provisions for battery operation
(for precisely the reason you've encountered)

 

[Don Y]

A business that rebuilt 1A2 phones went out of business a few years
ago, and owed me money.

Bummer. "Unsecured debt". Always amazing to see how folks are
so willing to walk away from their obligations! :<

(I think every person should incorporate. Often!)

I took what I could get from them.

Appears they probably go for about $5-10 as NOS (eBay, etc.) -- of
course, folks will want as much as they can get for them! :<

I had a guy, here, who had boxes of "New" DCI video cables. Looked
like a fortune in cables (that a retail outlet would no doubt
sell for $10+, each).

He was heart broken when he learned they were barely worth the
cost of *shipping*!

(We're in the wrong business -- things keep getting *cheaper*!)

The
standard cord stretches to 7', and retacts to about two feet.

Sounds about right. I'd have guessed 6 feet but how much you
stretch it is obviously a subjective matter.

If you were local I'd swap you some (excellent!) baked goods
for one OTOH, all that fat and sugar really isn't good
for anyone... :<

 

[miso]

Maybe I can dumb this down a bit. I assume the free calls are only to
people with SIP phones. If you need to connect to a POTS, there is a charge.

VOIP/SIP is complicated. My ISP has been trying to get me over to their
VOIP for years, since that is their specialty. It just seems like too
much work for me for no real savings since I have way too many minutes
on my cellphone.

But here is something to contemplate. There are SIP apps for
smartphones. You could get a plan like that cheap $30 T-mobile plan that
only has 100 minutes of voice, and then use SIP from your phone on its
data plan to use the VOIP vendor directly, or maybe VPN to your router
and then VOIP as if you were at your house. Basically that is what
google voice does, well except for them spying on you.

If you built a new house, hell yeah, just SIP all your phones and put an
Asterik box in a closest somewhere. This is the future of telephony. In
fact, AT$T claimed they were going to just dump pots and make their
phone system totally digital. Of course they would bill you just like it
was POTS.

 

[miso]

There are people you can pay to set up VOIP systems. A friend of mine
has done a number of large commercial VOIPs, even a campus one with
security phones and direct connection to the cops HT if needed. But my
point is you just pay someone to do this if it sounds too complicated.

This is how the game is played. If you can't do it yourself, you pay
somebody to do it. That could be simply paying Ma Bell a high monthly
rate, or it could be paying a company to set up the SIP.

If you go to WalMart, they have some contraption that is a like a wired
cellphone. I saw it when I was looking at MNVOs before deciding just to
renew my cellular contract. It is a box that is a voice only cellphone.
You pay $15 a month for phone service from StraightTalk. I never met
anyone that used it, so I can't vouch for it.

 

[Joerg]

FWIW, during our flood last month when power was off for about 10
hours, tethering notebooks to cellular data only lasted for some hours
before dying. ...

That is what most people don't realize these days. Cell phones are not a
reliable backup in a longer outage. Once the tower run out of
electricity the cell phone becomes a little brick and being able to
re-chareg it from the car will not help.

... The cable boxes on poles were flashing their red trouble
lights after 5-6 hours too. Nothing like the reliability of phone
lines, water and NG utilities. I still have dial-up account, but I
didn't try it (was too busy trying to rig up a supply for the sump
pump).

The dial-up is only good if it connects to a modem in some distant city.
I doubt that the local Missy Bell or ISP will UPS-feed the steampunk
modem bank.

There's free Wifi at most coffee shops (at least half a dozen within a
short drive, many of them 24/7) but they close their doors if the
power goes out (a fairly rare occurence, maybe once a decade for that
length of outage).

Some routers have an auto-rollover WAN capability if you need
redundancy (gets expensive though).

Mine not too expensive one even has that, but only to a dial-up modem.

 

[Joerg]

Hi Joerg,



We don't subscribe to cable -- too few hours in a day to spend
them watching TV :>

That's problem #2. We do not have any interest whatsoever in their TV
offerings and they don't really want to sell Internet without it.

In a jam, I could fall back to dialup access to several "private"
systems that I have accounts on. Or, drive 2 miles to the public
library for access to their WiFi (and wired) network. Or, a mile
to the Kinkos or gelateria for their wireless, etc.

Those will usually be out as well. At least that's how it is here when a
larger outage occurs.

The LTE or DSL backup for me would only be if the cable Internet goes
down because their last-mile infrastructure is a bit haphazard.

But, it's just as easy to live without the access for a few days!

