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Message Digest Volume 28 : Issue 111 : "text" Format Messages in this Issue: Re: Can I ring my own landline phone? Re: Can I ring my own landline phone? Re: Can I ring my own landline phone? Re: Can I ring my own landline phone? Re: Can I ring my own landline phone? Re: Can I ring my own landline phone? Re: Can I ring my own landline phone? Re: Can I ring my own landline phone? Re: Cell phone recycling: delete, then dispose Re: size not a major consideration in wireline phone sets Re: AT&T doubling 3G capacity Re: AT&T doubling 3G capacity Re: size not a major consideration in wireline phone sets ====== 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 23:00:46 -0400 From: "r.e.d." <red-nospam-99@mindspring.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Can I ring my own landline phone? Message-ID: <MpqdnfX74Yj8FXPUnZ2dnUVZ_omdnZ2d@earthlink.com> The material below is not too helpful, I guess. You can try searching the archives. This version of the faq is dated Feb. 1997. >From the comp.dcom.telecom faq: http://massis.lcs.mit.edu/archives/miscellaneous/telecom.newsgroup.faq Q: How can I find out what my own phone number is? A: If the operator won't read your number back to you, and if you can't phone someone with a Calling # ID box, there are special numbers available that "speaks" your number back to you when dialed. These numbers are quite different from one jurisdiction to the next. Some areas use 200 222.2222; others just require 958; still others 311 or 711 and others have a normally-formatted telephone number which can be changed on occasion (such as 997.xxxx). Such numbers exist in many countries; 175 is one number in the UK while 19123 is one in Australia. There is no general rule for the format of such numbers. These are normally assigned to codes outside normal customer number sequences, however. In areas where Caller ID is available, one could arrange to call someone with an activated display unit and have that called party read back the caller's number. Q: Are there other kinds of test numbers used? A: Yes. Again, space (and available information) does not permit a complete list of what each telephone company is up to in terms of test numbers. The most common number is a "ringback" or self-ring test number. When a two or three digit number is followed by all or the last part of your phone number, another dial tone occurs. Tests for dialing or ringing may then be done. The ringback methods in some jurisdictions will vary. Other numbers include intercom circuits for telephone company staff, or switching centre supervisors, or other interesting tests for call supervision or payphone coin tests. One famous kind of test number belongs to NYNEX, the regional Bell telephone company operating in the northeast U.S.A.. In New York at least, there are "9901" numbers, or local numbers of the form xxx.9901, which result in a recording which identifies the exchange represented by the first three digits. The 9901 numbers may not necessarily exist for all combinations of first three local number (central office code) digits. All these tests and services vary with each phone company; they are not usually found in the phone book, needless to say. "Phluge" <phluge1@yafarthoo.com> wrote in message news: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 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2009 18:42:59 GMT From: "Gene S. Berkowitz" <first.last@verizon.net> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Can I ring my own landline phone? Message-ID: <MPG.24592f37761d6a8998995a@news.verizon.net> In article <MpqdnfX74Yj8FXPUnZ2dnUVZ_omdnZ2d@earthlink.com>, red-nospam- 99@mindspring.com says... > One famous kind of test number belongs to NYNEX, the regional Bell > telephone company operating in the northeast U.S.A.. In New York at > least, there are "9901" numbers, or local numbers of the form xxx.9901, > which result in a recording which identifies the exchange represented > by the first three digits. The 9901 numbers may not necessarily exist > for all combinations of first three local number (central office code) > digits. > > All these tests and services vary with each phone company; they are > not usually found in the phone book, needless to say. In the old New England Telephone days, I used to dial 9816 for a ringback. Not sure if the "6" could be any digit or not.. --Gene ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2009 19:25:26 EDT From: Wesrock@aol.com To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Can I ring my own landline phone? Message-ID: <bdc.45605a23.37210166@aol.com> In a message dated 4/22/2009 9:04:45 AM Central Daylight Time, red-nospam-99@mindspring.com writes: A: If the operator won't read your number back to you, and if you can't phone someone with a Calling # ID box, there are special numbers available that "speaks" your number back to you when dialed. When my son moved into a house that was already wired, they hooked it up afteer business hours while he was not at home and asked me to give him his nember off of my caller ID. My cellphone also always give the calling number. Wes Leatherock wesrock@aol.com wleathus@yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2009 20:12:19 -0700 From: Steven Lichter <diespammers@ikillspammers.