Pat, the Editor

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

Classified Ads
TD Extra News

Add this Digest to your personal   or  

 
 
Message Digest 
Volume 28 : Issue 188 : "text" Format

Messages in this Issue:
  Re: Rating cell phone calls 
  Re: Rating cell phone calls 
  Feature Group 2A 
  Re: Feature Group 2A 
  Re: Feature Group 2A 
  Re: Feature Group 2A 
  Re: Feature Group 2A 
  At the tone, please don't leave a message / In an age of ever-faster communications, fewer people have time for voice mail
  Re: Q.: 10-button deskset w/ 50-conductor line-cord 
  Re: Q.: 10-button deskset w/ 50-conductor line-cord 
  Re: Q.: 10-button deskset w/ 50-conductor line-cord 
  Re: BBC reports widespread invasion of privacy 
  Farewell? 
  Re: Farewell? 
  Re: Farewell? 
  Re: Farewell? 
  Re: Farewell? 
  Community Dial Offices today ???  
  Re: Community Dial Offices today ???  
  Re: NANP ten digit dialing, was Goodbye to copper? 
  Re: NANP ten digit dialing, was Goodbye to copper? 


====== 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: 10 Jul 2009 00:00:53 -0000 From: John Levine <johnl@iecc.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Rating cell phone calls Message-ID: <20090710000053.24433.qmail@simone.iecc.com> >>In my part of upstate New York, the only significant city in the LATA >>is Syracuse, and that's where every non-ILEC switch is. My mobile and >>VoIP numbers are both in the Ithaca rate center, and inbound callers >>pay whatever they pay for calls to any other Ithaca number, but the >>switches are both in Syracuse. > >Who (back-)hauls the traffic to what interchange point? <grin> Interesting question. My rural ILEC is part owner of the local VZW system, so I'll ask them when I see them. I would guess they probably pay VZ since transit is so cheap, but Time-Warner has fiber plant that they sell capacity on, and there's a fiber ring run by a bunch of rural ILECs. >I figure it's _very_ likely that the wireless carrier has a minimal >presence within the Ithaca rate center with trunk terminations. Doesn't seem cost effective, particularly when you consider that the wireless carrier's (it's AT&T) switch handles prefixes in something like two dozen different rate centers, some of which are more than 75 miles away from Syracuse. Illustrative story: my numbers are in the Ithaca rate center, which is in the Syracuse LATA. Nearby Burdett, where the ILEC is Empire Telephone, is a local call to Ithaca, even though it's in the Binghamton LATA. But the last time I checked, if you're in Burdett and you call a non-Verizon Ithaca number, Empire will charge you for an inter-LATA toll call. They have EAS trunks that go to a VZ switch in Ithaca, but they don't have trunks to Syracuse (their toll trunks go to Binghamton) and they're too cheap or too dim to arrange for transit through VZ to the CLECs. Yes, this is totally wrong, but it's not the only totally wrong thing about Empire Tel. One time I called 411 from one of their payphones and I think I got the owner's 14 year old daughter with a local phonebook. Other illustrative story: AT&T, Sprint, and Nextel all have towers on our local water tower (I negotiated the leases) and I know that they all rent T1s or HDLC from the local telco. If they don't do their own backhaul from cell sites, how likely are they to do backhaul from random switches? R's, John ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2009 13:45:59 +1000 From: David Clayton <dcstar@myrealbox.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Rating cell phone calls Message-ID: <pan.2009.07.10.03.45.55.846694@myrealbox.com> On Thu, 09 Jul 2009 15:10:05 -0400, hancock4 wrote: ...... > What many people do not realize is that telephone costs dropped radically > due to cheap technology. Say you have a $500 plain vanilla PC today. How > much would it cost in 1975 to buy a computer with the same CPU horsepower, > RAM, and disk? Then add in the air conditioning. The same drop in costs > applied to telephone terminal and transmission equipment. Not just the actual technology, the "manpower" costs to support that technology have also plummeted in that time. -- Regards, David. David Clayton Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Knowledge is a measure of how many answers you have, intelligence is a measure of how many questions you have. