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The Telecom Digest for May 07, 2011
Volume 30 : Issue 116 : "text" Format
Messages in this Issue:
Re: Busy trunks--subscriber behavior(Sam Spade)
Re: Busy trunks--subscriber behavior(Wes Leatherock)
Re: Busy trunks--subscriber behavior(John Levine)
Re: Busy trunks--subscriber behavior(Lisa or Jeff)
Re: Busy trunks--subscriber behavior(David Clayton)
Re: Busy trunks--subscriber behavior(Harold Hallikainen)
Re: Looks like "fake caller ID" laws are about to get a boost(Lisa or Jeff)
Re: Looks like "fake caller ID" laws are about to get a boost(Robert Bonomi)

====== 29 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 Bill Horne 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.
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Date: Thu, 05 May 2011 21:40:50 -0700
From: Sam Spade <sam@coldmail.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Busy trunks--subscriber behavior  
Message-ID: <85qdnQDq7PRO5l7QnZ2dnUVZ_qidnZ2d@giganews.com>

Geoffrey Welsh wrote:
> Stephen wrote:
> 
> 
>>and modems can be even worse.....
> 
> 
> On a slightly different but somewhat related topic:
> 
> I seem to recall ILECs complaining that long modem connections were
> playing havoc with their provisioning plans... despite the growth of
> the overall market, the fate of companies like AOL suggests that the
> number of dialup users has shrunk.  I wonder how much the factors used
> in provisioning planning changed as broadband replaced dialup as the
> most common connection type?  Perhaps the high availability of trunk
> capacity mentioned in this thread is - at least in part - the result
> of capacity added during the dialup heyday and underutilized since?
> Or have technology upgrades over the past decade or two simply
> provided so much capacity that voice traffic can't normally put a dent
> in it?
> 

Dial-up must be almost dead.  And, there is a lot of excess capacity 
because of migtration away from wireline to wireless.  Having said that, 
I suspect maintence of trunks as well as outside plant has declined. 
When there is excess trunk capacity it is cheaper to pickle a bad trunk 
rather than spend time and money repairing it.  Same goes for local 
plant copper.

I suspect most of the LEC maintenance goes towards DSL plant these days.




Date: Thu, 5 May 2011 17:22:07 -0700 (PDT)
From: Wes Leatherock <wleathus@yahoo.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Busy trunks--subscriber behavior  
Message-ID: <630298.27242.qm@web111705.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>

--- On Wed, 5/4/11, Sam Spade <sam@coldmail.com> wrote:

> Lisa or Jeff wrote:
> > These days it is very rare to run out of trunks or switching
> > capacity.  However, during emergency situations, such as after
> > heavy storms or other natural disasters, or other major
> > emergencies, there may be a temporary overload on telephone
> > facilities.  My recollection is that, like everything else, the
> > No.1 ESS was much more sophisticated at handling such issues than
> > equipment studied in that article.

> If a lot of subscribers remained off-hook, no harm, no foul, unlike
> a No 5 XBAR, which could crash given sufficient permanent off-hooks.
>     [...]
> The No. 1 and 1A would eventually dump the permanent off-hook to the
> receiver off-hook (ROC) routine, then to suspend status ("dirty"
> battery).  If traffic were really busy, the ROC tone would not be
> provided.
>
> Nonetheless, the switch would be more apt to eventually provide dial
> tone to a subscriber who remained off-hook (that is, until ROC
> kicked-in) as opposed to a subscriber who would repeatedly plunge
> the switch-hook.
>
> No doubt the No 5ESS would handlle the situation much the same
> because of similar design policies for such matters.
>
> All of this presumes no major damage to the switch itself or its
> trunk frams.  The loss of a line frame was insiginificant except for
> the subscribers assigned to that frame.  (line module on a 5ESS I
> believe.)

I remember three occasions when dial tone or access was delayed.  The
first time was in Dallas where I was served by a step-by-step office
(most of Dallas was step at that time.)  It was during a storm and
after I had tried two of three times to get dial tone I finally left
the phone off-hook.  About 40 minutes later I check again and I was
getting dial tone, and when I dialed my numbeer it went right through.

