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UtterlyBoring.com is produced by Jake Ortman (e-mail, resume), a 30-year-old dad, percussionist, freelance Web designer, consultant and jack-of-all-trades computer geek, living in Bend, Oregon. He created this so that his expensive journalism and technology degree isn't getting totally wasted. In addition to editing this site in his free time, he is the IT Director and Ad Designer at both Sunray and Discover Sunriver. He has LinkedIn, MySpace, Facebook profiles if you're trying to stalk him.
Opinions and comments on this site are the opinions of the author, not the author's employer, family, friends or pets. This site is powered by Movable Type and is hosted by orty.com. Internet connection provided by Bend BroadBand. Since December 1st, 2002, there have been 5270 entries. Visitors to this blog have posted 16543 comments. If you're reading this, you have too much time on your hands. |
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Bend Broadband Offering Phone Service, But Is It Worth It?As I mentioned before Bend Broadband does sponsor this blog. They have an ad right up there on the top right of this page (which is now linked to the service I'm going to talk about). Part of my agreement with putting up their ads was that I reserve the right to post commentary about their services and products, and this is going to be one of those times. BendBroadband has introduced a new home phone service. Starting at $40/month (assuming you already have cable TV and high-speed internet with them, otherwise the price goes up), you get unlimited local and long distance phone calls in the lower 48 states, caller ID, voice mail, and a whole slew of additional features. But $40? Yes, it's a pile of great features, and since it's the cable company they can probably give traffic priority to your voice calls and there's always the convenience of having it everything on one bill (which is Qwest's big pitch). But it just doesn't seem worth it to me unless you make a lot of long-distance calls (which I don't) and even then you can get services like Vonage that are quite a bit cheaper and provide just as many features. Talking to the folks at BendBroadband, they're considering a "lite" option for folks who don't need long distance access, but it'll still probably be too expensive for me. I spend a grand total (including all stupid fees) of $25/month on my phone service from Qwest. I don't need any of that fancy additional services crap -- I just want a phone that will work all the time at a cheap rate. Heck, even if you wanted all those features that BendBroadband provides, there are other local phone companies like BendTel that provide all those services over your regular phone line -- no special equipment required -- at a very decent price. So for now, this will be a service of theirs I'm going to avoid, mostly because of the cost, but if anybody else has any input or has tried it (they're currently rolling out in the Redmond/Terrebone area with Bend coming next month), let me know! I told them I'd be a beta tester if they wanted a review, but haven't heard back on that one yet (not holding my breath). Posted by Jake on 01/05/06 @ 02:04 PM
Posted in Geekdom, Interesting, Local | 12 Comments | Permalink Submit to digg, del.icio.us, reddit, or stumbleupon 12 CommentsRandom Reader(from your christmas post) said on 01/05/06 @ 02:21 PM:Make sure they provide free 911 calling... dont want another Houston(where i live) fiasco happening again. pat said on 01/05/06 @ 05:57 PM: what happened in houston? Jake said on 01/05/06 @ 07:37 PM: I'm curious, too.... shannon said on 01/05/06 @ 08:09 PM: Unicom offers residential phone service too and DSL that's pretty cheap. Random Reader( said on 01/05/06 @ 08:52 PM: basically if i remember correctly this was a few months ago where the broadband company vonage provided service and neglected to mention you have to pay extra for 911 calls, it is not included, so then this happened and that opened the eyes of people didnt even know and the texas AG sued vonage and by that time i think the article mentioned at least 100,000 people were signed up and werent getting 911 service. Patrick said on 01/06/06 @ 04:41 AM: I think the FCC requires them to provide 911 service. I do remember hearing stories like this as well though, with the FCC rule being the result. As an aside, recently my brother tried calling 911 from his cell phone. His service provider had it ring into Phoenix over 150 miles away from Flagstaff were he called from. Leslie said on 01/06/06 @ 03:18 PM: BendBroadband Phone does support 911 service and has a battery backup included in the event of a power outage--unlike Vonage. Eric said on 01/07/06 @ 06:25 AM: If you call 9-1-1 on your Bend Broadband phone system, will your address automatically appear on the enhanced 9-1-1 screen at dispatch? Many of these VOIP systems do not allow that, and so you must be able to tell the dispatcher your address, something that can't always occur (fires, domestic violence assaults, kids that don't know their address, etc). Jake said on 01/07/06 @ 08:02 AM: According to their specs, Eric, the address does get sent to the dispatcher. Leslie said on 01/09/06 @ 08:09 AM: Yes, our E911 feature will automatically display the address where your BendBroadband phone service is located. If you are at a different address you need to notify the dispatcher and it is important to keep your account information up to date with BendBroadband as well. Rick said on 01/09/06 @ 08:23 AM: The Vonage E911 service is rolling out changes that will allow your calls to be routed with address info as well. I have 0 complaints about my Vonage service, and the price is great. I looked at Comcast to provide phone, but the cost was similar, and Vonage is $25/month for everything. I also do use my router to prioritize the port that the voice service is on. I haven't noticed any degradation in quality, no matter what I'm doing... When you are talking about a battery backup, do you mean at the customer's home? I cant see how a $50 piece of equipment justifies an extra $15 monthly, at least for more than a few months...... Leslie said on 01/10/06 @ 03:39 PM: BendBroadband Phone has several advantages over VoIP providers like Vonage and one is the priority handling of the voice data packet on our network. Also with BBB phone all of the phone jacks in your house will be activated and you will have access to all of our phone features from all of your existing phones. With Vonage you only get the features on one phone unless you have a special phone. And with Vonage you need to have a high-speed internet connection to use the service. With BendBroadband you don’t have to have InstaNet, but you will save $10 off your InstaNet with our phone service and you will save $5 off our phone service. Also, Vonage is unable to assign new phone numbers with a 541 area code, they can only transfer phone numbers. BendBroadband Phone may not be for everyone but I think compared to other phone providers we offer a great phone product from a local company. Post a comment |
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