Yup. When Gray "Gray-out" Davis was still governor and screwed up the CA
electricity market we got used to continue life sans power. One can cook
a 4-5 burner meal in a Weber grill over charcoal, done it. that was a
bit decadent but the power went outside the "normal" rolling black-outs
just after my wife started to cook. Back then I felt like we had moved
to Romania.

 

[Don Y]

Hi Joerg,

That's problem #2. We do not have any interest whatsoever in their TV
offerings and they don't really want to sell Internet without it.

Yup. Though I am told you can get some "really really basic" TV
service -- and just don't hook up a TV! (I suspect they want TV
subscribers because "that's their business" and I imagine they
also get a kickback from advertisers, etc. by selling your TV
viewing habits, etc.

Those will usually be out as well. At least that's how it is here when a
larger outage occurs.

We seldom have large outages. They are sometimes *prolonged*
(e.g., the last one was a result of the main distribution transformer
for the neighborhood catching fire!) but usually just "this feed".

E.g., the folks around the corner are fed from a different branch
so our lights will often be out while theirs are on -- or vice
versa.

The LTE or DSL backup for me would only be if the cable Internet goes
down because their last-mile infrastructure is a bit haphazard.


Yup. When Gray "Gray-out" Davis was still governor and screwed up the CA
electricity market we got used to continue life sans power. One can cook
a 4-5 burner meal in a Weber grill over charcoal, done it. that was a
bit decadent but the power went outside the "normal" rolling black-outs
just after my wife started to cook. Back then I felt like we had moved
to Romania.

We keep 50 pounds of charcoal on hand (dry). Partly for the few
times we grill outdoors (ribs, etc). But, also, as a means for
getting hot food, boiling water, etc. during an outage.

I've been looking to pick up a small, single burner, propane
"camp stove" for the bug-out-bag. I figure I always have bottled
propane on hand anyway for the torch. Opting for something
like a stove that burns white gas would mean I would have to store
that *just* for use with the stove (wasteful if we never need the
stove!)

Last outage, we tried using the toaster oven with a UPS. Worked
OK (resistive load) but was awfully wasteful of that "reserve power".
Next time I may try the microwave (more efficient use of power)
but I'm not sure how reactive that load would be and how much
I'd have to derate a UPS's capabilities to safely use one!

 

[Joerg]

Hi Joerg,



Yup. Though I am told you can get some "really really basic" TV
service -- and just don't hook up a TV! (I suspect they want TV
subscribers because "that's their business" and I imagine they
also get a kickback from advertisers, etc. by selling your TV
viewing habits, etc.

Probably, although they can get your habits only if you use their
converter and it has a calling-home feature. Basic-cable has no box, I
believe.

We seldom have large outages. They are sometimes *prolonged*
(e.g., the last one was a result of the main distribution transformer
for the neighborhood catching fire!) but usually just "this feed".

E.g., the folks around the corner are fed from a different branch
so our lights will often be out while theirs are on -- or vice
versa.

Here we have very little in localized outages. It's mostly a wildfire or
something like that and then the whole village is out.

We keep 50 pounds of charcoal on hand (dry). Partly for the few
times we grill outdoors (ribs, etc). But, also, as a means for
getting hot food, boiling water, etc. during an outage.

There hasn't been a winter which we didn't enter with at least 200lbs on
hand. Because in winter charcoal is expensive, there won't be any sales,
and I am a year-round barbecuer. When it is really cold and the wood
stove cranks all day I often steal charcoal from that. Burning wood down
to charcoal is also an option but even if "free" from yard cuttings that
would be wasting energy.

I've been looking to pick up a small, single burner, propane
"camp stove" for the bug-out-bag. ...

Propane grills are for wusses

... I figure I always have bottled
propane on hand anyway for the torch. Opting for something
like a stove that burns white gas would mean I would have to store
that *just* for use with the stove (wasteful if we never need the
stove!)

Nah. Real men gather wood, make a fire, open a can of beer and then cook
over the fire.

Last outage, we tried using the toaster oven with a UPS. Worked
OK (resistive load) but was awfully wasteful of that "reserve power".
Next time I may try the microwave (more efficient use of power)
but I'm not sure how reactive that load would be and how much
I'd have to derate a UPS's capabilities to safely use one!

Fire up the old Weber. It's amazing what that can cook. Tonight we will
bake bread in it again, followed by spicy chicken wings that will be
eaten along with the fresh and still warm bread. Maybe also
cheese-filled jalapenos.

 

[Don Y]

Hi Joerg,

Propane grills are for wusses

<ducking>

Kinda hard to lug 50 pounds of charcoal *out* in case of an
emergency! (I'd rather allocate that 50 pounds to something
more important! :> )

We've set up our bug-out-bags for different layers of response.
E.g., if we have to shelter-in-place, then we have access to
everything in the house and just need some place where we can
*reliably* find the sorts of items that we ONLY need in case
of an emergency.

