Voyager sticking +1

[Bill (Adopt)]

I'm in South Wales and also using Voyager on dial-up.
No problems here
either.

Yep.. it's a pattern that has repeated for many years,
but that present useful access aside, I think it's a
matter of course that some will have problems with access
using dial up - whereas as others will not - and this
pattern keeps changing, unfortunately

This is not always (notice the always!) a problem of
the server.. but, experience over many years now, even
decades, suggest that it's the infrastructure between server
and recipient that is volatile..

At fault is questionable - although it's not by any means
always Paul, but the whole network of telecoms providers -
who. it must be said, are doing their best. It's in their
interests to do so...

We do have one of the best telephone communication networks
in the world ..and by that I mean the most reliable. However,
that doesn't mean perfect.

So.. what can we do about it ..and can we individually
afford it..?

OK.. the most significant change to reliability will come
once those using dialup finally convert to an ADSL access,
(or DSL or Broadband, or whatever you would like to call it).

Since last March my access has been down once only - and
that the fault of a BT Engineer at the end of the Close
who realised and corrected his fault very rapidly.. with
BT apologies all around!

Apart from that - and as Paul will tell you - I have been
directly connected to Orpheus infrastructure on a permanent
24/7 basis - without the slightest sign of a glitch - apart
from an alt.coffee numbers reset probby just recently - soon
cured once identified.

Everything now works seamlessly - even my particularly
doctored version of !Voyager. There are no difficulties.
There is no downtime. There is no stuttering. There is
no unreliability. The Router and the line remains open at
all times - even when the machine is switched off. There
are no 'attacks'.. or at least none that Paul has ever
allowed through to we, the Orpheus' Underworld.

Believe me.. conversion to DSL is easier than it first looks
and Paul is well able to assist in all respects.

It is cheaper than it first appears to a dialup User. Any
extra cost is more than quickly absorbed by a commenusurate
and immediate decrease in telephone bills for online access.
In other words - you save money!

It is virtually hassle-free. You start using your inmediate
online access in a new way. It becomes another arm in your
aresenal. You are writing a letter and need a reference.
Tickle Ebay, or something, and the reference appears magically
in front of you.. as you write.. even while on the 'phone to
your dearest explaining just why you need that sprocket for
your Classic Harley Davidson jet assisted side-car....

It's a whole new, reliable, fuss-free world!

So, all you dialuppers.. consider going to a DSL access.
You will be amazed.. You will never look back to the stone
age times of dialup..

The other point is that, if Paul can get around another
150 or so DSL Users signed up - then all Orpheus subscribers
will be uprated to approx a 2Mb connection or higher, automatically,
for no additional consumer charge...

By the way ..thinking of charges ..please don't confuse
Orpheus with some other cheaper solutions that advertise
things such as 'no limits with reasonable use'.. and suchlike.

Orpheus has no limits, no download limits, no time limits,
no additionals or addons.. You pay for your line.. the rest
is yours, (providing you remain legal, of course) ..and 24 hour
support...

So what about it...

...are YOU prepared to join the evolution... ;'))


Bill ZFC

[Dr J E Hurley]

Post by Bill (Adopt)
OK.. the most significant change to reliability will come
once those using dialup finally convert to an ADSL access,
(or DSL or Broadband, or whatever you would like to call it).

Thanks for this Bill - I have been considering this solution. Could you or
anyone explain what the TOTAL costs are (BT, ISP etc) and give a clue to the
likely level of savings on calls. Also how complicated to install (we have 2
freestanding RPCs and a Windows laptop to use).

John

[Dr Peter Young]

Post by Dr J E Hurley

Post by Bill (Adopt)
OK.. the most significant change to reliability will come
once those using dialup finally convert to an ADSL access,
(or DSL or Broadband, or whatever you would like to call it).

Thanks for this Bill - I have been considering this solution. Could you or
anyone explain what the TOTAL costs are (BT, ISP etc) and give a clue to the
likely level of savings on calls. Also how complicated to install (we have 2
freestanding RPCs and a Windows laptop to use).

I would wholeheartedly support Bill's advice. It's a bit of a fiddle
to set up, but either Paul at Orpheus or Andrew at RComp will supply
the necessary hardware, and, more importantly, lots of patient advice.
Personally, I would suggest moving away from Voyager, too; I use
NetFetch and Messenger, but there are lots of alternatives.

As to cost (apart from the one-off setting up) I can't give detailed
figures, as I'm not that organised, but my phone bill is now less than
half of what it was. This may be something to do with the son's
undisciplined surfing habits, but at the same time the lack of call
charges totally transforms the way you use the internet.

As John's (I think) only just down the road from here, please feel
free to come here sometime and I'll show you how it all works.

With best wishes,

Peter.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Post by Dr Peter Young
I would suggest moving away from Voyager, too; I use
NetFetch and Messenger, but there are lots of alternatives.

