Mindless Rambling

You gotta love the technological options that we have these days.  Take for instance the telephone.  Back in the day there was only the Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS) Line – unless you go waaaay back in the day with telegraph and cups with string.

But now we have many options.  You can still have a POTS line run to your house.  You can use your internet connection and use Voice Over IP (VOIP) service.  You can not have a home phone line at all and just use your cell phone.

Let me first explain somewhat my situation.  My work has me telecommuting 70% of the time.  That means I’m sitting in my home “office” (today it’s my dining room table) and spending most of my time on teleconferences.  I’ll typically spend 2-6 hours a day on the telephone with conference calls.

Here’s what really grinds my gears.

The quality on my cell phone is a million times better than my first cell phone 10 years ago.  But it’s still not as good as the Plain Old Telephone Service line.  It will cut out on me frequently.  It’s scratchy every other second.  Basically it sucks for anything more than a casual conversation about what bar we’re going to happy hour at.

Then there’s VOIP – the new and upcoming technology where you can use your internet for your phone line.  I’ve had mixed results with VOIP.  One service that I subscribed to for about three years had par phone quality.  If I happened to be using the internet at the same time, forget it.  And what kind of technological telecommuter isn’t using the internet at the same time they are on teleconferences.  All professional work related internet use of course (note to self, change publish time on this post).  I’ve been at offices which use VOIP for the entire site’s telephone services, and those seem fine.  But that’s commercial service.  Now I’ve also been at some homes with VOIP and their service is fine.  I think my experience may have been a combination of the VOIP provider and the particular internet service provider I had at the time (I’ve since switched away from the devil and seen the light).

So then there’s the home telephone line.  Plain.  Old. But wait – not so old.  Over the past years the phone companies have upgraded all the infrastructure to support various new technologies available and along with it those upgrades help out the home phone service as well.

So yes.  I am a techno-geek, and I use POTS phone service.

Now – what I really want is a way to use my Jawbone Bluetooth headset with my POTS service.  Haven’t quite been able to figure that one out yet.  If you don’t have a Jawbone, find one half price and get it – then it’s worth it.