Skype Handset

[Gene Heskett]

Craig White wrote:
> On Tue, 2006-07-04 at 22:22 -0500, Gene Heskett wrote:
> 
>>>> Logitek makes a neat little headset (dual phones and a boom mic, 
>>>> overhead band) that works ok, but the mic boom has too much curve in it 
>>>> causing it to stick the mic against your face near the corner of your 
>>>> mouth.  Obviously that tells the other person how many hours its been 
>>>> since you shaved, not a desirable side effect.  I tried slowly bending 
>>>> it outward, but by the time I'd made it stay where I wanted it, which 
>>>> was about an inch from the corner of my mouth, it had started to buckle 
>>>> the plastic boom in a couple of places.  But its been that way for 2 
>>>> weeks now, and appears to be ready to do it for however long it takes to 
>>>> destroy the cordage, none of which is very 'heavy duty' on these generic 
>>>> headsets.  Typical $19 headset, got this one at the local radio shack 
>>>> after I'd broken the cord of my previous RCA branded version in my feet 
>>>> while getting up from this desk too many times.  I liked the RCA better, 
>>>> but this one has lasted longer.  There is no use of paying an extra 20 
>>>> bucks for one of these things just because its got a sign on the package 
>>>> saying its "Skype compatible".  Skype isn't that fussy..  Nor is ekiga 
>>>> or wengophone.  I have a hell of a lot more trouble getting a 
>>>> confirmation message back from either ekiga or wengophone because 
>>>> verizon is apparently filtering mail from the competition.  Bastards. 
>>>> I'd change providers, but they're the only $%^&*() game in town...
>>> ----
>>> hardly the only game in town
>>>
>>> http://www.asterisk.org
>>>
>>> real system administrators would handle their own systems and not rely
>>> on a packager like skype
>>>
>>> Craig
>>>
>> They own the last mile, and if you want whats euphamisticly called 
>> broadband in Weston WV, then you'll by God get it from them.  The local 
>> cable people want nearly 2x the money, and obviously have no customers.
>>
>> I've signed up for several of the other VOIP systems, like ekiga and 
>> wengophone and never got the confirming email with the registration info 
>> from either, so I can only presume that once skype started to take off, 
>> they started to filter ALL such services.  Reminds me of the infamous 
>> quote re M$ that ends up as a 2 bit company that can't stand one bit of 
>> competition.  Just trade the M$ in on verizon, and nothing else changes.
> ----
> then voice your support for Net Neutrality!
> 
> Again, you don't have to by voip all neatly packaged...you can roll your
> own, that's what asterisk is about.
> 
> Yes, the last mile is important but they are not permitted to block that
> at this point in time.
> 
> Craig

They also filter your email "to stop virus etc" and there is no way to 
opt out except to have everyone use a special address (change the 
verizon in my address to verizononline) to send me an email that 
supposedly bypasses this filtering.  When I tried to sign up for 
wengophone, I wanted to do that, but there was no way they (wengophone) 
would accept an email address that didn't match the one in the headers 
of the message they received.  So I'm screwed & didn't even get kissed.

I've also tried to sign up for the ekiga service, and again, I never 
received the message with the key in it.  Using 3 different sirnames. 
The web page reports you will get a confirming message shortly.  Its 
been about 75 days, what do they call shortly?  All I can conclude, from 
the clues available, is that they have compiled a list of voip providers 
and filter all email traffic from them to /dev/null.

Fair?, hell no.

Violates the Common Carrier conditions?, hell yes.

Will the FCC regulate it?  Congress pulled their teeth & emasculated 
them years ago.  Now all they do is fine radio stations $325,000 for a 
verbal wardrobe malfunction.  Thats more than most stations are worth 
(without the license of course).

Now, if someone knows of a dsl service equ I can get in Weston WV that 
is 100% common carrier compliant, please advise me how to get it.

I'd love to have cebridge come in, they are only 8 miles away and voip, 
vpn, all that stuff "just works" when hooked up to them.  But they don't 
have the cable franchise here, so our other choice is some AOL'd version 
from TW who, last I knew, owned the cable system here.  Which is another 
rant, this is the first cable system in the country with FTTH, but its 
now old & mostly one way.  I gave up & got dish, but thats going out a 
week ago.  Contract for a year is up, service is crap.  We can do 
without it.

Or get cable again, they never took the box off the house.

-- 
Cheers, Gene