I stayed with the bones of Voyager because I was used to it. But it's
probably just the icon bar since I had Oregano Pluto, POPstar and
NewsHound long before going broadband. I was told I needed NetFetch and
bought it - but have never used it. I still occasionally use Fresco.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Post by Dr J E Hurley

Post by Bill (Adopt)
OK.. the most significant change to reliability will come
once those using dialup finally convert to an ADSL access,
(or DSL or Broadband, or whatever you would like to call it).

Thanks for this Bill - I have been considering this solution. Could you
or anyone explain what the TOTAL costs are (BT, ISP etc) and give a clue
to the likely level of savings on calls. Also how complicated to install
(we have 2 freestanding RPCs and a Windows laptop to use).

Basically you pay a fixed monthly price for broadband. Doesn't have to be
from your phone company. Often cheaper if you pay yearly in advance. There
will likely be a maximum download allowed per month but never a problem
with a RISC OS machine since you won't be downloading much video.;-(

And the phone works at the same time. ;-)

I installed a filter where the line comes into the house. Then a
modem/router, permanently powered, with four outlets. Ran four Cat5 cables
to RJ 45 outlets where I wanted them. You can replace standard phone
sockets with twin outlet telephone/RG45 units if needed, which is what I
did.

If extra wiring is a problem you can of course simply use a filter and
modem at each computer from an existing phone socket, but it's not as
elegant a solution, and they won't be networked. And of course there is
the wireless option which I didn't consider as this house with a cellar is
easy to add wiring to.

I got network cards for the two RPCs from Ebay secondhand, and they're now
nicely talking to one another and can be both on line at the same time.
The other two RG45 outlets are in the spare bedroom and breakfast room. I
have a workmate from out of town who lodges here when working in london
and he plugs his PC laptop into either. Seems to work fine.

[Dr Peter Young]

Post by Dave Plowman (News)

Post by Dr J E Hurley

Post by Bill (Adopt)
OK.. the most significant change to reliability will come
once those using dialup finally convert to an ADSL access,
(or DSL or Broadband, or whatever you would like to call it).

Thanks for this Bill - I have been considering this solution. Could you
or anyone explain what the TOTAL costs are (BT, ISP etc) and give a clue
to the likely level of savings on calls. Also how complicated to install
(we have 2 freestanding RPCs and a Windows laptop to use).

Basically you pay a fixed monthly price for broadband. Doesn't have to be
from your phone company. Often cheaper if you pay yearly in advance. There
will likely be a maximum download allowed per month

<advt> Not with Orpheus. :-)

With best wishes,

Peter.

[Lionel Smith]

Post by Dr Peter Young
<advt> Not with Orpheus. :-)

Indeed and I do hope that moving into a new year for Orpheus that the
service will continue as I fully intend to subscribe again.

On the matter of Voyager sticking, and to amplify my post on another
related thread I thought that I should bring to reader's attention
reports from ntl users who discover tel'co' junction boxes, of different
network operators, with vandalised doors allowing the internals to be
wrecked or tampered with.

For any on ntl lines there is a website ntlhell that provides a lively
forum for discussing matters related, and it also has areas for wider
discussion topics.

Lionel

[Paul Vigay]

Post by Lionel Smith
Indeed and I do hope that moving into a new year for Orpheus that the
service will continue as I fully intend to subscribe again.

Thanks for the vote of support.

I've hopefully got some further improvements and services to tempt people
with as we move into our second year.

No official announcements yet (I'm still negotiating behind the scenes) but
I'm hoping to

a) provide a VOIP solution for all Orpheus broadband* users, which will not
only provide free telephone calls to other Orpheus/VOIP users, but also
provide free UK landline calls (to normal phones) although the latter will
probably be via a small additional monthly subscription.

b) If I get approx another 150 ADSL customers, I'm hoping to upgrade
*everyone* to 2MB free of charge, which will make us a lot more competitive.

c) Anyone introducing a friend to dialup** can have a free months
subscription - introduce 12 friends and get a free years sub.

Paul
*dialup is too slow for VOIP.
**who signs up for a year or six months.

[Dr Peter Young]

On 24 Apr 2006 Paul Vigay <usenet-***@vigay.com> wrote:

[snip]

Post by Paul Vigay
b) If I get approx another 150 ADSL customers, I'm hoping to upgrade
*everyone* to 2MB free of charge, which will make us a lot more competitive.

Now, that looks very interesting; I was getting around to e-mailing to
ask about upgrading. Three questions:

1) Is everyone going to be able to get 2MB no matter what
distance they are from the exchange?

2) Does your crystal predict a time by when you may have the
necessary 150, or is the answer related to the length of a
piece of string?

3) When you say free of charge, does that mean just the upgrade
or the regular payment too?

With best wishes,

Peter.

[Paul Vigay]

1) Is everyone going to be able to get 2MB no matter what distance
they are from the exchange?

Oops. Yes, I should have said it depends on the availability of 2MB. If
you're too far from the exchange, it will set the fastest available speed
whilst keeping the same level of reliability. Thus. if 2MB isn't deemed
reliably, it will see the speed to 1MB etc.

