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Sadly, you Johnnies-come-lately will never blend in with we true-blue old school Mac users.

http://my.core.com/~lbutler/cellular.html

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unconfirmed, but ever since an hour after the article postedd, I have been unable to use this "feature" on my CoreComm dial-up.

P.S. - if you decide to get service through them, please let me know first. I could really use $25 off my bill, and I'm sure you wouldn't mind it off yours ;)

As you can probably tell from my URL, my ISP is CoreComm. They are also my telco (I'm too far away from the CO for "real" DSL), as I still have dialup. They have been my telco/ISP for three years now, and my monthly charges are still about $15 a month less than what I was paying for Sum Bitchin' Communications (aka SBC) and Prodigy at the time.

The service from CoreComm has been pretty good (one day of outage over the past three years); a while back they added a spam filtering service that does a good job of catching spam and redirecting it out of my inbox. If you are looking for a new telco and they serve your area, you might check them out.

My biggest problem has been with MCI Worldcom, which was my former long distance carrier. Those assholes kept trying to bill me for service I did not have with them; as late as last summer they were trying to bill me for monthly service, even though CoreComm is my long distance company. After screaming at a couple of customer service reps, they finally closed my account. If financial shenanigans don't sink MCI Worldcom, bad service will.

I think about the only thing that governments can do is mandate that ISPs provide adequate spam filtering, as the Internet is global and government control of internet traffic stops at national borders. The solution that my ISP has worked out seems to be effective; the spam is filtered, and a lot less seems to hit my inbox folder. I can report messages that are spam for me, and it gets added to my spam filter.

Ohio AG: We got a ruling that says if you dont improve your service by X% amount, you can't report your profits to SBC, your parent company.
SBC/Ameritech: Consider it done!

Needless to say, here are my experiences with SBC/Ameritech in the last year:

Scheduled appointment to get resedential phone line installed in new home build. Missed appointment by 2 months. Called, bitched, nada. Filed complaint with PUCO (Public Utilities COmission). Phone line installed in 2 days.

Co-worker's SBC DSL line hangs his internet connection whenever he picks up the phone to make a voice call. SBC claims it's not a problem.

Friend got SBC/Yahoo! DSL service through promo. When he talked to SBC, they said he was close enough to the CO that he could get 1.5/384, instead of the standard 768/128. Service started on 768/128 speed. Called and now is told he can't get the faster speed. Upload rate is more like 80k a second to *anywhere*.

SBC started printing 2 different 'amount due' figures on each resedential phone bill. This has to confuse older people.

SBC is running radio ads now bitching about how Sprint/MCI is lobbying them out of long distance service in Ohio. SBC effectively crippled CoreComm from offering reasonable service here.

After moving to my house and getting a phone line installed (the 2 month wait), I could have gotten SBC DSL service. I waited 4 months to get cable modem service. When a geek will wait for broadband, you know something's not quite right ;)

unlimited local phone service.

10 cents local toll and long distance.

call waiting included.

caller ID included.

800 number (if I wanted it).

unlimited dial-up internet.
At the time I got this, it was $25.99 per month. However, about 6 months ago, that price rose to $39.99 per month. But, I still pay $25.99 per month because the service said they would honor that deal as long as I do not cancel (according to them, I was a "good customer"). Even at $39.99, it is still a bargin!

Even if I did not have this deal, I prefer an unlimited internet package so I do not need to worry about running up the internet bill. Screw the per hour toll!

Did anyone else think this story headline was announcing the port of Microsoft Works to OS X?
Man, that wierded me out. :) There's an old app..

Amateurs are doing amazing stuff. Here's an image of Saturn taken with an amateur 13-inch scope and a camcorder. It's compared side-to-side with a similar HST image. You will be surprised.

Dozens of amateurs joined in a program to supply images to the 2001 International Marswatch program during this past Martian observing season. The pros use these images to decide when to spend their valuable HST time to look at Mars. Some of the images (and visual drawings) are incredible.

infinet was then bought by large regional provider by the name of voyager in either early '99 or '00. as of late, the company has switched hands yet again, now owned by corecomm, which swallowed voyager whole.

through the process, my email account never changed... the tech support got better, since it moved from a 8am-4pm long-distance number to a 24/7 toll-free number.... and my shell still works. not only that, but our homepage space has grown from 5mb to 20mb, and we can have up to three email accounts per subscription.

the coolest thing, for me at least, is the ability to use my isp all over the state, because there is a local number all over ohio. whenever kent state's internet goes down (which happens much too frequently) i can plug my modem into the phone line and get on at 56k.

i can understand the arguement against consolidation and such... but for me, the situation has been a winning one. gradually better, and more accessable tech support, more email accounts, more local numbers, more web space, et cetera.