[PLUG] Ziply, Ooma, nattering Re: VoIP question [RESOLVED]

[Keith Lofstrom]

On Thu, Feb 13, 2025 at 12:03:49PM -0800, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
> Is Ziply charging you a $15 month fee for the box rental and a second fee
> (maybe $15 maybe something else) for the phone line itself?  Or is it just 1
> fee?

The Ooma $8 monthly fee pays for 911 and other humanoid and
gubmint services.  The $80 annual fee pays for unlimited voice
to anywhere that Ooma has a Telco tap.  My Ooma box connects
through a $40/month 200M/200M Ziply Fiber internet box, which
has a 10-gigabit-capable fiber plug, and the CAT5 jack that my
Linux firewall machine (currently a PC Engines APU) connects to.

Note that I don't watch high-def internet movies or play games,
hence the only time I use full internet bandwidth is downloads
and offsite machine backups.  Given my crappy hearing, and an
overabundance of deceased relatives, I don't use the phone much.
Telemarketers go straight to store-and-erase, though I would
pay extra if they went to join my deceased relatives.

Note also that the Ziply box is powered by my own 48 hour
battery backup, and the APU is powered by a different
battery backup.  Both backups backed up by a kilowatt
Honda generator.  The sun never sets on my keyboard antics.
Tough luck for you.

The Ziply fiber is above-ground, strung between poles, so a
drunk suicide driver can put me offline for a while.  My
fiber connects through a passive optical wavelength-division-
multiplexer, and the trunk fiber connects all the way from
east Beaverton to the Ziply switching bunker in Tualatin;
ice storms and World War Three probably WON'T offline me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrbv40ENU_o

Also Note Also that I can VPN to my network with a laptop
in a Starbucks or the New Seasons "dining" area, and perhaps
your home or office, but I can't connect from Washington
County Libraries wifi on any port besides http/80 or
https/443. 

Not yet, anyway; I wonder if the library server closet is
locked at night?

Keith L.

-- 
Keith Lofstrom          keithl at keithl.com