05-05-05 (Or Bye, Bye, MCI)

An article by Don Quixote    1 Comment

I love numbers.

I love the patterns they make; the way there is some magical significance to the strange repetition of the numbers. What do they mean, do they spell out any hidden mystery? I don’t know.

Today is Cinco De Mayo. What is Cinco De Mayo? Well it’s the commemorates the victory of the Mexicans over the French army at The Battle Of Puebla in 1862. It is primarily a regional holiday celebrated in the Mexican state capital city of Puebla and throughout the state of Puebla, with some recognition in other parts of the Mexico, and especially in U.S. cities with a significant Mexican population. It is not, as many people think, Mexico’s Independence Day, which is actually September 16. (MexOnline.com)

So there you go. It’s not independence, it’s a victory over the French, and I think that’s something we can all relate to.

Speaking of victories over the French, Michelle and I made one small step for man against the oppressive French sounding phone company, MCI.

I live on my phone, but for me, it’s my cell phone. Michelle and I hardly ever use our landline (no one ever calls us there and we hardly call anyone from it – save pizza delivery or something of that nature). So we got tired of paying a lot of dough (pun intended) for what we were using it for.

So about a year or so ago we switched to MCI’s “The Neighborhood” since it was supposed to be cheap. Well we end up paying $57 for local and long distance to place like 10 local calls and 2 long distance calls a month. Kinda poopy if you ask me.

Well, you need a landline, so what are you going to do right?

Flash back to a month ago.

Despite being on the national “Do Not Call List”, we started getting fax calls coming to our house. How? The Good Lord only knows. But off and on (sometimes once a day [2 calls back to back], sometimes more) we’ve been getting those annoying beebs left on our answering machine.

The crappy part? Unknown caller.

So I called MCI (well, Michelle did since originally the account was setup in her name) and said, “hey, what can you do for us?” Well after spending 20 minutes speaking to some guy in Pakistan, basically nothing. If we can get a number, they can block it for an additional $5 a month.

Screw that.

So I got to thinking, heck, I’m an uber-geek. What would an uber-geek do about his phone service?

Enter Vonage.com.

Within 10 minutes I had an account setup, they were sending me the equipment I needed and my who unlimited local and long distance (even to Canada – heck, time to find some friends in Canada) is only $24.99 a month and all their accounts come standard with tele-marking blockers and fax blasters… Bye, bye Mr. Incoming-fax-guy.

I’m kinda excited, it’ll be an interested experience to see how it really works. I’ll keep you all posted.