1) In my experience smart.net became stupid quite a few years ago.
2) Once the City of Baltimore recognizes you as disabled, you'll be eligible for a certain amount of minimum landline (thru Version I believe) for $5 per month. It's limited on outgoing but covers all incoming.
*nod* But it's only a good solution for me if a) I do switch to DSL and that turns out to be reliable, or b) I get a dialup provider where connections reliably stay up longer than 1/(number-of-free-calls) of a month. (Actually it's not quite that simple -- depending on the price per call, a certain number of toll calls after the free ones would still be affordable.)
Currently, connections to Radix are dropped after eight hours regardless of activity, and occasionally (a few times a week I think, but I'll have to dig through /var/logs) get dropped by random glitches after less than eight hours. So I'm dialing out 3-4 times/day, probably about 100-120 calls per month. A dialup ISP where connections stay up for longer or shorter makes a big difference to the affordability of a "low budget" phone plan. So, of course, does a broadband connection which works well enough that I'm not making any calls.
(no subject)
2) Once the City of Baltimore recognizes you as disabled, you'll be eligible for a certain amount of minimum landline (thru Version I believe) for $5 per month. It's limited on outgoing but covers all incoming.
(no subject)
Currently, connections to Radix are dropped after eight hours regardless of activity, and occasionally (a few times a week I think, but I'll have to dig through /var/logs) get dropped by random glitches after less than eight hours. So I'm dialing out 3-4 times/day, probably about 100-120 calls per month. A dialup ISP where connections stay up for longer or shorter makes a big difference to the affordability of a "low budget" phone plan. So, of course, does a broadband connection which works well enough that I'm not making any calls.