Michael’s pulling the plug on the server that this website has run on since 2003.

The ‘server’ has changed dramatically in constitution since it all began way back when, but… wow. An astonishingly large part of my teenage years. For the longest time, it seemed as though the Internet had altogether ceased to exist everytime Dale’s connection went out. In the early days, we were all running servers on port 1200 to circumvent ISP restrictions on port 80. phpBB was the order of the day, running Apache — on a pirated copy of Windows 2000 (those were the days in which “legitmate software” constituted an oxymoron). Operating on an early ADSL link with 64kbps upload, forum emoticons were hosted on free web space provided by iiNet in order to conserve bandwidth. You laugh now, but the speed boost was incredible. Every time iiNet dropped out (to future readers: that’s what happens when the internet goes out for a couple of hours, none of this occasional connection time-out rubbish), an irate explanatory post from mwdmeyer would emerge and life would continue as normal. Until parents discovered the server running and turned it off again, which would spark an effort to conceal yet another computer in a room crowded full of equipment. About halfway through 2004, they gave up searching.

These were the days (for me) of NE2000 clones powering Smoothwall/m0n0wall routers, recycling hardware, a subscription to Atomic before all the other kids (I bought more geeky magazines than anyone I know–I think it was that strange meeting place of compters, creativity, and cant that I later became comfortable with), when GeForce 2’s and Pentium 4’s (the first ones with RDRAM that everyone despised) and DDR-supporting Athlons were still zippy. When frame-based redirects passed for domain names — .tk, anyone?

Mostly, it was about the forums… but as for personal publishing, this was no small resource. My first dynamic website was a blog hosted on that server — I don’t think it yet had a name — we all rolled our own web software in those days (it’s not that long ago). Some of us still do. The first domain name acquired was Dale’s, in March 2004, co-inciding (more or less) with the forums’ first birthday. Twelve US dollars later (Joker.com’s prices still haven’t changed), we were all still using frame-based redirects — static IPs were the stuff of pipe-dreams, and Dynamic DNS, though around, was outside of the experience of most of us. Steve ran a notoriously-flaky IIS server with real domains and Exchange, but paid about $150 a month for the privilege: static IPs being available only on business grade internet connections.

These are mere details. The forums themselves constitute an amazing chronicle of the lives of mwdmeyer, ucosty, Sammy, i_am_a_n00bie, Smile:), smKz, n|cktangents, angelicdeity, baibai, Sphinx^, ludvikas, and a handful of others over a fairly tumultuous time. There is so much not recorded explicitly that surrounds the nearly 16,000 messages from these eleven users alone. Some has been suppressed, other parts forgotten, but all of it inextricably linked together in the momentum of time. There are some things about that time which will never be shared with those who weren’t around.

The forums didn’t survive post-school. This shouldn’t be surprising, given the amount of research that says this will be the case for any given relationships faced with that manner of transition, but it was still bizarre witnessing what would have been several months of time spent on a single website evaporate into (not much). The server moved from Balmain to Marian Street, eventually finding its way into a rack there. This is where things get hazy for me. I think the last time I saw Michael might’ve been New Years’ Eve 2005/2006… I feel some sense of guilt about that, but recognise mutual busy-ness had a role such that neither of us should be blamed alone. I don’t believe that a blameless “but things changed” is ever sufficient when talking about close relationships. I’m fairly certain my closest friend for about two years at school is someone that I no longer have anything to do with, but can’t explain why. And I know that I can’t in any way blame him, because I’m so guilty of failing to keep working on relationships myself.

I suppose the point of all this is that the computer formally known as ‘Metro’, now ‘Loki’ (I don’t know how it got that name — Loki to me is an amazing contributor to Linux-based gaming, 2000–2002 RIP, but it could just as easily have been named after the Norse trickster and Odin’s wily accomplice!) isn’t just the latest in a series of bits of electronic gear that some markup and pixels have been piped off for a couple of years. This is just one step closer to a complete closure of a very large chapter of my life… and, yeah, that’s incredibly sad.

Please don’t for a minute consider this to be my arguing that Loki should stay switched on — it’s about something far greater and more personal than a startlingly reliable FreeBSD web server that just happened to host a website for free for a long time.

There aren’t too many people you can make sit in the back of a car on their 18th birthday, much less who will laugh along with as it happens.