If we have to *drive* out of the area, then we can probably
only carry the items that we've had the forethought to pre-pack
(assume emergency means "hurry"!). So, all the BoB's get
thrown in the car along with two 5G containers of water (that
we have to fill "as we depart").

If the car breaks down, runs out of gas (eventually) or if we
have to leave here on foot, then we have a subset of the BoBs
that we will take with us. I.e., always trying to take as
much as is *convenient* -- without overburdening ourselves
in the process.

A single burner propane stove and a few bottles of propane
take up far less space/weight than an equivalent volume of
briquettes (also generates a hotter heat, *faster* -- e.g.,
to sterilize a knife, boil utensils, etc.)

Nah. Real men gather wood, make a fire, open a can of beer and then cook
over the fire.

In an emergency, I'm not keen on carrying one pound cans of beer

Fire up the old Weber. It's amazing what that can cook. Tonight we will
bake bread in it again, followed by spicy chicken wings that will be
eaten along with the fresh and still warm bread. Maybe also
cheese-filled jalapenos.

If we're operating without power, gas, etc., I'm probably not in
the mood for a leisurely meal outdoors! I'd be more interested
in keeping the house buttoned up (as cool or as warm as it is
going to be in the absence of auxillary heating/cooling) and
getting what needs to be done as efficiently as possible.

My "merit badge" days are *long* behind me!! :>

 

[Joerg]

Hi Joerg,



Kinda hard to lug 50 pounds of charcoal *out* in case of an
emergency! (I'd rather allocate that 50 pounds to something
more important! :> )

Simple fix: It comes in dual bags, 22lbs per bag. And other sizes. But
we have a small plastic bucket with lid. Hold 5-6lbs, enough several
sessions. Unless it's serial pizza baking (we freeze some) or a turkey.

We've set up our bug-out-bags for different layers of response.
E.g., if we have to shelter-in-place, then we have access to
everything in the house and just need some place where we can
*reliably* find the sorts of items that we ONLY need in case
of an emergency.

If we have to *drive* out of the area, then we can probably
only carry the items that we've had the forethought to pre-pack
(assume emergency means "hurry"!). So, all the BoB's get
thrown in the car along with two 5G containers of water (that
we have to fill "as we depart").

If the car breaks down, runs out of gas (eventually) or if we
have to leave here on foot, then we have a subset of the BoBs
that we will take with us. I.e., always trying to take as
much as is *convenient* -- without overburdening ourselves
in the process.

A single burner propane stove and a few bottles of propane
take up far less space/weight than an equivalent volume of
briquettes (also generates a hotter heat, *faster* -- e.g.,
to sterilize a knife, boil utensils, etc.)

Think about the cowboys of the olden days. All they had on their horse
was a pan, a knife, some flour, a rifle, ammo, matches, coffee, tobacco,
water bottle, whiskey. I could do without the tobacco.

In an emergency, I'm not keen on carrying one pound cans of beer
just so I can catch a buzz while fleeing <whatever> :>

I even carried a six-pack all the way down the Grand Canyon when I was
young. The ranger shook her head, couldn't believe it.

If we're operating without power, gas, etc., I'm probably not in
the mood for a leisurely meal outdoors! I'd be more interested
in keeping the house buttoned up (as cool or as warm as it is
going to be in the absence of auxillary heating/cooling) and
getting what needs to be done as efficiently as possible.

My "merit badge" days are *long* behind me!! :>

Mine, too. But I actually enjoyed some of out "outage meals". Once while
others stood in line at the sandwich shop where the cash register didn't
work and everything was warm we had a gourmet meal. Meat, steamed
vegetables, whiskey-peppercorn sauce, country music from the portable
radio, the works. Beverages were kept cool in the pool.

This was the first major outage and it freaked out my wife a little.
After a while she thought it was actually quite cool.

 

[Don Y]

Hi Joerg,

Think about the cowboys of the olden days. All they had on their horse
was a pan, a knife, some flour, a rifle, ammo, matches, coffee, tobacco,
water bottle, whiskey. I could do without the tobacco.

The *core* bag has very little in it -- things that we could
carry for *days* if need be (knowing that *water* would be
what we were carrying in the other hand!).

E.g., a radio that operates off solar or a "crank"; a flint;
"workman multitool/knife"; balls of cotton & vaseline; some meds;
plastic sheeting (think tarp/tent); socks; mess kit; etc.

