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   MSGID: 1453.fidogaze@1:103/705 21e7cf47   
   REPLY: 165.fidonet-fidogaze@1:19/33 21e3b373   
   PID: Synchronet 3.17c-Win32  Sep  2 2019 MSC 1922   
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   At 1:01 PM on 15 Sep 19, Daryl Stout said to Mike Powell:   
      
   DS> Mike,   
      
   MP>>Sorry to butt in - but I hope more BBSes start to offer dial-up. And more   
   MP>users   
   MP>>switch off their routers and dust off their modems.   
      
   MP>I have a dial up system - 1-502-875-8938   
      
   DS>   At present, I have a US Robotics external v.92 56K Fax Modem. However,   
   DS> I'm not about to pay $75 a month for a vanilla phone line, just to get   
   DS> dial-up BBS callers...especially after the rude way my late Mom and   
   DS> myself were treated by AT&T "customer service personnel" (I use the term   
   DS> loosely). On a call, when I demanded to speak to a supervisor, they hung   
   DS> up on me. When I dialed back, and was told "this call may be monitored   
   DS> or recorded", I said "It damn sure better be, for ahat I'm going to   
   DS> say".   
      
   DS>   I apologized to my Mom for cussing in front of her, but when I asked   
   DS> "can you blame me for my outburst?", she said "No"...she was there and   
   DS> heard everything that happened.   
      
   Sounds like pretty terrible service. You would think with plenty of   
   competition such poor service would be a thing of the past. Maybe you moving   
   on will help them review their customer service methods.   
      
   DS>   As for cellphone service, I'm with Straight Talk, and it's the best   
   DS> cellphone package I've ever had...$50 a month with tax, and I get 25   
   DS> Gigabytes of data, before it gets throttled down. I use nowhere near   
   DS> that amount each month. And, with the rewards plan, some months, I can   
   DS> claim the points, so I get a free month of cellphone service.   
      
   Sounds pretty good. I had half a gig of cell phone data for the longest time.   
   I probably should have been paying a lot less.   
      
   DS>   But back to the dial-up, those modems only really work with analog   
   DS> lines, and not with VoIP lines. Yet, I wonder what the fax machines are   
   DS> working with...since practically all the old analog lines are now   
   DS> digital/VoIP. If there was a way to make that work, I'd put dial-up   
   DS> access back on the BBS...but I saw a comment from Rob Swindell (aka   
   DS> digital man), author of Synchronet, noting that "28.8 and 33.6 aren't as   
   DS> fast as you remember them".   
      
   This is a worry really, as may scupper my dial-up dreams before they have   
   begun. I haven't noticed any major issues here in the UK however, but I dare   
   say digitial migration and VoIP is being rolled out at a snail's pace. I know   
   we have much less fast broadband coverage than many other European countries.   
   If this does become an issue, I wonder if cell phone modems (cdcadm protocol,   
   I think) might provide another route? With a cheap sim with unlimited calls in   
   a cell phone USB modem, I could potentially add multiple dial-up lines for not   
   very much at all.   
      
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