Frugal Friday

[ecosophia]

Welcome back to Frugal Friday! This is a weekly forum post to encourage people to share tips on saving money, especially but not only by doing stuff yourself. A new post will be going up every Friday, and will remain active until the next one goes up. Contributions will be moderated, of course, and I have some simple rules to offer, which may change further as we proceed.

Rule #1:  this is a place for polite, friendly conversations about how to save money in difficult times. It's not a place to post news, views, rants, or emotional outbursts about the reasons why the times are difficult and saving money is necessary. Nor is it a place to use a money saving tip to smuggle in news, views, etc.  I have a delete button and I'm not afraid to use it.

Rule #2:  this is not a place for you to sell goods or services, period. Here again, I have a delete button and I'm not afraid to use it.

Rule #3:  please give your tip a heading that explains briefly what it's about.  Homemade Chicken Soup, Garden Containers, Cheap Attic Insulation, and Vinegar Cleans Windows are good examples of headings. That way people can find the things that are relevant for them. If you don't put a heading on your tip it will be deleted.

Rule #4: don't post anything that would amount to advocating criminal activity. Any such suggestions will not be put through.

With that said, have at it!

Comments

Re: Cell Phones

[(Anonymous)]

It isnt voip, at least not in how I use that word, as it is a different provider, it is not the internet provider, but away from my house it is carried on fiber optic until the last couple miles to my neighborhood and to the houses, which are copper, as they have not "upgraded it" to my area. SO, there 2 types of providers running data lines, the poles here are wired Electric on top, Internet in the middle, ATT (phone company) on the bottom.

And, yes, that fiber optic needs power along the way, I dont know its official name, I just generically say it has repeater boxes every so many miles. And they of course do indeed have back up batteries. But, here is the difference from the internet provider, ATT the phone company has better and longer lasting batteries and they also have generators at those repeater nodes, so they run generators all over during our long power outages. The internet company does not do this. So when we have a power outage after a number of hours the internet is gone. Their repeaters are no longer powered, and I cant do anything using internet ( including not being able to do magic jack voip or use a cell phone thru the wi-fi). But, the phone will continue to work for days and days and days, 6 day outage, no problem, the phones work. The phone company also runs data on their lines in addition to regular landline phones, but when the power is out and they are running off their back up power, they prioritize the voice calls and dont send on the digital to save power, the voice uses less power. They are not being alturistic, the government requires that they prioritize voice phone calls and requires that they make sure it operates, no matter what it costs them to keep the lines powered. The internet company does not have the same requirements. This is a point of contention out here and we just had to fight to not let them off the hook for this responsibility.

I have lived here for 26 years, the landline phones work, they are reliable, they are the only reliable way in a power outage that people can call for help, cell phones do not work here, the terrain is hilly, the population density is low, and this is why the state government did not allow them to rescind being the "carrier of last resort" and dump us. There is alot of California areas like this, alot of Northern California. And we spoke up, and innundated regulatory agency feedback portals, state and local elected representatives, etc... Until next time. Then people will be back to HAM radio only. get your HAM radio license.

Atmospheric River