36 Years of the Digest ... founded August 21, 1981
Copyright © 2018 E. William Horne. All Rights Reserved.

The Telecom Digest for Mon, 06 Aug 2018
Volume 37 : Issue 184 : "text" format

Table of contents
Re: New Jersey gets new area codeJohn Levine
Re: Backup Power for Cox [or other] ISP Stephen
Re: Backup Power for Cox [or other] ISP HAncock4
Re: Backup Power for Cox [or other] ISPFred Atkinson
Re: Backup Power for Cox [or other] ISP HAncock4
---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message-ID: <pk4ouk$2qvo$1@gal.iecc.com> Date: 4 Aug 2018 17:49:08 -0000 From: "John Levine" <johnl@taugh.com> Subject: Re: New Jersey gets new area code In article <BYAPR13MB2232E03E70209E69832FBE9591230@BYAPR13MB2232.namprd13.prod.outlook.com>, Naveen Albert <wirelessaction@outlook.com> wrote: > Why not split area codes instead of overlay them? Everyone can keep > their number ... Except they don't. When your number moved from 414 into 262 everyone in the new 262 area had to tell all their friends outside the 262 area that their numbers had changed. There may be a few people who still never call anyone outside their home town, but for everyone else, it's a significant pain. With overlays, nobody's number changes. > Geographically, area codes fail to have meaning if they are overlaid ... Uh, since the boundaries haven't changed, they mean exactly what they meant all along. The meaning of 212 didn't change when they overlaid 626 on it. It's still Manhattan. R's, John PS: > ... which is a huge pain from a rotary phone! Ah, well. -- Regards, John Levine, johnl@iecc.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies", Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly ------------------------------ Message-ID: <gasbmdl06kk6gg2e89om9lgreq7mnb9i6p@4ax.com> Date: 4 Aug 2018 19:35:41 +0100 From: "Stephen" <stephen_hope@xyzworld.com> Subject: Re: Backup Power for Cox [or other] ISP On 1 Aug 2018 21:46:30 -0400, jt@jt-mj.net (Julian Thomas) wrote: >> On Jul 31, 2018, at 16:54, Fred Atkinson ><fatkinson.remove-this@and-this-too.mishmash.com> wrote: >> >> They totaled 101 watts. >> >> It is made by APC. The model number is BE600M1. You can >> find it on the Best Buy Web site. It provides 600VA > >Er - 100 watts = 100VA [ignoring power factor]. > >Either my arithmetic is wrong or 600VA would power you for ~6 min. 600 VA means he has 6x the power budget needed (less the power factor) - which is probably enough to handle a power on surge.... The duration that the UPS can maintain that 600 VA (or the total stored power) is a separate item in the datasheet. If the time the UPS can handle is rated at full load then running at 100 VA instead of 600 means the UPS can keep the system running for roughly 6x as long. - - Stephen ***** Moderator's Note ***** The specifications for this model of UPS are at - http://www.apc.com/shop/us/en/products/APC-Back-UPS-BE600M1-600VA-120V-1-USB-charging-port/P-BE600M1 Depending on load, it has runtimes between 6.1 minutes and 1 hour 5 minutes. Bill Horne Moderator ------------------------------ Message-ID: <aada6346-d9b1-4172-994e-099e5743f75a@googlegroups.com> Date: 4 Aug 2018 13:25:12 -0700 From: HAncock4 <withheld@invalid.telecom-digest.org> Subject: Re: Backup Power for Cox [or other] ISP On Thursday, August 2, 2018 at 6:14:13 AM UTC-4, Naveen Albert wrote: > If the Internet is your primary way of communicating, fine, but it > should not be relied upon 100%. Landlines have 99.999% uptime, the > Internet can't compete with that. They often work even in earth- > quakes and hurricanes. Bottom line is you should be putting anything > critical - 911, medical devices, etc. - on a landline, not on VoIP. > VoIP can go out at any time for any number of reasons beyond your > control. Mains power is irrelevant if you have equipment connected > to a landline. I don't know about most of the country, but in my area Verizon has made it quite clear publicly it is not interested in maintaining its existing landline network. It actually has abandoned some neighborhoods, telling them to get FIOS or go away. A neighbor, an elderly man in poor health, lost phone service. It took Verizon ten days to fix it, causing him no end of grief while he waited (including Vz not showing up as promised). In the end, they just switched him to a different cable pair, which is a quick and easy fix. My landline had trouble and I had similar frustrations with Vz. My community does not have FIOS. FIOS is no panacea since that requires house current and its backup batteries will fail during an extended power failure. At least my landline kept working during a long power failure (I am close to the C.O., which has generator backup). Cable phone (provided by Comcast) goes out the minute the power fails, and takes a while to come back. It is not that reliable. Dealing with Comcast is frustrating. Their people all follow pre-written scripts and can't fix anything not covered in the script. A friend lost his Comcast landline and had to wait until a senior technician could come out (the plain tech couldn't fix it). A big part of the problem today is that everyday consumers no longer care about the high reliability the old Bell System landline used to provide. People want the remote connectivity and bells and whistles of their cell phones. Since texting can work on a delayed basis (unlike a voice conversation), people will tolerate some downtime. Overall, people seem to be content with the lower reliability of cell phones. ***** Moderator's Note ***** I doubt most people would be comfortable with lower reliability if they knew that their insurance rates have gone up as a result. Home insurance underwriters pay close attention to the "Fire Danger Protection Rating" of each neighborhood their employers cover: When the percentage of CO-powered landlines falls, the rates go up. Bill Horne Moderator ------------------------------ Message-ID: <0574be5dcfad9582715186de0230f6f9.squirrel@webmail.mishmash.com> Date: 4 Aug 2018 23:06:08 -0600 From: "Fred Atkinson" <fatkinson.remove-this@and-this-too.mishmash.com> Subject: Re: Backup Power for Cox [or other] ISP >On Aug 2, 2018, at 10:58 AM, John Levine <johnl@iecc.com wrote: > I agree, but even copper landlines aren't what they used to be. My > landline is wired copper back to the central office, which I know > because the CO is three blocks away and I can see the wire up on the > poles. The CO has a large battery bank and a generator on a trailer > that they can start up when the power is out for more than an hour > or so. > People out in the country get their service from concentrators > (often called SLCs after an old Bell model) which are battery > powered. The batteries don't last forever and the plans to recharge > them during an outage are spotty. I respectfully disagree. POTS line are slowly going the way of the dinosaur. How many of you continue to push antiquated technology to your customers? We should be able to rely on the new technology and the providers should provide backup power so that their service continues to operate in the event of a power failure. If the customer wishes to provide a UPS or other means of keeping his/her hone network devices going in the event of a power failure, that would be their responsibility. Many would be quite OK with providing their own backup power when it is needed. Let us always remember that the chain is no stronger than its weakest link. If their customer provides backup power on their home network and the network goes down when there is an area wide power outage [or local power outage to the area if the provider's facilities] then their customer invests in backup that is only half a loaf towards keeping the network up when a power outage occurs. Of course, I already stated that in a previous post. The last thing I would ever lean on is outdated [or nearly outdated] technology. To Bob Prohaska: POTS is a service that is generally a loop start line in a residence or small business. Loop start (by definition) will always provide power (negative battery] on the ring of the circuit as long as POTS lines are still around. Of course, even those are slowly going away. Fred ------------------------------ Message-ID: <221c70c8-2c8e-45fe-8338-242b614ff7f5@googlegroups.com> Date: 4 Aug 2018 13:28:25 -0700 From: HAncock4 <withheld@invalid.telecom-digest.org> Subject: Re: Backup Power for Cox [or other] ISP On Friday, August 3, 2018 at 1:15:32 PM UTC-4, John Levine wrote: > ***** Moderator's Note ***** > Older readers might think of a "Concentrator" as an electro- > mechanical device - a micro crossbar exchange - which could be used > to select CO lines for handling by an answering service, or as a > measure to postpone maintenance on outside plant by denying dialtone > to customers when no pairs were available for their calls. The Bell Labs history 1925-1975 provides detailed information on the above Concentrators. The link was previously posted, but I'll dig it out again if anyone is curious. Some writers claimed Bell was too liberal in its use of concentrators and how much they loaded onto them - to the extent that subscribers often couldn't get a call out. Given the service problems of the 1960s and 1970s, I think, in some areas, there is some truth to that. ***** Moderator's Note ***** In Massachusetts, the legislature was more concerned with *where* the concentrators were being placed: mostly in low-income, high-crime sections. They were known as "two-man areas" to the outside plant crews, because there were always two employess on any truck dispatched there. My aunt lived in such an area - the Columbia Point housing project in Dorchester. I lifted her phone once when I was visiting, and heard a busy signal: she explained that it meant there weren't any wires ready to place the call, and that I'd have to wait. I told her that it was unfair and that she should complain. She thought that was very funny. Bill Horne Moderator ------------------------------ ********************************************* End of telecom Digest Mon, 06 Aug 2018

Telecom Digest Archives