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 09 Jul 2009 22:15:46 -0400 From: Fred Goldstein <fgoldstein.SeeSigSpambait@wn2.wn.net> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Feature Group 2A Message-ID: <20090710021319.62FC548122@mailout.easydns.com> The recent discussion of cell phone rating missed an important detail. In the 1990s, rate centers literally Did Not Matter in many areas because cell phones did not have regular phone numbers with rate centers attached to them. The ILECs had tariffs -- at least in NYNEXland it was called Feature Group 2A -- which cell phone companies could subscribe to, in getting their connections to the ILEC tandems. FG2A took prefix codes and made them "oddball" -- local to the whole LATA. So my cell phone number, when assigned to me by NYNEX Mobile, was technically in the Saugus rate center (not local to squat) but since it was FG2A and in my area code (617), it was offered as a local number. One summer in the 1990s, we rented a house on Cape Cod. It had a NYNEX phone that was allowed to make local calls only; toll calls required a calling card. Our home phone could not be called. Our mobile numbers (both 617, nowhere near there) could be called on that line. When mobile number portability took effect, this all ended. The ILECs were aghast at the possibility that a wireline phone could be a local call FROM the whole LATA. So FG2A went away, and mobile rate centers counted again. This made my cell phone a +1 call from home, though fortunately we had a plan that still made it no charge. But I suppose there are some people who would pay a toll to call me. Had I known fifteen years ago that this would happen, I would probably have asked for a nominally-local number. But then the whole rate center thing is totally obsolete anyway. The telcos are just holding onto it for the sake of some intercarrier access charges (not applicable on calls to or from mobiles, for which any call in the Major Trading Area is wholesale-rated as local) and retail toll (to off-plan subcribers). -- Fred Goldstein k1io fgoldstein "at" ionary.com ionary Consulting http://www.ionary.com/ +1 617 795 2701 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2009 11:07:58 -0400 From: Telecom digest moderator <redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Feature Group 2A Message-ID: <20090710150758.GK4168@telecom.csail.mit.edu> On Thu, Jul 09, 2009 at 10:15:46PM -0400, Fred Goldstein wrote: > One summer in the 1990s, we rented a house on Cape Cod. It had a > NYNEX phone that was allowed to make local calls only; toll calls > required a calling card. Our home phone could not be called. Our > mobile numbers (both 617, nowhere near there) could be called on that line. I was at Mt. Desert Island, Maine last week: the phone in my chalet was "null pic'd" so that any long-distance call gave a recording saying I had to choose a long distance carrier. I have a phone card that I can access via an 800 number, but when I tried to use it with AT&T's access code (1010288), I got the same recording. I tried 1010110, but got the same result. For future reference is there a way around this issue? Will I have to know which carrier transports that particular 800 number? -- Bill Horne Temporary Moderator ------------------------------ Date: 10 Jul 2009 17:34:35 -0000 From: John Levine <johnl@iecc.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Feature Group 2A Message-ID: <20090710173435.16563.qmail@simone.iecc.com> >I was at Mt. Desert Island, Maine last week: the phone in my chalet >was "null pic'd" so that any long-distance call gave a recording >saying I had to choose a long distance carrier. I have a phone card >that I can access via an 800 number, but when I tried to use it with >AT&T's access code (1010288), I got the same recording. I tried >1010110, but got the same result. > >For future reference is there a way around this issue? Will I have to >know which carrier transports that particular 800 number? You can't use an access code with a toll-free number. Sounds like the toll restriction is broken. One thing that sometimes works is to dial 0 and say (quite truthfully) that you're having trouble calling this 800 number so could she dial it for you. R's, John ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2009 18:35:18 GMT From: "wdag" <wgeary@verizon.net> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Feature Group 2A Message-ID: <GRL5m.1863$P5.1499@nwrddc02.gnilink.net> "Telecom digest moderator" <redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu> wrote in message news:20090710150758.GK4168@telecom.csail.mit.edu... > I was at Mt. Desert Island, Maine last week: the phone in my chalet > was "null pic'd" so that any long-distance call gave a recording > saying I had to choose a long distance carrier. I have a phone card > that I can access via an 800 number, but when I tried to use it with > AT&T's access code (1010288), I got the same recording. I tried > 1010110, but got the same result. > > For future reference is there a way around this issue? Will I have to > know which carrier transports that particular 800 number? > > -- > Bill Horne > Temporary Moderator > I was under the impression that toll-free numbers did not require a long-distance PIC. I have none (631 area code) and make 1-800 calls every month. Did you try dialing the 1-800 number without _any_ PIC prefixes? ***** Moderator's Note ***** Yes, I did. