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Switch from your local phone company to netTALK

Is it really possible to have internet services without phone services from the same provider?

The short answer is yes!

There are several names for the service, such as naked DSL, Internet only (without phone service), DSL only service, etc. depending on who your provider is. Nevertheless the service has almost always existed on cable networks such as Comcast and others. As early as 2007 it started being offered by the likes of Verizon and AT&T, and today is offered by virtually every traditional land line based phone company in the United States.

Why then do we know so little about it and how to get the service?

The answer for this is a bit more indirect. Most phone companies do not post this service on their front page as it is the very last standalone product they want to push. Let's face it, selling bundles always equals more revenue. Often the service is obscured so deep in the web site that one needs to be a web surfing genius to locate it.

Despite the hurdles, more and more people are finding or fighting their way to the right desk and are able to make the switch.

The bigger traditional telephone companies such as AT&T, Verizon, and Qwest are somewhat easy to make the change if you know where to look. Comcast Cable (which now boasts one of the country's largest telephone networks) is easy. Others such as Embarq (now CenturyTel) make it difficult but not impossible.

A quick internet search with such phrases as "how to obtain naked DSL" or "how to obtain standalone DSL" + the name of your service provider will often put you on the right track.

A couple of useful links to get this accomplished with Verizon or AT&T follows:

A couple of good articles on the subject are:

Finally, we invite customers to share advice, or ask questions on our forum: http://forum.nettalk.com so that we can all learn from each other's experience. This will also give us an idea as to where we need to provide specific support to our customers.

 

Switch from a computer dependent VoIP provider to netTALK

Why should PC failure rate be a concern when choosing a VOIP service provider?

On the surface, you would think nothing whatsoever.

Now it is a fact that today's PC's have much lower failure rates as compared to their predecessors which were produced as late as 2005/2006. Nevertheless, first year failure rates still run about 7% and fourth year rates are currently about 12%. Just for expediency we could estimate that second and third year failure rates run about 9% and 11% respectively. This means that 39% of PC owners will experience some failure during the first four years of ownership. These are not bad numbers as the auto industry has higher rates. The downside is that we are so reliant on internet access that any outage starts costing us personal time and often (if used for part of our work) money.

By now you should be asking yourself, where is the relation to this and selecting my VOIP provider?

Just hang on, we are getting there.

The statistics on PC failure are based on average usage, say your PC is on about 8 hours a day. That is to say if you leave your computer on longer, the likelihood of failure increases accordingly. If the likelihood of failure during the first year is 5% under normal usage conditions, then it follows that it could be as high as 15% first year failure if left on 24/7. The subsequent years would then also become susceptible a multiplied failure risk (possibly as high as 36% in year four).

Now here is the clincher, if your VOIP service is only PC USB port dependent, then besides paying a lot more electricity to have your PC running 24/7, you are almost guaranteed to have a PC failure will cost you repair money and lost time (and possible lost revenue) because of it.

So while it is nice to have a VOIP service that can use the USB port, it would be even better if your device could use USB or Ethernet based connections. That way, when you need USB for expediency you have it. However for most usage it can use the Ethernet connection, and not place any wear and tear on your PC.

Finally, the failure rates listed above are for desktop PCs. The failure rate for notebook PCs are significantly higher almost 15% for fist year failures under normal usage.

Whatever solution you consider, we hope you will make netTALK part of your consideration.