For most of us who have grown up having a telephone, hearing a dial-tone when you lift the receiver is a sign of being privileged and prosperous. From the early days, it has been a big deal and often a reason for pride, to order and, after a waiting period, be provisioned to receive a dial-tone that would connect you to a loved one after the dialtone had been interrupted by multiple pulses manually, or by using a rotary dial or more recently, by DTMF tones.
In the mid-80's I recall letting go of my leased phone unit - going to a store and buying my first physical device that I could connect to the wall was a bold step. My friends called me brave to take responsibility if the unit went bad - no Ma-Bell to replace it 'for free' if it broke. I owned my own phone and not having to pay a monthly lease fee was liberating!
Notwithstanding, the ability to use the telephone continues to be a privilege for which a monthly fee is entirely expected and never questioned. An entire world population remains accustomed to paying a monthly fee for this privilege.
Yesterday, I took ownership of my number, the one I have had for almost 20 years. A few weeks back I took ownership of my dialtone. I bought it - It's mine; it is created in my home. I am now ultimately responsible if it does not work - much like when in 1984 I became responsible for my telephone unit. Except, I think this is bigger - because now we are changing a paradigm - not having to pay a monthly fee for the privilege - is a huge shift. Can it even be called a privilege any more?
In May, I embraced VoIP letting go of POTS by taking on AT&T's U-Verse Voice service. I have to say, my wife is not handling that bereavement well. From U-Verse I've now moved to ooma (I wrote about how AT&T Lost My Voice). Now with my number ported over, I have a definite sense of ownership - I wonder if sharing this feeling will replace her sense of deprivation of POTS with the pride of ownership of our own number on our own dialtone WITHOUT monthly fees! Will it?
Porting my number from AT&T U-Verse to ooma was entirely transparent and seamless. I'll write more about my ooma configuration over U-Verse in a future post.
Do you remain apprehensive of letting POTS go? Would eliminating an entire monthly bill get you over the hump? Am I making too big a deal about 'ownership' of my dialtone?
Banner: Parorama of Crater Lake, taken in July, 2007.
3 comments:
Ive been thinking about moving....I do have a question though what about 911 when there is no power?
The ooma hub uses ~8 VA voip by design should have a UPS as should your broadband modem. AT&T uverse comes with one. As for 911: VoIP comes with e911 service. The subscriber is responsible for maintaining updates to the address of record in the 911 database. Did I answer your questions?
Yup Thanks Man!
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