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2009 14:11:04 -0400 From: T <kd1s.nospam@cox.nospam.net> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Feature Group 2A Message-ID: <MPG.24c14e406598e6df989ac4@news.eternal-september.org> In article <20090710021319.62FC548122@mailout.easydns.com>, fgoldstein.SeeSigSpambait@wn2.wn.net says... > One summer in the 1990s, we rented a house on Cape Cod. It had a > NYNEX phone that was allowed to make local calls only; toll calls > required a calling card. Our home phone could not be called. Our > mobile numbers (both 617, nowhere near there) could be called on that line. > > When mobile number portability took effect, this all ended. The > ILECs were aghast at the possibility that a wireline phone could be a > local call FROM the whole LATA. So FG2A went away, and mobile rate > centers counted again. This made my cell phone a +1 call from home, > though fortunately we had a plan that still made it no charge. But I > suppose there are some people who would pay a toll to call me. Had I > known fifteen years ago that this would happen, I would probably have > asked for a nominally-local number. > > > Back in around 1998 I had what was then an Omnipoint phone. It was on 401-286. >From Verizon pay phones in RI at least (Not COCOT) I could call the cell phone without depositing money. You know I just had a T-Mobile phone (Cancelled it since I wasn't trekking to Boston and Back) and I never throuht to try it, mostly because almost all the remaining pay phones are COCOT. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2009 03:44:49 -0400 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: At the tone, please don't leave a message / In an age of ever-faster communications, fewer people have time for voice mail Message-ID: <p06240803c67ca19b1a40@[10.0.1.3]> At the tone, please don't leave a message In an age of ever-faster communications, fewer people have time for voice mail By Beth Teitell, Globe Correspondent | July 9, 2009 The Boston Globe Taylor Davis, 20, a college student waiting tables in Wellesley for the summer, waits days to listen to her voice mail messages and, even then, checks her inbox only when she's bored. "Usually it's from my boss or people wanting me to pick up shifts,'' she said, shrugging off missed opportunities, "or from my mom or my aunts. They like to talk a lot.'' Ja-Nae Duane, 32, CEO of Wild Women Entrepreneurs and Ja-Nae Duane Ventures, in Woburn, deletes many of her voice mails without even listening. "What I really hate are the soliloquies,'' she said. "I spend more time listening to your message than I do responding to it.'' Brian Walshe, 32, a Boston-based international art dealer, keeps his phone's mailbox full to ward off new messages. The maneuver annoys those who want to reach him, but he estimates it saves him 30 minutes a day. "People complain,'' he said. "Everyone likes to leave a message.'' The problem is, these days, not many people like to listen to them. ... http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/articles/2009/07/09/voice_mail8217s_time_has_come____to_be_replaced/ ***** Moderator's Note ***** The reporter interviewed me for the story, but my intelligent, witty, and trenchant comments were put on the spike. No wonder the Globe is in trouble: they didn't quote _me_! Bill Horne ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2009 06:58:10 -0700 (PDT) From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Q.: 10-button deskset w/ 50-conductor line-cord Message-ID: <578cc961-8163-44b1-b898-67bb1234d85e@p28g2000vbn.googlegroups.com> On Jul 8, 12:25 am, tlvp <mPiOsUcB.EtLlL...@att.net> wrote: > ***** Moderator's Note ***** > > You may use a multi-line set as a regular phone instrument by simply > wiring the tip and ring to the line(s) in question. However, the hold > function, lights, and intercom all depend on separate KTU equipment. It's important to remember that the HOLD button won't work without a KTU. But having it on a phone means there's a tendency to use it, and in this case [that] would cut off the call. > It is, of course, possible to use a wall wart to power the lights, but > you'll have to rewire the a leads so that they are in series with the > lamp, because otherwise the lights will just be on all the time. Sometimes the hookswitch has unused contacts which could be used to turn the lamp off and on. Historical Note: In the 1970s, keyset line lamps were an option. Most places had them, but plenty did not to save money. Further, 'wink hold' was a further cost option. Older installations tended not to have it, while newer ones did. Question on telephone public address systems: I've seen several installations where access to the building PA system was directly through the telephone. In one, the PBX operator pulled a key. In another, it was one of the intercom levels on a key system. Would anyone know if the PA systems so provided were provided by the phone co or customer owned and linked in? In the case of the PBX operator page, it would've been just as easy (and done in places) to have a regular microphone at the operator's position. