@my4mainecoons said in Is digital better than POTS?:

So if I lose electricity then I lose internet and phone service? I’ve heard of battery back up for fiber. How long does that battery last?

I’ve always felt safer having a landline during power outages. I have ~4 outages a year.

I had DSL and cable with cable being the default. Often I’d find that I was using DSL because the cable had gone down long enough for the DSL to kick in. This was with electricity. Does fiber randomly go down too?

I’ve bought Trac Fones with a year of service and failed to activate the service in time 🙁. I use one for iBotta with WiFi. The battery drains between uses so even if it had phone service it wouldn’t be a good back up plan.

@my4mainecoons Battery backup runtime depends on the size of the battery. Not the wattage or the Va hours, but the battery itself in relation to the wattage consumed. Getting the size of the UPS right is a whole separate but related discussion. I have a battery on my router and the Ooma, but if my ISP goes out, the battery doesn’t help. The cell phone is the only reason I even considered Internet phone.

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@my4mainecoons said in Is digital better than POTS?:

@mtnagel I knew I was “special” 😁 but I use email more than a phone so not quite that demographic.
I had a flip phone for many years. Then I changed jobs and over 50% of my hour long commute had spotty if any cell service. I went off the road once and there was no service. A snowplow driver radioed for a tow truck.

BUT, should I keep my POTS or switch to a digital line?

@my4mainecoons Pro and cons to switching. Biggest concern for me is if my internet connection goes out, I have no phone. If you really don’t have a cell phone, then you would be putting all of your voice communication on your internet line. Same thing with your alarm system if you have one, unless the alarm system is on a cellular connection.

Cheaper to be on internet phone and what tech support will do is install an adapter to convert the internet phone signal so that your “legacy” phone equipment can use the internet phone signal. Disclaimer - I used to be a network engineer and did my share of conversion of legacy/digital to IP/internet phone systems.

What I do is I use a product called Ooma. It lets me use my internet connection to make phone calls and I believe you can move your existing phone number to Ooma, but best to check with them. Service costs about $5 per month without any of their “premium” features which I don’t need, so compare the features and cost to what your fiber provider is offering. You would have to buy the Ooma equipment, but it’s relatively inexpensive and I made my money back in about four months and have been ahead ever since. Ooma makes a base that connects to your router with an ethernet cable, and another model that connects wirelessly. I do have a cell phone, but you could buy a prepaid phone with 100 minutes relatively inexpensively and use that when your internet phone is not working, especially if you have an emergency and your internet phone is not available.

Ooma is less expensive on Amazon than it is on the Ooma website. I bought on Amazon.

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@kimi said in Amazon Prime $15 Amazon credit when you spend $50, Dawn Powerwash, Garbage Bags, Tissues, Etc | Take Off Now | ExpUnk:

@zerenia said in Amazon Prime $15 Amazon credit when you spend $50, Dawn Powerwash, Garbage Bags, Tissues, Etc | Take Off Now | ExpUnk:

@my4mainecoons said in Amazon Prime $15 Amazon credit when you spend $50, Dawn Powerwash, Garbage Bags, Tissues, Etc | Take Off Now | ExpUnk:

@zerenia You know about the P&G rebate, right?

@my4mainecoons Forgot all about it, but at least I’ll be able to get the $5 back on $20. Thanks for the reminder.

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FYI, the P&G rebates allow multiple receipts.

Saw that. There are also two promotions going on at the same time and the instructions seem to indicate that you can participate in both promotions as long as you don’t try to use the same recepts for both promotions.

https://www.pggoodeveryday.com/rebates/?rebate_name=holiday
https://www.pggoodeveryday.com/rebates/?rebate_name=nfl

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Just grabbed Doom Eternal. The Store suggested that my graphics were not good enough to play, but it looked fine and responded well.

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@my4mainecoons said in Amazon Prime $15 Amazon credit when you spend $50, Dawn Powerwash, Garbage Bags, Tissues, Etc | Take Off Now | ExpUnk:

@zerenia You know about the P&G rebate, right?

@my4mainecoons Forgot all about it, but at least I’ll be able to get the $5 back on $20. Thanks for the reminder.

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@my4mainecoons said in Got a notification that I'm being followed by a business:

@zerenia Go to Followers. Click on their avatar for their profile. Click Report User (?). Then Ignore User. I “think” Russ takes care of them. If you don’t ignore them they stay as a Follower but it will show that they’re banned.

@my4mainecoons Will do - thanks!

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@my4mainecoons said in Got a notification that I'm being followed by a business:

@zerenia They’re spam. Just report them.

@my4mainecoons How do I report them? I didn’t see any instructions or forum to report.

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I’m in a Cribbage league and a Hearts league, so these will come in handy.

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Two Cascade Pods and Two Mrs. Meyer’s hand soaps - $52.64 plus tax.

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