If I vanish from mortal ken . . .

[jhetley]

. . . or at least from the internet and email, blame FairPoint Communications.

As noted elsewhere on LJ, we are switching from Verizon landline and DSL to FairPoint.  Not through any choice of our own, but having been "sold South" because Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont are unprofitable (read "rural") markets that can't be mined for cash.

Comments

[malkingrey.livejournal.com]

Same here . . . fortunately, we still have a landline through earthlink just in case.

But yeah, they keep promising that the transition will be "seamless." I'll believe it when I see it.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Thus far, test emails sent to the fairpoint email address from hotmail get through. Test messages sent to the old verizon email address . . . don't. In spite of promises that such would be forwarded.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

FWIW, our experience is the landline service is rock solid, don't know about the DSL because we're far outside DSL range, online bill payment still doesn't work after a year.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Well, FairPoint hasn't cut down on the junk call ratio one bit . . .

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

don't see why switching landline provider would. Are you on the Do Not Call list? That stopped virtually all of ours. We get essentially zero telemarketing calls.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

I think "spam filters" could be applied to voice calling, via Caller ID . . .

Yeah, we're on the national Do Not Call list -- Maine had one before the Feds, and we were on that, too. I recall hearing that you had to renew listing after X number of years, but don't have a count-down handy.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Before caller ID became widely integrated into most over-the-counter telephones, you used to be able to buy add-on caller-ID boxes that could be programmed to block up to about a hundred numbers. They don't seem to be available any more. There seem to only be a handful of standalone caller-ID boxes still on the market, and I don't think any of them do blocking.