I called GTE today and asked what they charge for Local residential ISDN calls and they charge $.04 a min for a call that is within 12 miles. What kind of deal is that? That suckx.
Anyway, she said that ISDN is not taking off quite like they has expected and that they are looking for ways of getting the home users into the market...So I suggested that they give free local calls like they do on Analog lines. She agreed with me and said she would suggest it to GTE's ISDN board. She also said that this is one of the largest reasons why people are not jumping on the ISDN technology as hot as they would like.
I plainly explained to here that I could get 2 or 3 33K analog modems (now that they are out) or even 28K modems and that would do what I needed quite nicely. And I could connect to my ISP 24/7 for free as far as the phone call is concerned. and for what my ISP charges a month for a 28K direct analog connection is way cheaper than the ISDN installation + ISDN monthly service charge + ISDN local call min charge.
So there is no real benefit from ISDN at all unless you want to have a ton of users connected to your BBS at once. Analog is still king and will main so as long as they keep charging by the min for local ISDN calls.
At the current GTE rates it would cost me approximately $1700 a month for a 24 hour a day connection at 56 to 64K without voice capability on a local call to my ISP. That totally suckx. Especially when you consider that you could get at least 10 28K 24 hour a day connections to my ISP for less than per month and for less than the installation of a single ISDN line. What a ripoff. Especially when you consider than you can only have about 4 users on an ISDN line..that cuts the rate down to 14K anyway...so why not just have a lot of 28K analog lines that are free local calls anyway. Unless there is some unknow benefit that I'm unaware of.
Anyway, I gues GTE is considering giving free local calls on their ISDN since noone is signing up because you have to pay for local calls.