This isn’t an obituary, just a poor expression of remorse at the (human) disconnection and ‘drifted’ relationships of that era. Michael, once all this stupid uni crap gets out of the way (maybe after you move again?), I owe you a fairly large drink.

Thankyou.

Ah well, under an hour for 1.2GB of files isn’t too bad ;) *chuckles at ADSL people who are awed by non-Telstra DSLAMs that do 2Mbit/s*

So, awareness/interest catalysts are there. I’d looked/heard about the Asterisk software some time ago, but sort of wrote it off as not quite worth the effort. More recently, however, we’ve been trying to get general ICT stuff sorted for the new place of residence, in a way that’ll let us cut costs a little.

Context: We’re a household of six, and about that many functional computers (give or take two depending on whatever) at any one time. We’ve got three mobiles (the siblings don’t, yet), and had one landline (there are two lines where I’m staying, one listed, one not — but that’s only temporary so it doesn’t count), which was used for voice and data. We’d had HFC TV/data cable run into our house previously, but didn’t use it for either CATV or Internet.

So Dad’s wanting to figure out a way to get rid of the landline, or at least cut the costs of having it there, seeing we’re going to be using Telstra Cable (and therefore don’t need the copper). Unlike the other major telco here in Australia, Optus, Telstra don’t run telephony over HFC even if it’s installed at the premises — most likely as a business decision (they’ve already made considerable outlay in installing and maintaining a copper network, which they’re going to try and make people think they continue to need for as long as humanly possible — they get line rental, LSS, DSLAM port fees and (from some customers) ADSL revenue all off the same single service!)

Dad’s idea: Use capped local call costs with mobile telephony provider, Orange, to eliminate need for copper. The limitation? Maximum 10 minute calls before we need to redial/pay standard rates, and inability to use data/fax (well, okay, not complete inability… but sufficiently difficult). Yeah, there are caps with other providers like Vodafone and 3, but even $59 caps would be more/about the same than/as we’d otherwise spend.

Josh’s idea: True VoIP (not softphone) hardware solution, with (at least one) DID line, running over HFC Internet. Dad had suggested VoIP previously, but I think I’d kind of assumed he was talking about doing it on the cheap (so, crappy desktop calling software — something like FireFly, which is fine just for fun, but not if you’re actually using it to make calls regularly) — and basically said “no” outright. Essentially this solution would either involve dedicated hardware or an Asterisk server connected to an Internet Telephony Provider IAX.

All this is fine. It’s all making sense. It’s just that there are waaaaaay too many new TLAs for my comfort — I’ve made an effort to use acronym markup on most new terms in this post, but it really needs a glossary at the end! If I can be bothered, I’ll do that when this post finishes…

Basically, everything is perfectly normal thus far. There’s no really difficult concepts to grasp — it’s just “plug in a Grandstream ATA, hit the web interface, sign up for an account with a provider and start making and receiving calls”. But you know, that’d be boring. That’d really suck. Why? Well, when you’ve got Cat5 coming out of your ears between rooms, you may as well use it.

Asterisk will manage calling, call routing, call waiting, voicemail, DND, hold music, diverts, CID and everything else under the sun. Even if there’s only one DID number, it’s still possible to have multiple incoming lines per number for a nominal fee (with ATP it’s $AU5.50 per month inc. GST), and there’s no limit (bandwidth aside) to the number of simultaneous outgoing calls that are possible (although, according to Dave, who is also on Telstra cable, things start to get painful above 4 calls). The easiest way to use phones with Asterisk is with VoIP SIP telephony devices, which plug into standard RJ45 network sockets and connect directly to the server using data. Why not do this? Well, for one, you lose all the functionality of any analogue telephony equipment you might have lying around.

So how do you get this kind of equipment to work? This is where the more confusing and difficult to remember acronyms (at least for me) set in. Asterisk can interface with standard PSTN lines, functioning as a non-VoIP PBX system with the requisite hardware installed — namely, FXS and FXO modules. Standard analogue equipment (phones, fax machines, etc.) plugs into FXS ports on the PBX, whilst PSTN lines connect into FXO ports. Digium, principle sponsor of the Asterisk project, have a great explanation of the relationship between the Asterisk PBX and FXS/FXO modules, complete with diagrams.

We’ve only really got one analogue phone worth keeping, which is a Uniden cordless thing with two handsets (base station and separate charger for the second handset), and that’s what I’d interface via an FXS to the PBX, as well as a second FXS for a fax machine. I’m a tad uncertain as to how well fax data will work over VoIP, but that’s a question for the FaktorTel support team when it comes to actually signing up for stuff.

