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

Classified Ads
TD Extra News

Add this Digest to your personal   or  

 


The Telecom Digest for December 08, 2010
Volume 29 : Issue 331 : "text" Format

Messages in this Issue:

Whistlephone VOIP(Dan Lanciani)
Re: Driving While Distracted(Randall)
Question about an old scrambler phone(Ernest Donlin)
Another odd question(Bill Horne)
A question about CO wiring(Bill Horne)


====== 28 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, 7 Dec 2010 02:04:29 -0500 (EST) From: Dan Lanciani <ddl@danlan.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Whistlephone VOIP Message-ID: <201012070704.CAA10030@ss10.danlan.com> In the past I've bemoaned the fact that external VOIP services do not seem to work well for me. (VOIP within my own network is fine.) Recently I've been using Whistlephone and the quality is quite acceptable; no obvious dropouts. Whistelphone is a free service for calls within the US. It is ad-supported. You listen to a 15(?) second ad at the beginning of your call. You must download their softphone application to sign up; however they do not prohibit (but do not support) use with ATA devices and/or Asterisk. I use it with Asterisk and my ancient 2500 set, so whatever they are doing right does not depend on the client. (I suppose it is possible that they are just closer to me in some sense than other services.) My only worry is that lately the ads have been for Whistelphone itself, suggesting that their funding model may be failing. :( Dan Lanciani ddl@danlan.*com
Date: Tue, 7 Dec 2010 10:47:11 -0500 From: Randall <rvh40.remove-this@and-this-too.insightbb.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: Driving While Distracted Message-ID: <146C4EE9-9271-4A42-BABE-B60784DCA0CF@insightbb.com> On Dec 7, 2010, at 3:20 AM, telecom-owner@telecom-digest.org wrote: > From: Matt Simpson <net-news69@jmatt.net> > To: redacted@invalid.telecom-digest.org. > Subject: Re: US may disable all in-car mobile phones > Message-ID: <net-news69-4B125E.12150406122010@news.toast.net> > > In article <idg6ln$160$1@news.eternal-september.org>, > "Gary" <bogus-email@hotmail.com> wrote: > >> Simply allow auto and medical insurance companies to deny coverage to >> drivers involved in accidents when the evidence shows they were >> using their >> phone. Make drivers fully liable for all property damage, medical >> damage >> costs and legal costs while driving and talking, and that would go >> a long >> way to resolving the issue without any fancy technical solutions. > > Unfortunately, many drivers would not have adequate financial > resources > to compensate their victims, leaving the innocent victims trying to > squeeze blood out of a turnip. > > It might be more reasonable to handle it similar to DUI. The > insurance > companies would still pay the damages, but after the first claim, they > could either cancel the policy or charge sky-high premiums. When your only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Why would you prefer to have more uninsured drivers on the road? People don't stop driving, just because they lose their insurance, any more than they stop driving when they lose their licenses. Kentucky requires people convicted of DUI to attend "Driving School" (which is really nothing more than a money machine for for-profit school providers). EVERYBODY drives to those classes, and then they drive home afterward. If the insurance company finds out about the DUI, they cancel the standard policy and will only insure the driver in the "Assigned Risk" pool - liability only, for about four times the price. A VERY large percentage of people who get hit with this increase are unable to pay it. So they drive without insurance. The idea behind DUI laws is that people who drive with more than a minuscule amount of alcohol in their bloodstream are inordinately dangerous to other drivers. So why, exactly, does Public Policy ensure that a large number of those presumably more-dangerous drivers have no automobile insurance? ObTelecom: Substitute "Talking on cell phone while driving" for "DUI".
Date: Tue, 7 Dec 2010 19:49:00 -0500 From: Ernest Donlin <ernest.donlin.remove-this@and-this-too.gmail.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Question about an old scrambler phone Message-ID: <AANLkTikNo4yk3iRENuKp_f4QRTgnedkZuknL1PEFju-E@mail.gmail.com> (moderator please change my email address so spammers can't use it.) I've got an odd sort of a question for your group. When I was a kid, my friend's dad had a phone in his house that he told me was a "scrambler". It was a regular telephone, mounted on a metal base, with an AC cord for the base. The base had just two vacuum tubes in it, and a couple of transformers. It didn't look like much, but my friend said his dad used it to make scrambled phone calls to his reserve unit. Has anyone ever seen anything like that? I never knew if he was yanking my chain or not. Ernie Donlin ***** Moderator's Note ***** If you want me to obfuscate your email address, PLEASE put "[obfuscate]" (without the quotes, but with the brackets) in the SUBJECT line of your post. Thank you! Bill Horne Moderator
Date: Tue, 7 Dec 2010 20:08:10 -0500 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Another odd question Message-ID: <20101208010810.GB3356@telecom.csail.mit.edu> This seems to be a day for odd questions, and I just thought of one. The Ethernet plugs we use at work are wired for the "568B" standard, with the orange wires on pins 1 and 2, and the green wires on pins 3 and 6. Here's the question: _why_? I've been told that the whole idea with Ethernet is to avoid "Near end crosstalk", so it seems to me that the best way to do that would be to put one pair on pins one and two, and the other on pairs seven and eight. How did we wind up with 568B? Bill -- Bill Horne (Filter QRM for direct replies)
Date: Tue, 07 Dec 2010 20:25:28 -0500 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: A question about CO wiring Message-ID: <E1PQ8me-0001Il-CM@telecom.csail.mit.edu> I've been working for a company that sells a line-switching device for use by the utility industry. We routinely get boxes returned to us that have been fried by voltage spikes, and it occurs to me that a central office must take a lot of surges, spikes, etc. That's a paradox, because I never heard of a CO being damaged by anything but a direct lightning hit the whole time I was a tech. We had, of course, "carbons" and "heat coils" at the frame that were intended to take care of spikes coming in on the cable, but to gauge by the way today's electronic boxes get burned up so easily, I'm really surprised we didn't have a lot more trouble with lightning. Ergo, I'm wondering what other equipment was used to keep the CO's from suffering at Zeus' hands. Bill -- Bill Horne (Filter QRM for direct replies)
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 Bill Horne. 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 moderated by Bill Horne. 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) 2009 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 (5 messages)

Return to Archives ** Older Issues