2) Does your crystal predict a time by when you may have the necessary
150, or is the answer related to the length of a piece of string?

Correct! :-)

3) When you say free of charge, does that mean just the upgrade or the
regular payment too?

To be perfectly honest I haven't worked out the finer details yet. There
/may/ be a one-off 'line regrade' fee to change over, but I was referring
to the subscription fee - ie. 2MB for 24.95 a month, which I think most
people will find a lot more competitive. :-)
I was also referring to 150 *new* ADSL customers, not 150 dialup people
upgrading.

As I said, I'm not making any official announcements yet, but just
'thinking aloud' as to what I'm currently negotiating for.

[Dr Peter Young]

On 25 Apr 2006 Paul Vigay <usenet-***@vigay.com> wrote:

[snip]

Post by Paul Vigay
To be perfectly honest I haven't worked out the finer details yet. There
/may/ be a one-off 'line regrade' fee to change over, but I was referring
to the subscription fee - ie. 2MB for 24.95 a month, which I think most
people will find a lot more competitive. :-)

That sounds like provisional good news.

Post by Paul Vigay
I was also referring to 150 *new* ADSL customers, not 150 dialup people
upgrading.

OK, understood.

Post by Paul Vigay
As I said, I'm not making any official announcements yet, but just
'thinking aloud' as to what I'm currently negotiating for.

That was understood too.

Good luck!

With best wishes,

Peter.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Post by Bill (Adopt)
OK.. the most significant change to reliability will come
once those using dialup finally convert to an ADSL access,
(or DSL or Broadband, or whatever you would like to call it).

With Argonet and dial up the Pipex news feed was often down to a crawl.
I'm on Pipex broadband now and it's occasionally still down to a crawl -
especially when uploading posts - but that crawl is 5 times faster. ;-)
Actual download speeds are sometimes no faster than the best that dial up
was. Sometimes much faster. I assume it depends on the actual load on the
server as the slow times are peak periods - usually week-ends. Always fast
late night. But of course it doesn't matter that much since you're not
paying per minute like most dial up. E-mail is always fast and browsing
speeds pretty consistent.

[Paul Vigay]

Post by Dave Plowman (News)
With Argonet and dial up the Pipex news feed was often down to a crawl.
I'm on Pipex broadband now and it's occasionally still down to a crawl -
especially when uploading posts - but that crawl is 5 times faster. ;-)
Actual download speeds are sometimes no faster than the best that dial up
was. Sometimes much faster.

Sounds like a good enough reason to switch to Orpheus in my view. :-)

Our news server is pretty fast, and since the Argonet days I can now post a
news message and it will appear in the newsgroup about 10 seconds later
(Pipex seems a lot slower than that).

Orpheus is actually bypassing Pipex altogether (which is probably where the
bottleneck is) and going direct to the Giganews backbone in the US
(although it does cost me handsomly!).

The actual broadband connection should be running at maximum speed
irrespective of time of day, so on 512KB you should get a pretty sustained
50K per second download speed. It sounds like Pipex have possibly too many
customers for their server ratio to cope with, if it's slowing down.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Post by Paul Vigay
The actual broadband connection should be running at maximum speed
irrespective of time of day, so on 512KB you should get a pretty
sustained 50K per second download speed. It sounds like Pipex have
possibly too many customers for their server ratio to cope with, if it's
slowing down.

Could be, but it's pretty rare anyway and never inconveniences anyway as I
do an auto send and fetch.

I was upgraded to 1MB for free but this didn't make any difference to news
downloads that I could see, but does when browsing. Otherwise I'm happy
with Pipex which has been very reliable. Quite a change from Argonet. ;-)

I'll look at your terms etc when the next sub comes up, though. ;-)
Can I keep my present e-mail address?

[Paul Vigay]

I'll look at your terms etc when the next sub comes up, though. ;-) Can I
keep my present e-mail address?

If that's your own domain, then yes, you can keep your email address, as
you simply point the email alias at whatever POP box you're currently using.

Of course, we'd love to be able to host your domain too. :-)

Paul

[Dave Stratford]

Post by Paul Vigay
Of course, we'd love to be able to host your domain too. :-)

But can host sites requiring MySQL/Perl/PHP etc yet?

Dave

[Dr J E Hurley]

Many thanks for the help, advice and suggestions. This is now on our to do
list.

[Paul Vigay]

Post by Dave Stratford
But can host sites requiring MySQL/Perl/PHP etc yet?

You've always been able to use PHP on Orpheus hosted domains.

We can also host Perl scripts too, but email me privately about that
because it's enabled on a one-to-one basis.

MySQL is coming and will hopefully be available to people in about 2-4
weeks time when we move into a bigger hosting facility in London (more news
on that soon - I'm just re-enabling the 'newsletter' service which has
sadly been too quiet for the last few months).

Paul