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2009 11:26:04 -0400 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Q.: 10-button deskset w/ 50-conductor line-cord Message-ID: <q6ydnSCAEZoMwMrXnZ2dnUVZ_oSdnZ2d@speakeasy.net> hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote: > On Jul 8, 12:25 am, tlvp <mPiOsUcB.EtLlL...@att.net> wrote: > >> ***** Moderator's Note ***** >> >> You may use a multi-line set as a regular phone instrument by simply >> wiring the tip and ring to the line(s) in question. However, the hold >> function, lights, and intercom all depend on separate KTU equipment. > > It's important to remember that the HOLD button won't work without a > KTU. But having it on a phone means there's a tendency to use it, and > in this case [that] would cut off the call. You're right, and it bears mention that it can't be disabled: the hold button has a mechanical linkage to the line buttons (they are spring-loaded), and it releases the catch which keeps the line button down. Some multi-button sets also had a mechanical linkage which released _all_ the line buttons when the hookswitch was depressed. Does anyone know which one(s)? >> It is, of course, possible to use a wall wart to power the lights, but >> you'll have to rewire the a leads so that they are in series with the >> lamp, because otherwise the lights will just be on all the time. > > Sometimes the hookswitch has unused contacts which could be used to > turn the lamp off and on. I'd advise against trying that route: you'd have to go into the phone and move wires around, and it wouldn't control the light on a particular line. The "A" leads are available at the connector, and they are switched by the "Line" buttons. [snip] > Question on telephone public address systems: I've seen several > installations where access to the building PA system was directly > through the telephone. In one, the PBX operator pulled a key. In > another, it was one of the intercom levels on a key system. > > Would anyone know if the PA systems so provided were provided by the > phone co or customer owned and linked in? There were instances of company PA systems which covered multiple buildings, where the PA systems in each building were linked via dedicated locals pairs tariffed for the purpose. In a few cases, testbored (pun intended) technicians would cross-connect racy phone calls to the PA lines, thus broadcasting the intimate details of various employee's lives to the whole company. Bill ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2009 09:11:18 -0700 (PDT) From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Q.: 10-button deskset w/ 50-conductor line-cord Message-ID: <71d0ebe0-2a8f-4db8-9b26-573d4857d7d0@e18g2000vbe.googlegroups.com> On Jul 10, 11:28 am, Bill Horne <b...@horneQRM.net> wrote: > Some multi-button sets also had a mechanical linkage which released _all_ > the line buttons when the hookswitch was depressed. Does anyone know > which one(s)? I believe on the ComKey it did that. I recall reading a Bell Labs Record article on that; for its day (mid 1970s), the ComKey was an advanced key system. There were three separate models, varying by size. I forgot the details, but the control box was of an advanced relay logic design for the intercom dialing. Our middle-grade system had three separate intercom paths; most key systems only had one path. As mentioned, the high-end key systems like ComKey overlapped low-end PBXs, with the big advantage that no PBX operator was required. Also, of course, newer systems like ComKey offered installation, maintenance, and cost advantages to the operating companies. As time went on, systems became more and more modular and 'plug in'. ComKey may have been the last key system using incandescent lamps and thick cabling. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2009 07:06:23 -0700 (PDT) From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: BBC reports widespread invasion of privacy Message-ID: <511dc496-f040-4877-8c74-89c6f51a82b5@d23g2000vbm.googlegroups.com> On Jul 9, 5:31 pm, Telecom digest moderator <redac...@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu> wrote: > According to BBC World News, the British newspaper "News Of The World" > paid private investigators to breach voicemail security and listen in > to messages left for politicians, celebrities, and businessmen of all > kinds. Only one individual has been brought to justice so far. > > How was it possible? It seems that very few cellphone users ever > bother to change the "security" code assigned to them when they get > their phone. What saddens me is that the general public doesn't seem to have a problem with this. There's a journalism magazine, "Columbia Journalism Review" (publ by Columbia Univ.) They often have articles on privacy vs. the "public right to know"; but all their commentators take a very strong position that the "public has a right to know" anything and everything, and thus reporters should have full and easy access. Personal privacy just isn't very important to them (except, of course, that a reporter has absolute privacy. Hmm.) They, and they alone, want to be the 'gatekeepers' to decide whether something should be revealed to the public. As mentioned before, the coming of the Internet drastically changes the issue of personal privacy. Public records on people once languished buried deep in file cabinets in a single location and were very difficult to access--someone had to go to the particular storage site and then wade through piles of records. But now everything is computerized. That makes (1) searching and cross-referencing very easy, (2) access to information from remote places easy, and (3) release of _private_ information easy. I find all that very disturbing. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2009 01:26:35 -0400 From: MC <for.address.look@www.ai.uga.edu.slash.mc> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Farewell? Message-ID: <p6A5m.9054$Uf1.4744@bignews2.bellsouth.net> As an AT&T DSL subscriber, I'm going to lose access to Usenet any day now, and I'm not sure whether I'll be back on newsgroups through any channel other than Google Groups (with all its disadvantages). (Suggestions of how to get another news server are welcome.) So let me say a slightly premature farewell to the crowd here -- in the hope of finding my way back somehow. Michael ***** Moderator's Note ***** There are free Usenet servers available: the readers can suggest which are best. Of course, you do _not_ need to surrender your enjoyment of The Telecom Digest: simply subscribe to the email version! To subscribe, follow this email link: mailto:telecom-request@telecom-digest.org?body=subscribe%20telecom ... or, if that doesn't work, sent a message to telecom-request@telecom-digest.org, with the words "subscribe telecom" in the _body_ of the message. (The subject is ignored). No matter how you read the Digest, when you choose to post, _PLEASE_ put "[Telecom]" in your subject line! This post was in the spam file, and I only saw it by accident! Bill Horne ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2009 10:54:38 -0500 From: "GlowingBlueMist" <nobody@nowhere.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Farewell? Message-ID: <h37o7s$5b6$1@news.eternal-september.org> MC wrote: > As an AT&T DSL subscriber, I'm going to lose access to Usenet any day > now, and I'm not sure whether I'll be back on newsgroups through any > channel other than Google Groups (with all its disadvantages). > (Suggestions of how to get another news server are welcome.) So let > me say a slightly premature farewell to the crowd here -- in the hope > of finding my way back somehow. > > Michael > > > ***** Moderator's Note ***** > > There are free Usenet servers available: the readers can suggest which > are best. Of course, you do _not_ need to surrender your enjoyment of > The Telecom Digest: simply subscribe to the email version! > > To subscribe, follow this email link: > mailto:telecom-request@telecom-digest.org?body=subscribe%20telecom > > ... or, if that doesn't work, sent a message to > telecom-request@telecom-digest.org, with the words "subscribe telecom" > in the _body_ of the message. (The subject is ignored). > > No matter how you read the Digest, when you choose to post, _PLEASE_ > put "[Telecom]" in your subject line! This post was in the spam file, > and I only saw it by accident! > > Bill Horne Here are three places you can get free newsgroup service, at least for non-binary newsgroups. http://www.eternal-september.org/ , formerly Motzarella http://www.x-privat.org/ http://news.tornevall.net/ All three news servers carry this newsgroup... ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2009 11:23:50 -0500 From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Farewell? Message-ID: <D_-dnZBzC_eL9srXnZ2dnUVZ_vOdnZ2d@posted.nuvoxcommunications> In article <p6A5m.9054$Uf1.4744@bignews2.bellsouth.net>, MC <for.address.look@www.ai.uga.edu.slash.mc> wrote: >As an AT&T DSL subscriber, I'm going to lose access to Usenet any day >now, and I'm not sure whether I'll be back on newsgroups through any >channel other than Google Groups (with all its disadvantages). >(Suggestions of how to get another news server are welcome.) So let me >say a slightly premature farewell to the crowd here -- in the hope of >finding my way back somehow. > >Michael > > >***** Moderator's Note ***** > >There are free Usenet servers available: the readers can suggest which >are best. Of course, you do _not_ need to surrender your enjoyment of >The Telecom Digest: simply subscribe to the email version! Not only free servers, but some very good pay ones that cost *VERY* little. see www.astraweb.com 25 _gigs_ of Usenet for $10. (_no_ time limit, for text groups only, that should last the rest of your life! :) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2009 14:48:44 -0500 From: "Who Me?" <hitchhiker@dont.panic> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Farewell? Message-ID: <uWM5m.3478$Ad2.2486@nlpi067.nbdc.sbc.com> MC wrote: (Suggestions of how to get another news server are > welcome.) Before the light goes out........look here: sbcglobal.help.tech.newsgroups Some suggestions for other servers/services have been made......as have suggestions for keeping in touch with other "family members". ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2009 18:56:11 -0700 From: Steven Lichter <diespammers@killspammers.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Farewell? Message-ID: <h38rg1$ao2$1@news.eternal-september.org> MC wrote: > As an AT&T DSL subscriber, I'm going to lose access to Usenet any day > now, and I'm not sure whether I'll be back on newsgroups through any > channel other than Google Groups (with all its disadvantages). > (Suggestions of how to get another news server are welcome.) So let me > say a slightly premature farewell to the crowd here -- in the hope of > finding my way back somehow. > > Michael > > > ***** Moderator's Note ***** > > There are free Usenet servers available: the readers can suggest which > are best. Of course, you do _not_ need to surrender your enjoyment of > The Telecom Digest: simply subscribe to the email version! > To subscribe, follow this email link: > mailto:telecom-request@telecom-digest.org?body=subscribe%20telecom > > ... or, if that doesn't work, sent a message to > telecom-request@telecom-digest.org, with the words "subscribe telecom" > in the _body_ of the message. (The subject is ignored). > > No matter how you read the Digest, when you choose to post, _PLEASE_ > put "[Telecom]" in your subject line! This post was in the spam file, > and I only saw it by accident! > > Bill Horne > Here is the one I switched to, works like the at&t groups. news.eternal-september.org www.news.eternal-september.org You will have to go to their web site and set up an account, you will have to use an e-mail address other then and at&t or one of their sub addresses, the web site explains that. You can set it up as you did your at&t one including a bogus rely address. One thing I leaned was to set up a new account on your reader and not just make the changes on your current one; it messes up the counters. -- The only good spammer is a dead one!! Have you hunted one down today? (c) 2009 I Kill Spammers, inc, A Rot in Hell. Co. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2009 09:27:06 -0700 (PDT) From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Community Dial Offices today ??? Message-ID: <8b61e23f-8d03-4ace-b4cc-54be6ca05721@r36g2000vbn.googlegroups.com> The talk about rate centers reminded me of a question about how rural telephone service is handled today. Until the 1970s, the local loop to a subscriber was limited to a finite distance; otherwise expensive repeaters were required. Given that, a small community would its own central office to accomodate calls within the 'community of interest'. In a sense, that office acted as a 'concentrator' to connect the community to other places. Instead of running expensive long loops for each of several hundred subscribers, only some trunks were provided. The Bell System developed "community dial offices" which were designed for only a few hundred lines. These were unattended. Due to the high fixed cost of common control, step by step remained the switch of choice but eventually compact ESS became economical for such offices. But that was then. Do they still bother with community dial offices today or have some sort of modern concentrator/transmission line that takes a community's local loops and economically sends it to a larger office? Any comments on how rural phone service is offered today would be appreciated. Thanks! P.S. Trivia--in 1970 the Bell System had 11 (eleven) manual offices left. I know one was Santa Catalina Island, off of California, and it was the last to be automated, using a compact ESS described above. I was wondering what the other ten were. This does not include manual offices of Independents. (People in such offices, or those without DDD still got the benefit of discounted direct dial long distance rates.) ------------------------------ Date: 10 Jul 2009 23:06:54 -0000 From: John Levine <johnl@iecc.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Community Dial Offices today ??? Message-ID: <20090710230654.96930.qmail@simone.iecc.com> >But that was then. Do they still bother with community dial offices >today or have some sort of modern concentrator/transmission line that >takes a community's local loops and economically sends it to a larger >office? Wikipedia helpfully says: Some telephone exchange buildings in small towns now house only remote or satellite switches, and are homed upon a "parent" switch, usually several kilometres away. The remote switch is dependent on the parent switch for routing and number plan information. Unlike a digital loop carrier, a remote switch can route calls between local phones itself, without using trunks to the parent switch. I gather the difference between a small switch and a remote switch is mostly (perhaps entirely) software, and it can be a lot cheaper to configure a bunch of little switches as one parent and the rest as remotes than to make them all separate switches. The subscribers can't tell the difference, it just means that there's a few extra ms during call setup as the remote asks the main switch for help with the calls it can't handle itself. R's, John ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2009 22:00:36 GMT From: Stephen <stephen_hope@xyzworld.