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Can I ring my own landline phone? Message-ID: <oWvHl.30655$ZP4.18405@nlpi067.nbdc.sbc.com> Phluge wrote: > 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 > Try this link. http://www.tech-faq.com/ringback-number.shtml -- 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: Tue, 21 Apr 2009 23:02:44 -0500 From: John Mayson <john@mayson.us> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Can I ring my own landline phone? Message-ID: <6645152a0904212102y67ab333eqaf0891e6bc6bc19b@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, Apr 21, 2009 at 1:32 PM, Phluge <phluge1@yafarthoo.com> wrote: > 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? Growing up in GTE Florida territory it was possible to dial your own number, hang up, and have it ring. It's how my mom called us to dinner. John -- John Mayson <john@mayson.us> Austin, Texas, USA ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2009 01:22:06 -0500 From: gordonb.24gwt@burditt.org (Gordon Burditt) To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Can I ring my own landline phone? Message-ID: <qdydnYTpXp4TKnPUnZ2dnUVZ_h-dnZ2d@posted.internetamerica> >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? If you have one of those small home/business phone systems (some of them can use standard landline phones), which takes, say, up to 6 outside lines and 16 extensions, you can dial from one extension to another without actually needing the outside lines to be connected. Somewhere (maybe a couple of decades ago at Radio Shack) I remember seeing a "phone tester" gadget that could generate ring tone, generate a few audio tones, and perhaps check touch-tone generation on your phone for frequency accuracy. I seem to recall it was very expensive if you wanted to buy one of these testers, but the store would test your phone cheap or free hoping to sell you another phone. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2009 07:50:24 -0500 From: "Phluge" <phluge1@yafarthoo.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Can I ring my own landline phone? Message-ID: <KoEHl.37602$FR3.32105@newsfe04.iad> sorry, I forgot to include that I am in Minnesota. Thanks, pflu> ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2009 10:47:23 -0500 From: Dave Garland <dave.garland@wizinfo.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Can I ring my own landline phone? Message-ID: <AqGdnWPUYqlNpnLUnZ2dnUVZ_qKdnZ2d@posted.visi> Phluge wrote: > sorry, I forgot to include that I am in Minnesota. > > Thanks, pflu> Easiest way is to call it from a cellphone, or call a friend and have them call you back. Or (in my case) when I go to make an online payment to one bank I do business with, their system doesn't recognize me and does an automated call to my phone to authenticate. There _are_ ringback numbers in Qwestland, but they seem to be a closely guarded secret (does anyone know why?) and perhaps changed periodically. Dave ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2009 13:32:18 +1000 From: David Clayton <dcstar@myrealbox.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Cell phone recycling: delete, then dispose Message-ID: <pan.2009.04.22.03.32.17.157595@myrealbox.com> > ***** 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. This subject - and the ignorance surrounding it - is really astounding. The assumption that continually sending random pattern write commands to a modern hard drive will overwrite the media with that random pattern has been out of date for many (many) years now as hard drive encoding technology evolved - even the author of one of the original multi-write methods of "wiping" drives tried to point that out that years ago, but it still hasn't stopped people using his original - and now hopelessly outdated - paper as justification for using methods that no longer achieve what they once did. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutmann_method Most modern drives have the built-in "wiping" command included the ATA standard, using this method will probably do the job far better than following the panic-merchants "multiple random wipes! multiple random wipes!" mantra. As modern SSD devices now also do dynamic physical sector remapping (to spread writes through the entire device because they *still* have a finite quantity of write cycles and continually writing to one area would cause premature failure), even randomly writing to these is no guarantee that the physical area that you think you are overwriting is actually being overwritten. One write pass (bypassing any OS) over the entire storage medium will probably do the job these days, as the encoding techniques will probably randomise the actual written patterns sufficiently to make the previous data unusable no matter what forensic methods may be used in an attempt of recovery. -- 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: 22 Apr 2009 07:39:06 -0000 From: John Levine <johnl@iecc.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: size not a major consideration in wireline phone sets Message-ID: <20090422073906.1325.qmail@simone.iecc.com> >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 IMTS used much lower frequencies and higher power than AMPS, so it's hard to see how you could use the same cables. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMTS_Frequencies Also, IMTS phones were big, briefcase size or bigger. My first portable AMPS phone was a bag phone that would fit in a shoebox. The guts of an IMTS phone took up a significant part of the trunk, but even the first generation AMPS would fit under the seat and had all the controls in the handset. R's, John ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2009 06:33:07 -0700 (PDT) From: Joseph Singer <joeofseattle@yahoo.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: AT&T doubling 3G capacity Message-ID: <712754.82559.qm@web52711.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Tue, 21 Apr 2009 08:29:16 -0700 (PDT) hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote: <<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"?>> I'm really not trying to be catty here, but these terms are easily findable by doing a search using tools like wikipedia.org. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3G <<> 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?