Mine, too. But I actually enjoyed some of out "outage meals". Once while
others stood in line at the sandwich shop where the cash register didn't
work and everything was warm we had a gourmet meal. Meat, steamed
vegetables, whiskey-peppercorn sauce, country music from the portable
radio, the works. Beverages were kept cool in the pool.

This was the first major outage and it freaked out my wife a little.
After a while she thought it was actually quite cool.

I'm either working or trying to get a handle on the nature of the
outage. E.g., the natural gas outage wasn't immediately apparent
as such. Happened in the wee hours of the morning so its not
like I could call neighbors and ask if *they* had heat.

So, I spent a fair bit of time diagnosing the furnace (seemed
more likely that the furnace not lighting would be a local
problem to *this* house and not a city-wide gas outage! :> ).
Checking for news reports (online and OTA broadcast). And,
calling the gas company (I detected this *so* early that the
folks at the gas company weren't even aware of its extent).

Then, arranging so SWMBO wouldn't be uncomfortable when she
woke up to a cold house.

Thankfully, only heat and hot water are gas-fired, here.
So, we could still prepare meals indoors, etc. But, showers
are out of the question! (I delight in LONG, HOT showers!)

Once the sun came up and I could suspect the neighbors would be
stirring (they're up early to prepare for work), I could
phone them and compare notes...

Only after I *knew* there was nothing else that I could do
would I turn back to my "work".

(apparently, the plumbers got a boatload of business as folks
woke up without heat and naively called plumbers -- who
undoubtedly charged them for a visit and left them with a
diagnosis of "the gas is out all across town" :> )

 

[Don Y]

Hi Jeff,

Keeping the refrigerator alive is somewhat more complex.

We consider the refrigerator to be largely expendable.

The *freezer* usually will last a good long time in an
outage -- if we don't open it (it's a chest so it doesn't
lose as much "cool" when it is opened). We typically have
10+ gallons of OJ stashed in there (think: blocks of ice)

And, the most perishable items stored *low* to stay as cool
as possible for as long as possible.

I've thought of a small genset just for the freezer/refrig
but that draws too much "attention". And, the alternative
of powering it off a UPS seems like it would need a whopping big
UPS to not fail under the starting load (perhaps a FERRUPS?)

 

[rickman]

Maybe I can dumb this down a bit. I assume the free calls are only to
people with SIP phones. If you need to connect to a POTS, there is a
charge.

VOIP/SIP is complicated. My ISP has been trying to get me over to their
VOIP for years, since that is their specialty. It just seems like too
much work for me for no real savings since I have way too many minutes
on my cellphone.

But here is something to contemplate. There are SIP apps for
smartphones. You could get a plan like that cheap $30 T-mobile plan that
only has 100 minutes of voice, and then use SIP from your phone on its
data plan to use the VOIP vendor directly, or maybe VPN to your router
and then VOIP as if you were at your house. Basically that is what
google voice does, well except for them spying on you.

If you built a new house, hell yeah, just SIP all your phones and put an
Asterik box in a closest somewhere. This is the future of telephony. In
fact, AT$T claimed they were going to just dump pots and make their
phone system totally digital. Of course they would bill you just like it
was POTS.

Thanks for the suggestions, but the minutes is only part of my problem.
Cell phones are crap for voice quality so I *much* prefer to use a
land line, even if it is VOIP as long as the quality is there. At one
of my locations cell coverage is spotty at best and it is not uncommon
for calls to be impossible, such as one end of my house...

The other reason I realized that VOIP was the solution to my problem is
that I spend a week at a time at my other house and the office phone
doesn't get answered.

So I can replace my office phone with VOIP and drag it around with me
(or have two adapters). Then some 90% of my calls are now at $0.02 a
minute plus I get great voice quality (relatively speaking) and I get to
answer my office phone when I'm not there...

I guess when I mention VOIP I am thinking of a service like Vonage where
they just sell you a solution, not something that requires a lot of
programming and crap. I don't think I need to pay $30 a month and some
of the lower cost similar services have a bad reputation for voice
quality and other issues. Someone mentioned paying per minute to
Vonage, maybe I'll look into that.

Callcentric seems like a reasonable deal although it is a little hard to
figure out what I'll be paying. Some places they talk about E911 fee as
being mandatory, but under some plans it is "included". I think they
just don't get that they are making it very complicated and it could be
better if they just priced it all into one figure. I get the impression
from some here that it might be a bit difficult to get it setup though.
I remember when getting your network to work was difficult, but
eventually that process was made simpler by all parties involved and
most of the time things just work now. Why can't they do that with
VOIP? That's a rhetorical question. I'm not interested in a lot of
technical stuff on the issue.