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: NANP ten digit dialing, was Goodbye to copper? Message-ID: <ltdf5551ig3f0ndjpr21bu0rsjtvk70b51@4ax.com> On Mon, 29 Jun 2009 21:59:09 -0400 (EDT), wollman@bimajority.org (Garrett Wollman) wrote: >In article <20090629030715.000E7481A6@mailout.easydns.com>, >Fred Goldstein <SeeSigForEmail@wn6.wn.net> wrote: > >>Digital audio broadcasting has been rather a flop in the UK, where it >>uses its own frequencies. > >News to me. The UK is often cited as one of the few countries in >which digital radio actually has significant market penetration. (I >don't know, however, how much of the market is listening via DVB-T >digital-television receivers versus actual Eureka-147.) DAB here is a more or less unique flavour of digital radio, and UK is not a big enough market to make it standard in important types of equipment - like radios fitted in cars. The gov/ment just issued a report produced by the spectrum regulator) which talks about switching off FM radio by 2015 if they reach "50% penetration" for DAB. The big con job here is that this is measured as "percent of households with a DAB capable set", not proportion of radios used for listening to DAB, by hours / users / sets etc - which is a massively lower proportion (maybe 2 to 5% depending on who you think of as giving accurate numbers). This is despite a drift by commercial radio away from DAB recently, back to FM. Lots of propaganda about DAB being better - apart from coverage, power efficiency / battery life, flexibility, cost of equipment and sound quality (what were those advantages again?). Finally the rest of Europe has settled on a more recent standard which isnt backward compatible - so we keep an orphaned expensive technology, or go back to square one (but at least we dont have that many DAB sets to make obsolete if we do it now). > >>IBOC (HDR) is not selling all that well in the US either, but the >>same radios do receive analog broadcasts, AM and FM, too. I don't >>know why so few HD radios are on the market; perhaps the license fee >>is too high. > >Actually, it's probably more to do with a lack of demand on the >consumer side, and power consumption on the device-maker side. There >still aren't usable battery-powered, portable HD tuners in stores. > >The one market that seems to be doing very well with the iBiquity >system is public radio. They received grants from NTIA to upgrade >their transmission facilities, and NPR's "Tomorrow Radio" project led >the drive for "multicast" facilities. In many communities where there >is only one public radio station, this makes it possible for the >broadcasters to provide multiple streams of programming, and the >existing $100-200 radios make a good high-value pledge premium. Since >commercial classical has almost completely disappeared, multicasting >allows pubcasters to serve that wealthy niche audience without >compromising their more popular news and talk programs. > UK radio is dominated by BBC and most stations are on FM as well as DAB. However sit in a DAB equipped car outside TV Centre (the biggest BBC site in the UK) and you can get radio on FM, but not DAB...... >-GAWollman -- Regards stephen_hope@xyzworld.com - replace xyz with ntl ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2009 22:06:41 GMT From: Stephen <stephen_hope@xyzworld.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: NANP ten digit dialing, was Goodbye to copper? Message-ID: <jgef55leqo677d225qas0irsg5j0jq9tq3@4ax.com> On Tue, 7 Jul 2009 19:55:22 -0400 (EDT), John Levine <johnl@iecc.com> wrote: >>OTOH, the 'international' market _doesn't_ have all the LNP >>'silliness' to deal with, and _that_ portion of the code can be >>eliminated on 'international' builds. > >Are you sure? In most European countries you can port mobile numbers >among carriers, and in the UK I'm pretty sure you can port landlines >between BT and the cable companies. Yes - and between providers who use logical access, and who put their own telelphony equipment in BT exchanges (several big providers and 100s in total). Porting back to BT can be harder though... Same thing is supported in mobile number ranges as well, and for non geographic numbers. more than you ever wanted to know about UK numbers: http://www.ofcom.org.uk/telecoms/ioi/numbers/ > >R's, >John -- Regards stephen_hope@xyzworld.com - replace xyz with ntl ------------------------------ 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 (21 messages) ******************************

Return to Archives**Older Issues