The second time was in Kirkwood, Mo. (a suburb of St. Louis), again
during a storm.  It was a 5XB.  You couldn't just leave your phone
off-hook and wait because it would shortly give the off-hook tone.  So
I tried at intervals for several times, hoping perhaps to hit a time
when there was a momentary gap in demand for service or the overload
was eased.  It took about 40 minutes that time, as I recall.

The third time was somewhat different, this time I was away from home
a couple of years ago when a tornado alert was sounded and I wanted to
call home to see if my wife was OK.  For about an hour there was no
signal.

Wes Leatherock
wleathus@yahoo.com
wesrock@aol.com




Date: 6 May 2011 02:24:41 -0000
From: "John Levine" <johnl@iecc.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Busy trunks--subscriber behavior  
Message-ID: <20110506022441.85800.qmail@joyce.lan>

>Or have technology upgrades over the past decade or two simply
>provided so much capacity that voice traffic can't normally put a dent
>in it?

I think that's it.  Electronic switching and fiber trunking got rid
of the bottlenecks in switching and transmission that constrained
traditional telephony.

Not that the ILECs would ever admit that, of course.

R's,
John




Date: Thu, 5 May 2011 16:30:55 -0700 (PDT)
From: Lisa or Jeff <hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Busy trunks--subscriber behavior 
Message-ID: <cd4ad6a9-4921-4354-93db-9882192c139a@s2g2000yql.googlegroups.com>

On May 5, 5:41 pm, "Geoffrey Welsh" <gwe...@spamcop.net> wrote:

> I seem to recall ILECs complaining that long modem connections were
> playing havoc with their provisioning plans... despite the growth of
> the overall market, the fate of companies like AOL suggests that the
> number of dialup users has shrunk.  I wonder how much the factors used
> in provisioning planning changed as broadband replaced dialup as the
> most common connection type?  Perhaps the high availability of trunk
> capacity mentioned in this thread is - at least in part - the result
> of capacity added during the dialup heyday and underutilized since?
> Or have technology upgrades over the past decade or two simply
> provided so much capacity that voice traffic can't normally put a dent
> in it?

I believe the heydey of dial-up was about 10-20 years ago, and at that
time the local plant had older, more expensive equipment and
subscriber loops.  There was still quite a bit of analog ESS and even
a few crossbar switches in service.

IMHO, the enormous drop in the cost of electronics allowed for far
greater capacity.  For instance, in 1975, the high cost of terminal
equipment made it in some cases more economical to simply use plain
copper as inter-office trunks as opposed to a higher capacity
multiplexing scheme (per Bell System text).   Plus, of course, people
who have broadband pay for it as opposed to many dial-up users who
merely used their regular home phone line.




Date: Fri, 06 May 2011 15:53:40 +1000
From: David Clayton <dcstarbox-usenet@yahoo.com.au>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Busy trunks--subscriber behavior  
Message-ID: <pan.2011.05.06.05.53.37.917140@yahoo.com.au>

On Thu, 05 May 2011 17:41:56 -0400, Geoffrey Welsh wrote:
........
> I seem to recall ILECs complaining that long modem connections were
> playing havoc with their provisioning plans... despite the growth of the
> overall market, the fate of companies like AOL suggests that the number of
> dialup users has shrunk.  I wonder how much the factors used in
> provisioning planning changed as broadband replaced dialup as the most
> common connection type?  Perhaps the high availability of trunk capacity
> mentioned in this thread is - at least in part - the result of capacity
> added during the dialup heyday and underutilized since? Or have technology
> upgrades over the past decade or two simply provided so much capacity that
> voice traffic can't normally put a dent in it?

If things are anything like in Australia, most intra-exchange
backbone trunking is now VoIP so the "circuits" are being continually
upgraded to handle the steadily increasing demands - whether voice or data.

The only issues I can see would be the number of trunk circuits coming out
of the old voice switches and going into the VoIP carrier equipment.

-- 
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: Fri, 6 May 2011 05:25:25 -0700 (PDT)
From: Harold Hallikainen <harold@hallikainen.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Busy trunks--subscriber behavior 
Message-ID: <a1aca9aa-e5f3-4aff-9de2-8fc9524316b3@z13g2000prk.googlegroups.com>

On May 5, 2:41 pm, "Geoffrey Welsh" <gwe...@spamcop.net> wrote:
> Stephen wrote:
> > and modems can be even worse.....
>
> On a slightly different but somewhat related topic:
>
> I seem to recall ILECs complaining that long modem connections were
> playing havoc with their provisioning plans... despite the growth of
> the overall market, the fate of companies like AOL suggests that the
> number of dialup users has shrunk.  I wonder how much the factors used
> in provisioning planning changed as broadband replaced dialup as the
> most common connection type?  Perhaps the high availability of trunk
> capacity mentioned in this thread is - at least in part - the result
> of capacity added during the dialup heyday and underutilized since?
> Or have technology upgrades over the past decade or two simply
> provided so much capacity that voice traffic can't normally put a dent
> in it?