There is only one other hesitation surrounding VoIP, and that’s the issue of emergency calling (“000” in Australia, “911” for US… I don’t know about the rest of the world, sorry). If there’s a power failure or the Internet goes out, how do we make calls to the outside world in the event of an emergency? Well, logic prevails — in a household with three mobiles on two different networks (three if you’re counting roaming), chances are that at least one of them will be working fine in the event of an emergency… and if they’re not, then the telephony networks in Australia are probably so stuffed that even if we were calling over a PSTN line, it’d probably not work either!

So there’s an essay about VoIP for you. And what I sort of want to do with it. I haven’t forgotten about the acronyms, by the way: here’s a list of terms for you…

Glossary

ADSL

Asymmetrical Digital Subscriber Line

ATA

Analogue Telephone Adapter

CATV

Cable TV

CID

Caller Identification

DID

Direct In-Dial

DND

Do-Not-Disturb, the ability to disable ringing on a certain phone/line

DSLAM

Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexer

FXO

Foreign Exchange Office, a port into which PSTN lines are connected.

FXS

Foreign Exchange Station, a port into which handsets and analogue equipment is connected

HFC

Hybrid Fibre (over) Coaxial

IAX

Inter-Asterisk Exchange

ICT

Information and Communication Technology

LSS

Line Spectrum Sharing, service required to run telephony and ADSL over the same copper

PABX

Private Automatic Branch eXchange

PBX

Private Branch eXchange, generally a contraction of “PABX”, as manually switched exchanges are related to dinosaurs.

POTS

Plain Old Telephone System, also PSTN

PSTN

Public Switched Telephone Network

SIP

Session Initiation Protocol, an IETF standard protocol for initiating connections for interactive platforms, including VoIP

SSH

Secure SHell

VoIP

Voice over I.P. (“Internet Protocol”)

*watches ADSL link chill with it, and smiles*

Later: Josh has calmed down, and commences writing a rant about the issue. The long turnaround is because I was out last night/this morning, not because I took that long to calm down. Still annoyed, though…

I read with some amusement, mere minutes after receiving a phone call from Freetel, a post on Slashdot entitled “Spam Over Internet Telephony (SPIT) to Come?”, which points to an article by NewScientist, “Move over spam, make way for “spit””. The scenario detailed in this article is one which I’m yet to experience in that form, as a by-product of my failure to yet adopt VoIP telephony solutions, however this kind of marketing is hardly new.

Do you want to discuss the cost-saving benefits of this over conventional telemarketing schemes? I’m sure that data is far cheaper in this day and age than the ridiculous “circuit-switched” (and you have to wonder how much of it is, anymore) pricing schemes of the telco organisations around the world. Not in dispute. I’m also (fairly) sure that in most of the world, it’s cheaper to have a computer sitting there making phone calls, rather than a person. Additionally, you’re just as likely to hit people sufficiently impulsive and/or stupid enough to buy your product. Don’t believe me? A study released earlier this year revealed that unsolicited bulk email actually WAS effective, simply because the returns only had to be minimal to cover the even more minimal cost. People spam, people do telemarketing — There, case for VoIP marketing.

And what about a combination of the two technologies? We all know frogs go… I mean… we all know that VoIP takeup in this continent at least leaves a fair bit to be desired, so far as extensive telemarketing potential audiences are concerned. And that said, those who have adopted here are most likely those who wouldn’t respond so well to telemarketing anyway — indeed, telemarketing may have been one of the reasons behind their moving away from conventional telephony services, so they can use VoIP gateways to automatically screen callers based on CID information, and other things… I’m not going to go too geeky at this point, but it’s been discussed at length in the past.

So, there’s no market worth touching in VoIP marketing in Australia as yet. That doesn’t mean EvilBusinesses™ can’t capitalise on the cost-cutting benefits of using computers to make phone calls, instead of people. Qovia, an Internet Appliance/VoIP monitoring equipment provider, has developed a system to send out 1,000 calls every five seconds, according to this CNET News article. And they’re the good guys. (So, they’re not selling that tech to anyone… big deal. Think conceptually, that’s far more important.)

