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27 Years of the Digest ... founded August 21, 1981

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Message Digest 
Volume 28 : Issue 110 : "text" Format

Messages in this Issue:
  Re: AT&T doubling 3G capacity 
  Re: Cell phone recycling: delete, then dispose 
  Re: size not a major consideration in wireline phone sets 
  Can I ring my own landline phone? 


====== 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: Tue, 21 Apr 2009 08:29:16 -0700 (PDT) From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: AT&T doubling 3G capacity Message-ID: <7228884a-654a-458e-a06e-22773d6084e6@m19g2000yqk.googlegroups.com> On Apr 20, 5:48 pm, Ergyn Sadiku <ergy...@gmail.com> wrote: > Tweaks to the HSPA network will bring 3G capacity up to 7.2 Mb/s even > before AT&T implements next-gen wireless technologies. What is "3G" and "4G"? > AT&T is increasing the downlink capacity on its high-speed packet > access (HSPA) from 3.6 megabits per second to 7.2 Mb/s through > software upgrades at the base station I presume this HSPA is some sort of data communication. But what is being "downlinked", and from what to what and what does that higher speed mean in terms of service? Will any of this improve the coarse quality of today's voice transmissions over cell phones? Cell phone conversations are not the easiest to make; if the speaker on either end is not careful to speak clearly and directly into the mouthpiece, the words get "blurred" and hard to understand. ***** Moderator's Note ***** I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one confused by all the new acronyms. I'm curious if any of the readers can weigh in on the trade-offs between voice quality and bandwidth on cell phones. Bill Horne Temporary Moderator ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2009 16:23:43 -0500 From: pv+usenet@pobox.com (PV) To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Cell phone recycling: delete, then dispose Message-ID: <D9CdnZA1GpnCpHPUnZ2dnUVZ_jVi4p2d@supernews.com> "Tony Toews \[MVP\]" <ttoews@telusplanet.net> writes: >>Overwriting a file many times, the standard way to >>obliterate data, doesn't work. > >Somewhere an outfit is offering to ship you a hard drive with an erased >file which was wiped once. If you can retrieve the data then you win a >prize of some sort. When I read that page the contest had been running for >a year with no winners. Times have changed. Hard drive densities are such that the tricks that used to be employed are now swamped in noise. If anyone can recover truly overwritten sectors these days, they won't enter a contest because it would be a hugely valuable trade secret or intelligence gathering asset. >So convenional wisdom might be very wrong. Well, conventional wisdom in deleting is to toss it in the trash, or do a "quick format". Both of those methods are trivially reversible by anyone. * -- * PV something like badgers--something like lizards--and something like corkscrews. ***** Moderator's Note ***** Peter, I love this job: it challenges my preconceived notions on a daily basis. (I thought|They say|Everyone knows) that you must write over a disk sector multiple times in order to "really" erase it, or else someone with an (Electron Microscope|Two-way Wrist TV|Super Seecrit Gov'mint Gadget) can recover the data. The number of times you must overwrite the data is as variable as people's opinions about whether it matters, so lets have a discussion about how to "safely" erase a hard drive without damaging it. Since computerized voice answering services are subject to data security concerns, I declare this to be telecom related. Bill Horne Temporary Moderator ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2009 17:06:34 -0700 (PDT) From: Joseph Singer <joeofseattle@yahoo.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: size not a major consideration in wireline phone sets Message-ID: <212042.46809.qm@web52708.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2009 20:08:26 -0700 (PDT) hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote: <<Initially cellular phones were so big that only cars could accomodate them, though far more subscribers had access than in the past.>> It was the regular mobile telephones that were so big and used so much electricity that they were trunk mounted. This was prior to cellular phones. Commercial cellphones didn't get commercially going til about 1983 when the AMPS ("Advanced" Mobile Phone Service) was introduced commercially (in Chicago I believe.) ***** Moderator's Note ***** I think some of the early cellular phones were made to fit the same mountings and use the same antenna cables as their MTS and IMTS predecessors, so they may have been "bulky" in order to fit the old hardware. Since cellular came long after transistorized RF decks were common, cell phones never had to support the power demands of vacuum tubers: ergo, they never had to be the same size unless there were compatibility issues. Any Motorola/GE/? techs care to chime in? Bill Horne Temporary Moderator ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2009 13:32:30 -0500 From: "Phluge" <phluge1@yafarthoo.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Can I ring my own landline phone? Message-ID: <2joHl.33537$Ji5.2403@newsfe21.iad> I have searched everywhere but I can't seem to get an answer one way or the other. There used to be ways you could test your landline telephone's ringer. Any suggestions? Thanks, pflu ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecom- munications 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: 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! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Copyright (C) 2008 TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. ************************ --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of fifty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. 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 (4 messages) ******************************

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