I think there was also a large issue with reciprocal compensation.
Most dial-up users were on ILECs, while the ISPs were on CLECs. The
dial-up user often had flat rate local service, but the ILEC had to
pay the CLEC per minute of connect time. I suspect a lot of money
changed hands on this. I guess it's similar to today's compensation to
conference call bridge companies, though I suspect dial-up ISPs
resulted in much more traffic.

Harold




Date: Thu, 5 May 2011 16:36:25 -0700 (PDT)
From: Lisa or Jeff <hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Looks like "fake caller ID" laws are about to get a boost   
Message-ID: <ebf64ce2-56af-4efb-b27a-044a040488be@k25g2000yqf.googlegroups.com>

On Apr 30, 10:55 am, Pete Cresswell <x...@y.Invalid.telecom-
digest.org> wrote:

> Laws are in place.   The problem is pinning the call on somebody.

The problem I have with nuisance calls is that they're perfectly
legal.  It's very rare that I get an illegal call trying to sell me
something or a call to my cell phone (though it has happened a few
times.)

Rather, I am flooded with survey calls, charity soliticitations, and
political calls.  Up to and including election day calls come hourly.
All of these are protected under US law.

I am not holding for breath for political calls to be made illegal.




Date: Fri, 06 May 2011 03:02:54 -0500
From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi)
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Looks like "fake caller ID" laws are about to get a boost 
Message-ID: <Kb2dndFWKfuzNl7QnZ2dnUVZ_hmdnZ2d@posted.nuvoxcommunications>

In article <wsudnRalPZEWriDQnZ2dnUVZ_sydnZ2d@giganews.com>,
Sam Spade  <sam@coldmail.com> wrote:
>danny burstein wrote:
>>>    Also, it would be a good idea to go to the FTC Web site and report
>>>whichever company is continuing to call you.  If they get enough
>>>complaints, they'll at least send them a warning letter.
>> 
>> 
>> Not meaning to dump on the poster here, but what proof do
>> we have that the FTC (and the related for this purpose, FCC)
>> does even this diddlysquat? Yes, we see the periodic press releases
>> that they put out, but as of last month I was still getting
>> calls from "Rachel of Card Services", and the feds have gotten
>> thousands, perhaps tens of thousands... or hundreds...
>> of complaints.
>> 
>> She's been at it for literally (and I mean that literally) years.
>> 
>> For that matter, where in their enabling legislation is
>> there a provision that states "ignore the public and
>> disregard violations of the law unless you get X number
>> of complaints"?

Like it or not, every government agency does that.  It is a fact of life
that they do -not- have 'unlimited' funding, to pursue every reported
'possible violation'.

The Federal courts have ruled on the legality of such actions.  Courts 
have said, in so many words, that government agencies do NOT have a
'duty' to enforce every violation -- that they do have the right/
authority/whatever to decide _which_cases_ they will pursue.  The. U.S.
Supreme Court has affirmed, so it is the 'law of the land'.

>
>The FCC handed this issue off to the FTC a long time ago.  Congress 
>provided the capability for aggrieved individuals to sue violators in 
>federal court. 

FACT:  You can sue in any "court of competent jurisdiction".  Any
local court with 'jurisdiction' over the calling party -- i.e., a 
court where that business is located -- CAN and WILL hear the case.

One can even file in 'small claims'.

>                (Tracking them down then hiring competent counsel to 
>represent you in federal court costs a fortune.)  All the FTC does is 
>gather statistics and advise you of your right to file a lawsuit, if you 
>are so inclined.

FALSE TO FACT.  They do go after 'egregious' violators.  For 'economic'
reasons (i.e., they don't have funding for serious research to identify
those who conceal their identity), these tend to be only the 'low hanging 
fruit' -- the mass violators that are easily identifiable.





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