There is a perfectly legitimate application of this technology, of course. My local library uses an automated calling system to notify and remind members of overdue books, which is excellent. I’m sure that this could be applied in many other spheres, too — not the least of which is any sizeable consultation business, specifically thinking of those in the medical field. Administration times could be cut, if calls were automatically made to say “Good [time of day], [name]. [Business name] is calling to remind you of your appointment tomorrow, [date], at [time]. If you believe this time is incorrect, contact us on [callback], or press [key number] to speak to an operator.”

That’s a concept, of course, but one which could be very easily and readily implemented (heck, for all I know, it probably has been)… the point stands, there are “good” applications for this technology, which I wouldn’t object to at all. That said, Freetel aren’t applying this in a “good” manner.

I don’t know if they’re using a VoIP/POTS gateway, or what. More to the point, I don’t care. I’m vaguely curious, but only because I have a vague ambition of doing something to break it. Technically, if I were really interested, there are people I can speak to about how this stuff works… besides, Google has most of the answers, anyway.

A company with whom I have had no previous association or foreknowledge of, Freetel, called my landline telephone number (ADSL line) yesterday afternoon. I don’t recall the exact details of the call, so to avoid accusations of libel at a later time, the following version of events is that to the best of my recollection. I say this, because it was impossible for me to record the call in a more definite manner, by means of recording device, or manual transcription, seeing I wasn’t expecting a phone call of this nature. So if you wish to sue, please, make my day. I haven’t got money for lawyers, but meh. Oh, I’m sorry, I published content of a questionable nature on my personal website, visited by close friends and a few others. If it makes you feel any better, I would have probably slandered your company’s good name to them in other personal correspondence by the time you read this message. All good? Excellent. Continuing.

Upon answering the phone, the manner and ambient noise (or lack thereof) distinguished the caller instantly as a recording. So that was stupid. The voice-actor responsible performed poorly, and the post-work on the recording was equally unimpressive; both should be shot. First suspicious element? I think one of the earliest words spoken was “congratulations”. I had, apparently, been selected as one of one-hundred (that number I recall with clarity) lucky people in “my area” (what they define “my area” as remains unclarified… I tend to think “my area” may have been the one-hundred numbers immediately above and below my own, but this is speculation) to receive this amazing offer of FREE phone calls! Wow!

You have no idea how stoked I am at this point. I don’t think I’ve ever been so excited by a telemarketer. Now, maybe I’m just lucky, but I don’t think I’ve ever been hit with a telemarketing call which sounded this genuinely dodgy. For example, I’ve never been offered a free set of steak-knives, or anything else for that matter, whilst on the phone. Possibly something extra for no additional cost, but certainly not just outright “free”. So that was stupid. The copy for this recording was poorly prepared, and the copy writer responsible should be shot.

I’m holding the phone, still, although shaking somewhat. I’ve realised, this is the first electronic phone-spam I’ve ever received — far from being a historic moment, I’m furious. This is not an experience I’d like to become commonplace, as I hold the telephony medium in some esteem for its’ direct, peer-to-peer nature, in which instant feedback is possible. I’m reading a book at the minute, entitled “Alphabet to Email”, by Naomi S. Baron, a Professor of Linguistics at American University. In it, she has a chapter entitled “Why the Jury’s Still Out on Email”, which begins with two quotations, reading

It might help to consider the [email] message as a written verbal communication rather than real writing.¹

[Computer conferencing is like] writing letters which are mailed over the telephone.²

^1. Shapiro and Anderson 1985:21
^2. Jim Girard, quoted in Spitzer 1986:19

I’d disagree. I think that approaching an electronic medium such as email in that manner restricts it, and isn’t true to the significant differences the medium holds to others — telephony being the pertinent example here. The inside-cover recto page of this book contains an expanded blurb. Get this:

Many children who seldom spoke to their parents at home now communicate with them through email.

Bang? At any rate, there are significant differences between the two mediums, and, as far as I’m concerned, neither of them encroaches on the space of the other. Telephony provides potential for immediate feedback (at least, in the conventional approach taken to it), whilst email permits time for greater consideration and response. The likening of email to “written verbal communication” is the result of narrow-minded people who have adapted to, rather than grown with, technology, failing to view it as being directly analogous with another medium, and thus drawing loose similarities in bold lines, to make themselves more comforable with a “different” media form. No, I haven’t got a degree in this stuff. Yes, I want one. In this instance, however, I like to think that I’m right, and they’re confused. This isn’t Wagner’s mixed-up world of magnificently combined multimedia — I’m sorry. Mediums are separate, and that’s how they’ll remain in some instances. They don’t have to be “the same” as what came before, not even similar. Think outside the square.

