Moving

[numberland]

Wow. I might actual be ready to move in time.... This would be impressive! (A few things haven't got done, but much has been that I didn't think would be.)

So, I'm moving into college on Saturday, and they should be giving me a decent mattress so I don't wake up each morning with back ache, this is all good.

Slight grumble/fish for opinions:
The Uni (or just Christ's) have just changed the phone system that student have with ntl (this may have been ntl's choice), so you have a pay a you go system. Which would be fine, except that this means that you phone outside the uni you have to phone one number then enter a code then the number you want (I'll probably set up memories). And if someone wants to phone me they have to phone an 0845 number and then a 5 digit extention. This all seems excessively complicated... Any thoughts?

Comments

[nlj21.livejournal.com]

Get a VOIP phone from skype/bt/etc...

Many of them will now give you a geographic phone number which will be redirected to your VOIP phone.

[numberland.livejournal.com]

Huh? VOIP? Please expand...

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Voice over IP. If you have a college internet connection in your room you might be able to use it. The idea is that BT give you a phone that connects to your computer but is used like a normal phone, but instead of sending info down a phoneline it sends it over the internet to BT, who then send it onto a normal phone or whatever as if you had a normal landline to them. It might well be cheaper if the internet is free, and they should be able to give you a real phone number people can call. I hadn't thought of it before, but it would have made sense at college. Try searching BT's site, except they call it something stupid and proprietary instead... :)

[antinomy.livejournal.com]

It would of course be worth checking the univeristy and college's policy on their bandwidth being used in this fashion...

[hmmm-tea.livejournal.com]

http://www.cam.ac.uk/cs/itsyndicate/guidelines.html

See section on Connection of individual users' machines:

"Care needs to be taken that services are not unwittingly offered to third parties contrary to the Authorization for use of the CUDN. In particular, some software for peer-to-peer (P2P) working and for voice over IP (VoIP) makes the host computer and the CUDN available for the world at large to use for relaying purposes; indeed, the licence for such software can require the end-user to make them available even though the end-user has no power to make that commitment regarding use of the network. The result of a computer being used as such a relay will be an uncontrolled increase of network traffic and this will be charged to the user's institution - such charge could be substantial."

[nlj21.livejournal.com]

As others have said, basically it lets you make phone calls over your internet connection. The quality isn't as good as with a normal telephone line, but should be better than with mobiles.

BT's service is BT Broadband Voice (http://www.btbroadbandvoice.com/broadband_voice/bb_voice_home.html) and includes an ethernet-to-telephone adapter. The number is not geographic though, instead is an 05 number.

I doubt the sort of relaying with the CUDN seem to be worried about will be a problem with the BT service, particularly as it doesn't go through your computer, just the ethernet adapter...


Skype (http://www.skype.com/) is another service. They do provide geographic numbers, but their licence agreement (http://www.skype.com/company/legal/eula/) does seem to feature a clause the CUDN are concerned about:

4.1 Permission to utilize Your computer. In order to receive the benefits provided by the Skype Software, You hereby grant permission for the Skype Software to utilize the processor and bandwidth of Your computer for the limited purpose of facilitating the communication between Skype Software users.

[nlj21.livejournal.com]

Can't see any equivalent clause in the BT licence agreement (http://www.btbroadbandvoice.com/bbv/brochureware/terms.html).

Oh, and another good point is you can take the number with you when you leave college.

[atreic.livejournal.com]

We got the following email from Queens':

***************

Just to forestall any misinformation being inadvertently spread to students:

The arrangements for bedroom landline telephones have changed. Students
will no longer have a normal domestic pay-in-arrears account with NTL.
Students should not phone NTL attempting to open such an account: returning
students might not be aware of this.

To obtain use of the bedroom telephone, call at the Porters' Lodge for a
telephone Welcome Pack, which includes a calling card. The calling card
has an initial =C2=A31 credit, and can be recharged from a credit card by
visiting a web site. The calling card will work with any bedroom
telephone, not just your own. All bedrooms sockets are "live" to calling
cards (except as noted below).

Students will no longer have a unique national telephone number. Inward
calls to students go to 0845 045 4884 and then callers dial a 5-digit
extension number to get to a specific bedroom.

Bedrooms in Cripps, Fisher, Erasmus should have telephone instruments
provided by the College. Students in other buildings need to buy a phone
from any high street retailer and plug it in. In shared sets, even those
with two NTL sockets, it is possible that only one of the sockets is live
in these cases residents will have to find a way of sharing use of the
single phone in the set.

Just to repeat:

STUDENTS SHOULD NOT PHONE NTL ABOUT GETTING A PHONE SERVICE.

To get bedroom phone service, call at the Porters' Lodge.

***************

which sounds like they've ditched NTL altogether for being crap, hopefully? Of course, things may be different at Christs.

[numberland.livejournal.com]

No. The calling cards are ntl... It's just pay as you go ntl, not normal ntl.

[yrieithydd.livejournal.com]

I got phoned by NTL about this. I was told about the pay-as-you-go-ness but not about the lack of proper number™ (what is the cost to phone it one wonders). I was glad to be leaving tbh. It felt especially odd seeing as I was in a college house!

[numberland.livejournal.com]

0845 number - generally either a national or local rate depending on who you're with.