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The Telecom Digest for February 27, 2012
Volume 31 : Issue 55 : "text" Format
Messages in this Issue:
Re: Supermarket shop by mobile phone (HAncock4)
Re: Supermarket shop by mobile phone (John F. Morse)
Re: Supermarket shop by mobile phone (John F. Morse)
Re: Supermarket shop by mobile phone (Wes Leatherock)
Re: Supermarket shop by mobile phone (HAncock4)
Re: Supermarket shop by mobile phone (Wes Leatherock)
Re: Supermarket shop by mobile phone (John F. Morse)
German iPhone users can no longer use iCloud's push e-mail-for now (Monty Solomon)
NYT commentary: Bell Labs as compared to innovation today (HAncock4)
iPhone User Awarded $850 In AT&T Data-Throttling Case (Monty Solomon)

====== 30 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ======

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Date: Sat, 25 Feb 2012 16:12:55 -0800 (PST) From: HAncock4 <withheld@invalid.telecom-digest.org> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: Supermarket shop by mobile phone Message-ID: <56f13e8b-428a-4d2f-b935-0c4c0779ec5d@v2g2000vbx.googlegroups.com> On Feb 24, 3:54 pm, bon...@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) wrote: > One can probably look to the Carterfone decision -- leading to the > vast increase in numbers of 'answering machines'; and the 'advanced' > models that implemented 'remote access', with features for call > playback, deletion, etc. . . . Per the Bell Labs History, 1925-1975 (pg 521), in 1954 Bell introduced a feature which permitted PBX extension users to dial through a PBX to gain access to a customer-owned recording machine for dictation. After gaining access, the speaker could start, stop, backspace or otherwise control the machine by dialing distinctive control digits. [ref Bell Labs Record Jan 1956.] > Probably the commercial availability of the aforesaid 'button boxes' would > give a good marker point for the 'widespread' usage of DTMF by 'far end' > systems. The two biggest 'early adopter' uses were probably answering > machines and 'alternative' long-distance calling services. Sometime in the mid 1970s I met a family which used MCI to save money on long distance calls to a daughter in college. They had a small Touch Tone generator device that they held over the transmitter.
Date: Sat, 25 Feb 2012 22:47:50 -0600 From: "John F. Morse" <john@example.invalid> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: Supermarket shop by mobile phone Message-ID: <pan.2012.02.26.04.47.49.420066@example.invalid> On Fri, 24 Feb 2012 07:41:19 -0800 Wes Leatherock wrote: >> Solid-state sender conversion kits were not that expensive, and solved >> the problem for older COs, like the 1XB, and early 5XB. > >> I wonder if they were available for SXS offices? > > Indeed they were avilable,but for SxS offices they were an add-on, not > just a conversion, and sufficiently expensive that many step offices > were never equpped with them. Maybe I should have used the term "add-on" instead of "conversion." They were equipment added onto the mounting bars of a regular 1XB Subscriber Sender. They had a couple dozen wires that were connected to various places on the original SS, the rear relay terminals, and the unit's terminal block. My thinking is this was a "conversion" from the original dial-pulse SS. Sorry for the confusion. We had 180 Subscriber Senders, with maybe about 60 of them being "New Senders" which had TouchTone receivers, designed into them by WECo. You might get lucky and be assigned one of those every few requests for dialtone, depending on your Line Link priority to a District Junctor and Subscriber Sender Link Frame. What the add-on kits did I don't remember, other than making the work of Framemen and Dial Assignment much easier, since TTR and TTB could be sold without changing a subscriber to a 5XB number. These add-ons could have received TouchTone signals, then output dial pulses. Or maybe they operated the digit registration relays, or simply paralleled their contacts. This was back around 1975, so my memory is not clear. My wife actually wired many of them for me on my evening shift. She knew how to follow schematics, solder, and wire-wrap. She was actually a TSPS operator in a different building, and went with AT&T at Divestiture. I do remember they were in cheap plastic housings, and were affixed to the mounting bars with plastic cable ties (Ty-Rap). Someone must have known this 1XB (and the 5XB) would be cut to the new 1ESS in a few short years. Actually it was a year or so after I left in 1979, when the 1ESS had been upgraded to a 1A-ESS, and I had bid outside as a Teletypeman, later renamed to Systems Technician. -- John When a person has -- whether they knew it or not -- already rejected the Truth, by what means do they discern a lie?
