On Mon, 5 Sep 2022 20:49:48 +0000, Bill Horne wrote:
My callcentric VoIP phone stopped working yesterday, and it's still out.
Quite some years back, there was an ISP in North Carolina that blocked
all of its VOIP ports outgoing [towards the Internet]. It's a
foregone conclusion that they were forcing everyone to subscribe to
the VOIP service that they provided or do without.
Their subscribers were furious. Apparently, one very bold subscriber
made a complaint with the FCC. No, it was not me.
The FCC socked that ISP with a nasty fine and very promptly ordered
them to unblock those VOIP ports.
A few days later, they did so. So everyone was then able to subscribe
to the VOIP service of their choice.
You might try going that route. But I had a situation where a local
phone company was breaking rules about putting foreign listings for
subscribers other than their own. I filed a complaint with the state
PSC in New Mexico. They did nothing [even though I was successful
doing that with NC, SC, and GA PSCs when I lived in those states]. I
never got my foreign listing in New Mexico. I always got it in NC,
SC, and GA. But I had to make a complaint with the PSC each time.
This was because no one in the business office had a clue that this
could be done much less knew how to have it done.
So I filed a complaint against Centurylink with the FCC. They sent a
complaint to Centurylink. Centurylink sent a reply saying they
weren't required to do it [which is not true]. The FCC closed the
case without further action. I wrote back to the FCC and protested.
But they did nothing.
My point is that today's FCC might not give you the same results that
those at the FCC all those years ago gave.
I have gotten issues like yours resolved by contacting the county
franchise office [where I then lived] to make a complaint. Usually
that worked for me until I moved to New Mexico. The franchise office
would not intervene [in Dona Ana county where I then lived]. New
Mexico was a very different animal in my humble experience. .
But you might give that a try.
The ultimate solution is to go with a different ISP. That assumes
that there is a second one in your area. If all else fails, you could
go with satellite Internet.
I do not recommend that approach. Hamshack Hotline (HH) does not work
well on satellite Internet. I know that because I spoke to someone in
South Carolina [who used satellite Internet] via HH. The quality was
terrible. And I remember reading [on the HH Web site] that they will
not provide technical support for those who use satellite Internet. Additionally, the time delay can be quite annoying when using
geosynchronous satellites.
Regulatory oversight by PSCs are failing today as well. I live in
Mesa, Arizona now. Our neighborhood has frequent power outages.
After getting nowhere with SRP (Salt River Project (our local power
company)), I wrote a letter to the Arizona Corporation Commission
(ACC) (Arizona's equivalent agency that functions as a PSC)
documenting the exact dates/times of the outages we had over the last
year. Most of them were within the three month period just prior to
when I wrote that letter.
The ACC responded by saying that SRP was not under their jurisdiction.
They did forward a copy of my letter to the SRP Ombudsman office.
SRP's Ombusdsman responded to me saying they were 'aware of the
problem'. They also said that they were replacing power cables in our neighborhood and surrounding areas. They said the project would take
two years [before we got any relief]. What a joke.
I email the lady in their Ombudsman's office each time we have a power
failure in the neighborhood. For a while, they kept saying that it
would be resolved in two years.
However, the last time they said it would take *three* more years.
So for our neighborhood, trying to handle things through regulatory is
a complete and total joke.
Regulatory isn't what it once was.
I am very near writing our state politicians to see if they can apply
some pressure to SRP.
Rotsa ruck,
Fred
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