The telecommunication revolution is upon us and I am excited. Generally, 'telecommunication revolution' is just a buzzword used by people trying to hide the fact that they don't know what they're talking about. Since I don't want to be one of those people I'm going to use an actual concrete example to explain what I mean by it. My parents have volunteered to be used as a test case for whatever new internet/land line phone/cell phone solutions I can come up with. The only stipulation is that it has to save them money, a fact which I think makes them a very good test case. There are lots of internet and phone providers, people aren't scared to switch between them so this isn't a Microsoft Office situation where users are so used to only one system that they can't fathom not having their current one (I'll send you a Word file). What will entice people to switch is comporable service for a better price which is exactly what my parents are after. Right now they pay $100/month for cell service and they get 1000 minutes and three lines. DSL internet service is another $30/month and requires a land-line. That land line is $50/month and quickly becoming obsolete under the burden of a $100/month cell phone bill (The logic there is 'why not get 1500 minutes/month on my cell phone for an extra $10-15 and drop the land line?'). The reason the land line is still there is for the DSL. My parents came to me with this setup and asked me to decrease their costs without losing a significant portion of their current services.

The first step in that process is to get rid of the DSL line and replace it with a cable line. The probable provider of this line would be Time Warner (I just got off the phone with them). While I'm not a fan of AOL at all, the pricing is good and the service appears comparable. The Time Warner plan would cover cable internet access and a digital phone service. Two of the major perks of Time Warner are the lack of contracts and the price. With my current plan I'm locked into a year long contract and can't do anything else until that ends. The phone service from Time Warner is at least comparable if not better (unlimited minutes, anywhere in the United States, no extra fees from the phone company although I'd still have to pay taxes) and the internet access would be at least as fast and let me get rid of the land line. The great part about all this is the price point: Both services, bundled together would cost less than $75. Actual approximations put it much closer to $70, but we're being conservative here.

This is a good first step in the right direction. Some of the major benefits are: no fee to cancel, slightly less expensive service, no need for a land line and a relatively easy install path (inexpensive or waived setup fees). Where I'd like to do my major saving is in the cell phone. $100/month is a lot of money and with the continued development and use of WiFi (and other, larger scale wireless internet options) and VoIP, my best case scenario is to end my current cell phone contract, buy three WiFi phones and use them all over my internet connection. I think that that is slowly becoming more of a reality but only time will tell for sure if such a service will ever exist. I believe that at the very least much less expensive cell phone service will become an option. Now if only I could get my crystal 8 ball working to know when the right time to jump on the bandwagon is...

I've done it. I've moved my computer over to Linux, the Ubuntu distribution to be exact. While there are hurldes to face, I'm working on getting over them. The process will go much faster once I get my wireless card working a la ndiswrapper. After that I have to figure out how to get digital sound output for my speakers and then get nvidia's linux driver. Once all that gets done I should be in pretty good shape. Of course, now I can't install VS '05 for my computer graphics class... but I'll burn that bridge when I get to it. For now, I have happily left Windows behind. If anybody else wants to try installing Ubuntu I have my CD and a lot of freshly gained experience with common configuration problems.