Date: Sat, 25 Feb 2012 22:07:32 -0600 From: "John F. Morse" <john@example.invalid> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: Supermarket shop by mobile phone Message-ID: <pan.2012.02.26.04.07.31.255684@example.invalid> On Sat, 25 Feb 2012 12:24:36 -0600 PV wrote: > That's backwards I think (or maybe regional). In hot type typography, it > was always called a "splat" in the places I worked (I learned printing in > the 70s in high school, and ran a linotype and press for several years > while getting my compsci degree). I learned the Linotype in 1960 in Topeka, Kansas. Still can recite the keyboard. ;-) A line of mats in the stick, which was too loose that the spacebands couldn't tighten it fully, would cause a "squirt." The 550 degree molten lead would squirt out and put holes in your shirtsleeves -- if you [were] wearing a [long sleeved] shirt. Two years later, I rebuilt and ran a Linotype at Wyandotte High School in Kansas City, Kansas. There the term "squirt" was again used. Another two years later, at Spencer Printing in Kansas City, Missouri, it was also called a "squirt." In 1968 they were still calling it a "squirt" at the Anchorage Times newspaper, where several of my roommates worked, and at the Anchorage Daily News where I worked. Now, in 2012, I see it is still called a "squirt." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linotype_machine#Justification -- John When a person has -- whether they knew it or not -- already rejected the Truth, by what means do they discern a lie? ***** Moderator's Note ***** I took an "adult education" course to learn a popular "drafting" program, and realized within the first few hours that, for practical purposes, I was learning how to draw lines on a screen, just the way I had when I first learned to program for a GUI back in 1990. There were a few pre-assembled shapes and a few pre-assembled curves, but it was, in the end, just another way for me to draw on an etch-a-sketch. The shibboleths had changed, but not the central truth, which is that the human brain is the best graphic engine in the world. The reason most websites look alike is that nobody is willing to pay for actual graphic artists anymore, and the Linotype operators were the first and the best. Bill Horne Moderator
Date: Sun, 26 Feb 2012 08:50:05 -0800 (PST) From: Wes Leatherock <wleathus@yahoo.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: Supermarket shop by mobile phone Message-ID: <1330275005.5109.YahooMailClassic@web111706.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> --- On Sat, 2/25/12, John F. Morse <john@example.invalid> wrote: >On Sat, 25 Feb 2012 12:24:36 -0600 PV wrote: > >> That's backwards I think (or maybe regional). In hot type >> typography, it was always called a "splat" in the places I worked >> (I learned printing in > the 70s in high school, and ran a linotype >> and press for several years > while getting my compsci degree). > > I learned the Linotype in 1960 in Topeka, Kansas. Still can recite the > keyboard. ;-) > > A line of mats in the stick, which was too loose that the spacebands > couldn't tighten it fully, would cause a "squirt." > > The 550 degree molten lead would squirt out and put holes in your > shirtsleeves -- if you [were] wearing a [long sleeved] shirt. > > Two years later, I rebuilt and ran a Linotype at Wyandotte High School in > Kansas City, Kansas. There the term "squirt" was again used. > > Another two years later, at Spencer Printing in Kansas City, Missouri, it > was also called a "squirt." > > In 1968 they were still calling it a "squirt" at the Anchorage Times > newspaper, where several of my roommates worked, and at the Anchorage > Daily News where I worked. > > Now, in 2012, I see it is still called a "squirt." I had a squirt as a teenager at the Perry (Okla.) Daily Journal in the 1940s. I walked a few blocks to the doctor's office where he removed it carefully and then dressed it. You can still see pale spaces on my forearm where the lead hit and solidified. That was my only squirt. It is a powerful motivator not to have it happen again. An Intertype would also squirt. It was very similar to a Linotype except in the escapement verge. Wes Leatherock wleathus@yahoo.com wesrock@aol.com ***** Moderator's Note ***** This thread reminds me of the "war stories" the old cable guys told about needed to use hot lead on cables "back in the day". I never worked on Linotype, but my dad was a plumber, and I've got the scars to prove that I worked on lots of lead-sealed pipes. Bill Horne Moderator
Date: Sat, 25 Feb 2012 21:14:00 -0800 (PST) From: HAncock4 <withheld@invalid.telecom-digest.org> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: Supermarket shop by mobile phone Message-ID: <1ff8c112-5572-4710-a55c-03e226905db0@gw9g2000vbb.googlegroups.com> On Feb 24, 10:41 am, Wes Leatherock <wleat...