The Dance of Equipment Starts Today - ARGH

Today starts out with one phone person moving our security alarm system from the main phone line to a different phone line. Tomorrow the new digital phones will be installed and two of the three land line phone lines we have will become redundant because we'll be on VOIP instead of a hard-wired land line. If this is all confusing to you ... yeah. I'm living in technology hell right now. If I survive the next week or so, maybe I'll be able to breathe a bit. But I'm going to have just as much of a possibility of hanging up on a customer by mistake as talking to a robo call I don't want to receive in the first place. 

VoIP means Voice over Internet Protocol. It 
means our phone systems will be internet based 
instead of hard wired. That will eliminate some 
problems and probably open up some others. 
*sigh* I'll be very glad when this installation 
is complete, although we're just doing the 
first stage today. 

But today's guy is super important. We are getting an upgrade on the security system too, but we don't have a firm install date for the digital monitoring yet, so we need to stay on a land line for our security system. Fortunately, we have a third phone line available and will get everything piggybacked onto that for as long as it takes before the new digital box can be installed. 

I'm working with an alarm company which I've been 
using for home and shop for more than twenty 
years. When I started with them, their President was 
one of my customers for artwork and collectibles. 
He wired our first shop, our Mall of America shop, 
and our new location. It's an old system, but it works 
just fine. I'm nervous about replacing it, but it's 
mandatory. 

Why do we have to do this? Because the Federal Government in their infinite wisdom, has declared that businesses must move their phones to the internet (no copper wiring) by the end of the year, and homes by the end of next year. Haven't heard about this? Neither had I, but DH saw something about it on one of his financial stations, I checked it out and it seemed to be legitimate, so I got the ball rolling. It's really too bad that we couldn't have pushed off for a year or so, but it never hurts to have good security, and since homes are the next thing to go, and we use the same alarm company for our home, we might just switch the "new" system to our house when we upgrade (or downgrade) to digital for the home next year. 

I'm hoping that when we close the shop, we can simply 
transfer the new security equipment over to our home 
instead, allowing us to spend for labor and some 
materials, but to not have to purchase an entirely new 
security system for our home. At least, that's the hope. 

I suspect there will be a lot of ARGH's in my future, so I might just as well swim out some of my general frustration. Hopefully I'll have a productive time in the pool today. I'm not going to waste any more of your time today. I'm off to swim off endorphins and meet the day with a bit more optimism. *sigh* I'll be back tomorrow. Slava Ukraini.