Yes, outside the square. That’s what these computer-powered telemarketers seem to be doing — applying a medium proven effective by mass application, rather than relative effectiveness, and (theoretically) benefiting from it.

Well, I’m sorry. That doesn’t appeal to me. You know what? If your product will filter out voice-spam calls, then I’m happy. I’ll buy it… if it displays value for money compared to what I’ve got already. Oh, yeah, and if your initial contact isn’t so dodgy that I wouldn’t consider following it up to purchase. And if you think you do anti-evil-call filtering, then wake up — you’re not Qovia (who, incidentally, have already filed for patent on this one), so get over yourselves. Meanwhile, I’ll just sit here, white-faced and shaking, every time I receive a phone call from a computer. But, you know what makes all of this worse? The system behind it was evidently poorly developed, even from a user perspective. A few kilometers up this rather lengthy blog post, I discussed the potential of this technology for appointment reminders, using customisable elements as part of a voice-call macro.

Ideally, Freetel would have utilised a similar method, such that when the phone number was skimmed from a database (presumably from White Pages/Telstra/Sensis’ directory on CD, or similar), the name was also recorded. Hence, it would be possible to initiate the call with “Good [time of day], [gender title] [last name]. I am calling from a telemarketing sc… erm… Freetel” — note that not even a time-greeting was included.

The reason I’m commenting on this at all is not simply because I believe it’d make the system more personable, but because they’ve failed so miserably at making any attempt to do so. Example? Okay. The first stage of the recording concludes, and the user is given a single prompt. Yes, that’s right. It’s perfectly linear — there is no alternative, but to hang up; something that people may do at any time of their own volition even without prompting — and yet the user is still presented with a “choice”. The prompt goes something like “Press 1 to find out how to take advantage of this amazing offer.”, and then a recording gives a message. From a usability point, this is stupid. This has been discussed (on Web Standards Group, amongst other places) more than a few times with people who deal with human/machine interaction systems, and the conclusion we always seem to wind up at is that programmers don’t give users enough credit, in most instances. This doesn’t mean don’t code systems without usability in mind, but it does mean you needn’t put in extra pointless steps to “explain” things to users. So, the human interaction specialists should be shot.

After this message, the user is told to leave their name and phone number after the tone. In hindsight, I wish I’d left a longer message — I said something along the lines of “Hi, I’m the person you just called. Go jump.” Now, regardless as to the call cost, I was tying up a POTS line somewhere… that’s one less other call they could be making at that time. I was sufficiently abusive, I think, but in retrospect I’m wishing I had left my name and website address… as it stands, I’m going to have to now chase them up, find contact numbers, and then point them in the direction of this post. If you’re reading this, hi guys… you should be shot.

This event saddens me greatly, as I maintain that this screwdriver was, without a doubt, the best in the world. Sadly, I can’t find a photo at this time — if/when we are reunited, I’ll be sure to post happy-snaps for all the world to see.

In the meantime, I must be content with using the world’s bluntest not-Swiss-Army knife, and the garden clips you see on the right of your screen (or, if you’re using a browser which sucks, the image located slightly above… at least, the alt description is “The Wilkinson Sword, garden clippers extraordinaire!”). Spectacular though these utilities may be, I miss my screwdriver.

Yes, I really did use those garden clips on a computer, and no, I feel no remorse. Someone whinged at me about blunting them, but I promptly started whinging back about how some horrible monster had swallowed my screwdriver, magnetic tips and all, so they soon shut up. The network card in question is no worse off, I’m glad to inform you all. And neither is the Voodoo 5, to the best of my knowledge… it’s currently sitting, quite unused, on my desk doing absolutely nothing.

Why? Well, it was sitting in my makeshift “router”, wasn’t it… and that’s just throughly stupid! In fact, that router was equipped with an overclocked Pentium 3 running at 560MHz (112MHz FSB), 256MB of RAM, a 64MB Voodoo 5 5500, and a Creative PCI soundcard, the model of which I haven’t bothered to ascertain… although, from vague memory, I think it’s a Vibra 128. Oh, yeah, and an intel Pro NIC and another generic Realtek 8139 card. Does that seem utterly pointless to anyone else?