@yahoo.com> wrote: > > Solid-state sender conversion kits were not that expensive, and > > solved the problem for older COs, like the 1XB, and early 5XB. > > I wonder if they were available for SXS offices? > Indeed they were avilable,but for SxS offices they were an add-on, not > just a conversion, and sufficiently expensive that many step offices > were never equpped with them. Excerpt from the Bell System Engineering textbook, 1977, pg 457: . . . "Conversion to Touch Tone operation is difficult and relatively expensive in step-by-step systems. All Touch Tone lines must be grouped together and new switching stages introduced so that these lines may access Touch Tone registers which then generate dial pulses to drive the succeeding switches." . . . "It was necessary to fit a new dial tone signal, composed of frequencies that did not interfere with TT operation, into all TT offices." . . . "For economy, the TT station was designed to function with single polarity on the loop*, and would not work with reversed battery--step- by-step usually transmits a battery reversal to the originating station after answer. This prevents using a TT set for end-to-end signalling after the connection was set up." Some kind of workaround was necessary. *TT telephone sets were later changed so that polarity didn't matter. Excerpt from the Bell Labs History, 1925-1975, pg 339: "After WW II, there was a need in some situations for more efficient interfaces between local SxS and other systems using multi-frequency pulsing. Further, there was a need to introduce a degree of flexibility into SxS systems." . . . Step by step was cumbersome in large metropolitan areas with many trunk choices due to the limits of the 10x10 switch; that was a key reason panel and No.1 xbar were developed. "Senderization" was an effort to improve that (as had been done in the UK), but crossbar was found to be a more cost-effective approach. (If anyone is familiar with any US effort to "senderize" an SxS exchange [such as in Los Angeles], could you share it with us)? In 1961 Bell developed two projects for TT to serve SxS exchanges. One was the more expensive "compatible" which would be adaptable for common decoders for office translation and to output MF to outgoing trunks. The first of 250 installations was in Kokomo Ind. in March 1965. . . . The first "non-compatible" was in 1960 in Cave Spring, Va. using TT register-senders. Later, a lower-cost design was developed for offices with a shorter expected lifespan; this was first implemented in 1974. In 1976, about 70% of Bell System lines could get TT, and 30% of customers served by such lines had subscribed. (Would anyone know the experience of General Telephone/Automatic Electric and their early support of TT? Per our discussion of computer access, AE offered a telephone set with both a dial and TT keypad--the user would use the dial to make the connection and then the TT keypad to communicate to the computer.)
Date: Sun, 26 Feb 2012 09:06:39 -0800 (PST) From: Wes Leatherock <wleathus@yahoo.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: Supermarket shop by mobile phone Message-ID: <1330275999.54481.YahooMailClassic@web111711.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> --- On Sat, 2/25/12, HAncock4 <withheld@invalid.telecom-digest.org> wrote: [... ] > "Senderization" was an effort to improve that (as had been done in > the UK), but crossbar was found to be a more cost-effective > approach. (If anyone is familiar with any US effort to "senderize" > an SxS exchange [such as in Los Angeles], could you share it with > us)? As far as I know the entire Los Angeles area (much of it independent and General Telephone in those days) was senderized because of the big installed base of step offices. I also remember reading the first 5XB in a non-Bell office was at the Sunland-Tujunga Telephone Compamy, in the L.A. region. Wes Leatherock wleathus@yahoo.com wesrock@aol.com
Date: Sun, 26 Feb 2012 14:49:59 -0600 From: "John F. Morse" <john@example.invalid> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: Supermarket shop by mobile phone Message-ID: <pan.2012.02.26.20.49.59.272993@example.invalid> On Sun, 26 Feb 2012 09:06:39 -0800 Wes Leatherock wrote: > --- On Sat, 2/25/12, HAncock4 <withheld@invalid.telecom-digest.org> > wrote: [... ] > >> "Senderization" was an effort to improve that (as had been done in the >> UK), but crossbar was found to be a more cost-effective approach. (If >> anyone is familiar with any US effort to "senderize" an SxS exchange >> [such as in Los Angeles], could you share it with us)? > > As far as I know the entire Los Angeles area (much of it independent and > General Telephone in those days) was senderized because of the big > installed base of step offices. > > I also remember reading the first 5XB in a non-Bell office was at the > Sunland-Tujunga Telephone Compamy, in the L.A. region. I understand the use of the term "senderized" but I'm trying to remember if 5XB actually used the term "sender," or if their equivalent were called "registers." The 1XB Subscriber Sender (possibly Panel as well) was called an "Originating Register" in 5XB I believe. Perhaps the Terminating Sender equivalent in 5XB was a Terminating Register, or Incoming Register? Some might wonder why a "terminating" sender would be sending anything. That probably was due to Revertive Pulsing, when the Terminating Sender would "send" the command to stop pulsing to the originating office, commonly Panel, by opening (or reversing) the trunk for an instant. But it has been many years, and I didn't work in the 5XB office as a full-time job assignment. At night I used my ears, and would listen for the 5XB Trouble Recorder to grind continuously, following one Major Alarm "bong" after another. Then I'd chase down crosses in the Translator from broken-off wirewrap "springs" (XET?), and refilled the Trouble Recorder. -- John When a person has -- whether they knew it or not -- already rejected the Truth, by what means do they discern a lie?
