From: The Butterfly (salsbury_at_bootstrap.sculptors.com)
Date: 11/17/97
Date: Mon, 17 Nov 1997 22:47:37 -0800 Message-Id: <199711180647.WAA19139@bootstrap.sculptors.com> From: The Butterfly <salsbury_at_bootstrap.sculptors.com> Subject: Rude shocks and sporadic email...
Well, having moved to the new house, and a new phone company, and
knowing that the new data line would be "more expensive" than at the old
house, but not knowing HOW MUCH more expensive, I just got my first phone
bill.
Even though the old place was farther away from my network dialup
point, they only charged me a flat US$12.60/month for the line. That's why
I was able to keep it running pretty much 24 hours/day. The new company
charges me US$.05/minute. So my phone bill, even though I was using the
line approximately 1/3rd the normal amount, came to about US$660 just for
that line, for dialing about 18 miles away. (Gah!) Add $65 in taxes, and
the other (regular) phone line, and we get a nice, round $800.98
Needless to say, I was a bit annoyed. :-)
It's still not resolved, and I'm waiting to hear back from the
Customer Service Supervisor I've requested to speak with, but it looks like
I may get stuck with this, and so I've drastically reduced the amount of
time the house will be connected to the net until this is sorted.
Which brings us to you. How will this affect you? Well, I'm going
to have to reconfigure the networking, and move the mailing lists to the
machine that acts as www.sculptors.com. This will eventually give much more
speedy and reliable service, since there are 2 T1 lines there (where I
work). But this will take a few days, and until then mail in and out will
keep going through, but the computer will only be bringing up the link for
a very short period of time about 3 or 4 times per day.
Posts to the lists will still go through, but you might not see
them for several hours, or even perhaps 1/2 day or so. Don't worry, the
mail shouldn't be lost, but it may take a while before the rest of the list
sees it.
Sorry for the inconvenience. I think things should settle down
soon, and when it's all resolved, I'm going to make a nice web page
detailing (with lots of charts & graphs) just how much more expensive GTE
is than Pacific Bell. :-)
A few figures, just in case you were wondering:
-The voice line is about 5 times more expensive than their own ISDN lines.
-I could get at least one, and probably 2 T1 lines for that same $800 for a
month.
-Comparing the rate they charge me, vs. what Pac Bell did, GTE costs about
17,700% as much. :-)
-This one month alone cost more than the 39 months that I had the data line
with Pac Bell.
Anyway, that's the news from this end. Feel free to keep
posting. Just be patient for the posts to process through.
--
Pat
___________________Think For Yourself____________________
Patrick G. Salsbury <salsbury_at_sculptors.com>
http://www.sculptors.com/~salsbury/
-----------------------
"Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations;
entangling alliances with none."
(From Thomas Jefferson's first innaugural address, March 4, 1801)