>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Speed_Packet_Access HSPA is just another high speed mobile data configuration. As far as "G's" 1G is first generation cellular i.e. AMPS analog cellular service. 2G cellular technology would be IS-136 "TDMA", GSM and CDMA. 3G are mostly for high-speed data. It probably doesn't do a lot for voice calling. The point of 3G and coming 4G networks is the way that they handle data as the important thing. 3G technology wouldn't affect you pretty much at all if all you use mobile phones for is using it for making voice calls. <<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.>> Voice quality is wrapped up in several things some of which you can control and others which you cannot. Voice quality can be dependent on the voice codec http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_codec used by the cellular provider, how good a signal you have, how much traffic is on the network etc. Another thing that will affect how calls sound is what kind of phone you are using. A little compact phone may be convenient to carry around but you have to sacrifice sound for the compactness of the phone. A phone with a bigger transducer (speaker) will likely sound better than a smaller more compact phone. Also people have their "preference" as to what sounds best to them. Some people prefer the way phone calls sound on a GSM service (T-Mobile or AT&T) while some people prefer CDMA sound (Sprint and Verizon.) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2009 07:21:29 -0700 (PDT) From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: AT&T doubling 3G capacity Message-ID: <5403a02f-db62-4f55-ba99-ce30b1ed94ed@t10g2000vbg.googlegroups.com> > ***** Moderator's Note ***** > I'm curious if any of the readers can weigh in on the trade-offs > between voice quality and bandwidth on cell phones. Perhaps my hearing isn't the best, but I am not comfortable using my cellphone or talking to someone using their cellphone. I often find myself saying "what?" "say again?" during the conversation. It seems that if the other person isn't speaking directly into the mouthpiece (say they're doing something else and not holding their phone correctly), the transmission becomes "coarse", even if I turn up the cellphone volume. Sort of like the coarse sound when someone stands too close to a microphoen of a PA system or the amp is too high and there's distortion. (For me, turning up the reception volume on my cellphone does not help--it just makes the coarse sound louder but does not add to distinctiveness to it.) Do cell phones vary in quality of transmission or reception? (I don't think so.) I simply think the logical bandwidth alloted to carrying the voice signal is too small so that they can pack more conversations into a physical radio space. (The Bell System did that during and after WW II to get more channels out of the long distance network due to high demand.) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2009 07:41:17 -0700 (PDT) From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: size not a major consideration in wireline phone sets Message-ID: <1f8b36d5-5ac1-42b6-9b2d-609ba022aa12@l5g2000vbc.googlegroups.com> > ***** 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. Per Mr. Levine's post, the earliest "AMPS" (early cellphones) were much smaller than the old systems, but still--in most cases--too big to be hand held; so a separate box and antenna was still required in the vehicle, even if the box was smaller than the prior models. (I believe the early hand held "bricks" were very expensive to make). I suspect the earliest cellphones were seen as successors to car phones; not for walkers, after all, in those days walkers were mostly in cities or buildings where there was convenient landline phones everywhere. I recall how the earliest cellphone centers had a garage so that the car gear could be installed by them. Perhaps the cell phones installed in cars had a more powerful signal and antenna; from the early wireless literature it appears initially there weren't as many cell towers and the extra power was necessary. As time went on and customers increased, they added more towers. I believe people going into remote areas had to continue using either a car phone or bag phone with its extra power. A few years after cell service introduction they got the handset size down small enough to be genuinely portable; and the garages were dismantled. At the same time there were many more subscribers justifying many more antennas. It is important to remember that in _any_ telephone service, there is always an overlap between old and new technologies, everyone does not switch overnight at once. There was a transition from car-mounted to hand held, and a transition from analog to digital. Early digital phones could also do analog. There will be transitions as they migrate from one digital mode to another. (Today C.O.s still support pulse dialing because there are many pulse phones out there.). In looking back, we have to remember that a date of introduction is "fuzzy". Separately we discussed the mobile telephone serviced installed on the original Metroliner trains in 1969. This was a pioneer effect at cell service in that calls automatically found an open channel and were automatically routed from one cell to another along the way (in most but not all cases the cells were large). To the passenger the phone looked like a standard pay phone. But there was considerable extra equipment mounted on the train. One curious question--on the pre-cellular mobile phones, did the units use a standard "G" handset, or did it have special transmitter and receiver elements designed for radio service. The ringer sounded like a standard telephone ringer and the dial looked conventional. ------------------------------ 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 (13 messages) ******************************