I know, other people are (or were, once upon a time) running equally stupid Smoothwall system configurations, but that doesn’t make it any better — I have this vague dream in which I manage to build a router that is actually QUIET for once! Shocking, I know. Well, this Pentium 3, when I grabbed it from the shelf, was already so much quieter than the old router was — despite having a graphics card which needs molex power, and has two fans running at full bore… not to mention the extra case fan or two.

That doesn’t matter, though. The old router sounded much like a jet engine when starting up… I’ve been meaning to ask an environmental audio guy if I can borrow a meter for the weekend some time, just for the fun of having some real numbers. At any rate, even the new system was more noisy than it should be; let’s not start on power consumption.

I opened it up, removed the sound card, which was UTTERLY unnecessary, using the painfully BLUNT knife as a screwdriver. Next up? That graphics card has to go! Unplug molex (why is that always so hard?!), try to unscrew with knife. This isn’t working. A few minutes before, I’d tried to remove the graphics card from the old router, to swap out (yeah, I had plenty of others around, but I knew this one worked, and couldn’t be bothered sorting through those which didn’t… that’s another activity for a rainy day) with that in the new Pentium 3 system. Bzzzzzzt.

Hurray for burred screws! Of course, they were only so burred that it would cause a problem for anything that didn’t fit the hole nicely — my usual screwdriver would have! Logical solution to the problem? Pliers. Had any of them survived the garage-stuffing holocaust? Unlikely!

I furtively glanced around the kitchen for an implement suited to the purpose. Someone had been outside, gardening, and brought the snips inside when they finished. VICTORY IS MINE!!! I don’t care that they’re garden snips, if they work, score 1 to Josh! Needless to say, they did.

The cards were swapped, and all lived happily ever after. Now, if only I could figure out how to make Smoothwall APM aware…

You can view my specialness here, if you’re interested in seeing this app or what my computer is doing at any given time. That’s assuming it’s turned on/net connected, of course… dependent on myself and iiNet’s ADSL service, respectively.

What was I doing? No LAN traffic, that much I know. There has been one other machine on for much of today which has created noise before, but post– viral and spyware purges, this ’98 box has been squeaky clean (except for the one virus which powers it, of course).

Nah, I was downloading a couple of ISO’s from PlanetMirror, namely Mandrake 10 discs 1 and 2 — I don’t even know if I’m going to burn the images to CD, much less actually USE them on anything, but hey… that’s not what this is all about.

Some will recall a post I made previously (on the olde blog) regarding iiNet’s wonderfully bloated new quota limits for their ADSL plans… yeah… I’m still going on about that, sorry to appear pedantic… I am.

Anyway. Those two ISO images put a nice chunk in my monthly allowance, because it was starting to slip behind. You know that when the download meter starts telling you you can download 650, 700MB in a day, something has to happen… I’m just keeping up with my iiSP’s lofty expectations of their users!

“What would anyone download 12GB a month of?!” — the standing joke goes, “That’s a lot of Linux ISO’s”… it sure is.

Oh. My. Goodness.  That’s cheaper than my current plan, and better geared towards my bandwidth usage patterns!

And, at only $3 a GB if I go over, it doesn’t matter either way (well, not much).

Ahhh!!  Dilema!!!  iiNet are just on the brink of announcing more DSLAM rollouts, with semi-unlimited upload speeds… I guess I’ll wait for that list to be unveiled before trying to make any further decisions on this one.

What exists in Sydney in the way of consumer (i.e. not business) VoIP gateway services?  And can you use fax over VoIP?  I’m so ready to ditch the phone line and go over this entirely:  currently, we’re paying $25 for line rental, and $60 for ADSL a month.  I don’t know what we’re paying in calls, but it’d be enough.

This would be $0 in line rental, $45 for internet access, and some amount of telephony costs — if nothing else, we’d save massively interstate/long distance and international.  Even if voice usage consumed large-ish amounts of bandwidth, I can’t see it using more than a GB per month (so, add $3 to telephony costs) — that’s based on the fact that if I stream a 192kbps stream for 8 and a half hours, it only uses about 900MB — and it’s safe to presume that VoIP won’t be anywhere near that sort of quality!

Meh, can’t think about it now… still got this stupid assessment unfinished, must keep working.  More to post, but that actually requires thought, not just techno-babble, so it will come in a while…

EDIT: More has been posted, and backdated to when it actually SHOULD have appeared.  See article 106, “A feast for sore eyes” for more!