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Message Digest Volume 28 : Issue 9 : "text" Format Messages in this Issue: Re: Restoring a 302-type telephone "Broadband" (was Obama's Broadband Plan) Re: Obama's Broadband Plan Re: Any user reviews of the Magic Jack? Re: termination fees, Any user reviews of the Magic Jack? ====== 27 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ====== Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer, and other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2009 20:44:45 -0800 (PST) From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Restoring a 302-type telephone Message-ID: <41b13a7d-a6d3-4af5-9d7c-3f62a73a5a3a@r22g2000vbp.googlegroups.com> On Jan 1, 5:50 pm, Wes Leatherock <wleat...@yahoo.com> wrote: > Around 1950 I lived in a city (Konawa, Okla.) where telephone > had either three or four digits. Area codes were just being > introduced and mostly for operators. Most of the public had never > heard of "area code" nor knew what the term meant. > > That was near the twilight days of 302 telephones. As the 500 set was only introduced in 1950, it took quite a bit of time for it to replace existing 302 sets in service. (A family member had one until they rennovated their house). I suspect the Bell System continued installing 302 sets well into the 1950s. Some were placed in a pseudo-500 body and called a 5302. In 1970 it was not unusual to find a 302 or 354 (wall) set in a home. In the 1950s, even into the 1960s, many smaller towns had five digit numbers. They got a seven digit ANC number to be addressable by DDD, but for local use continued with five digits (into the 1980s until ESS came along). Those places obviously never had a named exchange. But larger towns and cities did have named exchanges, some seven digits, a few six digits. Those names appeared on the number card. In the older days the full name appeared, with the dialable letters in capitals, often several points bigger than the rest of the name. In later days for places that didn't go ANC, often only the two letters appeared with the area code. When area codes came out a sticker was mailed to homes to be placed over the "WAIT FOR" portion of the number card. It obviously took a long time between actual area code assignment and wide use of it. Before that, many people placed calls by only name and town, not even the number. As part of placing the car the operator got the distant Information to get the number. The Bell System ran a campaign to discourage that "Call by Number and save time!" years ago. You can see people do it in old movies. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2009 06:31:33 -0600 From: Neal McLain <nmclain@annsgarden.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: "Broadband" (was Obama's Broadband Plan) Message-ID: <496743A5.8030903@annsgarden.com> David Clayton asked: > Can someone remind me when the term "Broadband" - which > is a *specific* description of a particular usage of > technology - was co-opted to then cover any sort of high- > speed Internet service?... "Broadband" was used by the cable TV industry as far back as the mid-1970s, long before the internet existed. My first job in cable TV was in Madison, Wisconsin. The city's circa-1974 cable TV ordinance was grandly called "The Broadband Telecommunications Franchise Enabling Ordinance." The "broadband" network that resulted had a capacity of 12 TV channels plus the FM band. There wasn't enough programming available to fill even that much capacity. Neal McLain ------------------------------ Date: 9 Jan 2009 10:22:15 -0500 From: kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Obama's Broadband Plan Message-ID: <gk7q37$4fl$1@panix2.panix.com> David Clayton <dcstar@myrealbox.com> wrote: >Can someone remind me when the term "Broadband" - which is a *specific* >description of a particular usage of technology - was co-opted to then >cover any sort of high-speed Internet service? It is annoying, yes. >If we want to be technically correct, restricting people to a "Broadband" >service for their Internet connection will hold back the industry. > >I use NDSL myself, so I ceased using "Broadband" the moment my voice >service was removed from my pair of wires. Well, strictly speaking it's still broadband. In fact, if you were using a modem on a dialup service, that is broadband as well because it's a baseband digital signal modulated onto a carrier. THAT SAID.... I think that the current Obama plan doesn't solve the problem. The real solution is to make various high speed networking services (including a few flavours of DSL) tariffed services. But the telcos would hate that. --scott -- "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2009 07:40:27 -0800 (PST) From: "harold@hallikainen.com" <harold@hallikainen.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Any user reviews of the Magic Jack? Message-ID: <88dd3235-8616-486d-8497-4e1bd4f33bc8@s9g2000prm.googlegroups.com> On Jan 8, 6:40 pm, John Levine <jo...@iecc.com> wrote: > Onesuite's main offering is a calling card that you use for outbound > calls in connection with an existing phone, or over the net via a > softphone that runs on your PC.  It's a perfectly decent calling card, > but 3cpm is not particular cheap these days.  It happens to be the > same price Lingo charges for outbound calls on its $7 plan. What is the current compensation rate carriers have to pay the carrier that terminates the call? It seems that this is going to be a limiting factor on long distance, unless the long distance carrier also terminates the call (which is why net calling is typically free). Harold ------------------------------ Date: 9 Jan 2009 23:07:13 -0000 From: John Levine <johnl@iecc.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Cc: redacted@invalid.telecom-digest.org Subject: Re: termination fees, Any user reviews of the Magic Jack? Message-ID: <20090109230713.83928.qmail@simone.iecc.com> >What is the current compensation rate carriers have to pay the carrier >that terminates the call? It seems that this is going to be a limiting >factor on long distance, unless the long distance carrier also >terminates the call (which is why net calling is typically free). For the major telcos, it is now very low, a small fraction of a cent per minute. There's still rural LECs who get multi-cent payments, but give or take the occasional "free" international forwarding or conference service, their share of the traffic is tiny. It's pretty common to find flat rate long distance plans from telcos for $20/mo, or the equivalent bundled into an overall plan. You can easily find prepaid calling cards charging 1cpm or less. R's, John ***** Moderator's Note ***** My son regularly uses a pay phone to call me from his school, using prepaid phone cards. I have yet to find one that doesn't add a surcharge - as much as 75 cents in one case - for any pay phone call, so keep in mind that most advertised prices assume you're calling from a non-public phone. Bill Horne Temporary Moderator ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to Usenet, where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. The Telecom Digest is currently being moderated by Bill Horne while Pat Townson recovers from a stroke. Contact information: Bill Horne Telecom Digest 43 Deerfield Road Sharon MA 02067-2301 781-784-7287 bill at horne dot net Subscribe: telecom-request@telecom-digest.org?body=subscribe telecom Unsubscribe: mailto:telecom-request@telecom-digest.org?body=unsubscribe telecom This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the oldest e-zine/mailing list on the internet in any category! 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Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. End of The Telecom digest (5 messages) ******************************