Date: Sun, 26 Feb 2012 12:03:09 -0500 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: German iPhone users can no longer use iCloud's push e-mail-for now Message-ID: <p062408e2cb70162373fd@[10.0.1.8]> German iPhone users can no longer use iCloud's push e-mail-for now By Chris Foresman Apple has been forced to disable push e-mail delivery for iCloud and MobileMe users in Germany this week. The move is thanks to a recent injunction awarded to Motorola as part of the ongoing patent dispute between the two smartphone makers. Apple is working on an appeal to the injunction ruling, but in the meantime, iPhone users in Germany will have to set their devices to check for e-mail periodically or manually. The patent at issue relates to older pager designs, but Motorola was able to convince a German court that it applied to Apple's implementation of push e-mail that syncs across devices via iCloud. The injunction went into effect on Thursday of this week, requiring Apple to disable push e-mail syncing in Germany. ... http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2012/02/motorola-enforces-german-injunction-against-icloud-push-e-mail.ars
Date: Sun, 26 Feb 2012 09:48:23 -0800 (PST) From: HAncock4 <withheld@invalid.telecom-digest.org> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: NYT commentary: Bell Labs as compared to innovation today Message-ID: <8144a988-13dd-4e28-92f4-73d50d778e5c@b18g2000vbz.googlegroups.com> The New York Times had a commentary piece on 2/26/2012 on the many accomplishments of Bell Laboratories and how their methods could help inspire and improve innovation today. He does a comparitive analysis on the research environment at Bell Labs and research today. Excerpts: "Why study Bell Labs? It offers a number of lessons about how our country's technology companies -- and our country's longstanding innovative edge -- actually came about. Yet Bell Labs also presents a more encompassing and ambitious approach to innovation than what prevails today. Its staff worked on the incremental improvements necessary for a complex national communications network while simultaneously thinking far ahead, toward the most revolutionary inventions imaginable. " "Consider what Bell Labs achieved. For a long stretch of the 20th century, it was the most innovative scientific organization in the world. On any list of its inventions, the most notable is probably the transistor, invented in 1947, which is now the building block of all digital products and contemporary life." "Other major innovations: -- The silicon solar cell, the precursor of all solar-powered devices, its researchers were awarded the first patent for a laser, and colleagues built a host of early prototypes. -- the first communications satellites; -- the theory and development of digital communications; -- the first cellular telephone systems. What's known as the charge- coupled device, or CCD, was created there and now forms the basis for digital photography. -- the first fiber optic cable systems and subsequently created inventions to enable gigabytes of data to zip around the globe; -- Its computer scientists developed Unix and C; -- Bell Labs researchers composed papers that significantly extended the boundaries of physics, chemistry, astronomy and mathematics. -- Bell Labs engineers focused on creating extraordinary new processes (rather than new products) for Ma Bell's industrial plants. In fact, "quality control" -- the statistical analysis now used around the world as a method to ensure high-quality manufactured products -- was first applied by Bell Labs mathematicians. " For full commentary please see: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/26/opinion/sunday/innovation-and-the-bell-labs-miracle.html?_r=1&hp
Date: Sun, 26 Feb 2012 12:07:00 -0500 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: iPhone User Awarded $850 In AT&T Data-Throttling Case Message-ID: <p062408e4cb7016fba67a@[10.0.1.8]> Matt Spaccarelli, iPhone User, Awarded $850 In AT&T Data-Throttling Case GREG RISLING and PETER SVENSSON 02/24/12 SIMI VALLEY, Calif. - When AT&T started slowing down the data service for his iPhone, Matt Spaccarelli, an unemployed truck driver and student, took the country's largest telecommunications company to small claims court. And won. His award: $850. Pro-tem Judge Russell Nadel found in favor of Spaccarelli in Ventura Superior Court in Simi Valley on Friday, saying it wasn't fair for the company to purposely slow down his iPhone, when it had sold him an "unlimited data" plan. ... http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/24/matt-spaccarelli-iphone-att-data-throttling_n_1300212.html
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