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Telephone: NATCO is the local telephone company, and they appear to be a progressive rural Telco. They have analog and ISDN lines available. With my work on multimedia over IP, perhaps my future teenagers' phone lines will be VoIP.
Internet: I had to give up my ATT Broadband access, but I've been working with NATCO on ADSL service from the Omaha POP. NATCO notified me yesterday that the service will be activated at my residence on February 23, 2003! Yes! I'll be able to do my job! So far, the service has been really good. I'm quite pleased. Cost is a bit high, though, because they decided at the last minute to charge me business rates for my VPN access, even though my usage really is lower than someone listening to internet radio or viewing movie trailers. Update: July 13. Service has been quite reliable. I've noticed a bit of packet loss on the audio and video connections since school let out, but I don't yet know whether it is on the NATCO end or my employer's end. But it's still quite good.
Entertainment: I suspect that I'll be nagged into signing up for Dish Network, not because I watch any TV, but because the kids have always wanted to
get Cartoon Network. Wireless: I will surely miss my SPRINT PCS service! I'll have to see what's available. Update: 2/27/2003: We signed up for cellular service with Cingular. It's been quite an unpleasant adventure
so far. The Arkanasas Home plan covers every place we travel, but sometimes Jill's phone was connecting to a tower in Kansas City (200 miles away!) when she goes to Springfield, MO, and we were getting charged horrendous roaming charges. Changed to National preferred plan to fix that situation, and we suddenly get charged for connecting to a tower in West Plaines, MO. It turns out that Cingular plays some funky games with the meanings of the word "extended" and abuses its customers either way. From a careful analysis of their coverage and service plans, it now looks like the National plan is the only one that closes the loopholes, and the pricing is not very attractive. Sigh. I REALLY miss SPRINT! Oh, it gets even better! Our two phones cost us $56/month TOTAL for SPRINT; with Cingular, so far in TWO months we've been charged over $300 in connection fees, for our lousy 100 minutes of calls we've made. Tis bad, truly! |
