29 Years of the Digest ... founded August 21, 1981
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The Telecom Digest for June 28, 2011
Volume 30 : Issue 158 : "text" Format
====== 29 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ====== |
Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the
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See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details
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Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2011 11:43:12 -0700
From: Sam Spade <sam@coldmail.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Battery power support today
Message-ID: <zb6dneG6eOVc4JrTnZ2dnUVZ5qydnZ2d@giganews.com>
Ricardus wrote:
> On Fri, 17 Jun 2011 21:21:02 -0700,
> Bruce Bergman <brucebergman.remove-this@and-this-too.gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>It is a nice idea, but not all that practical - you almost have to
>>get (or build) a dedicated generator set to do this with. For
>>openers, the engine has to hold 1800 or 3600 RPM, so the generator
>>holds 60 Hz fairly closely - many electronic devices do NOT do well
>>when the power input takes major voltage or frequency excursions.
>>And that takes a purpose designed governo r system on the engine to
>>apply throttle as necessary to hold the prime mover running speed in
>>a very narrow range.
>
>
>>[Moderator snip]
>
>
> Will all concerned with power generators go to the Bedini website & give opinion?
>
> Richard Powderhill
>
Do you have a link to the correct website?
Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2011 15:19:02 -0500
From: GlowingBlueMist <glowingbluemist@truely.invalid>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: NETTALK VOIP SERVICE
Message-ID: <4e07943f$0$2627$892e0abb@auth.newsreader.octanews.com>
On 6/25/2011 11:22 PM, gsthurman wrote:
> I along with a friend are considering getting a VOIP service called NETTALK.
> He will use in place of his current Magic Jack, which he has several
> problems with recently. If you are a user of NETTALK, I would like to ask a
> favor of you. Magic Jack blocks calling to many locations here in the USA.
> We are trying to see if NETTALK does the same thing. We would like for
> someone who has NETTALK to call a few phone numbers I will send to you and
> make a few test calls for us. Please contact me if you have NETTALK.
>
> Thank you
>
> GEORGE "SKIPPER" THURMAN
>
>
> ***** Moderator's Note *****
>
> If this is a scam, it's a good one: Google didn't turn up any hits on
> various phrases from the above post, so it's not velveeta AFAICT. Of
> course, all the usual caveats apply.
>
> Bill Horne
> Moderator
>
netTalk does have a large group of forums available to anyone cares to
visit them.
Reading anything in the forums is open to anyone who goes there,
registered or not.
Registration is only required if you want to post a message or reply to
one and even then all they ask for is an email of your choice where they
can send the forum account info and a user name you want to show up in
the forums.
The main link to the forums that I use is:
https://forum.nettalk.com/
Unless someone actually gets abusive they leave the bad along with the
good on the forums with out editing them.
I've had mine for over two years with no real problems but then I am not
known as a power user. So far mine has been working just fine any time
I've wanted to use it. There have been problems in the past with some
800 or automated phone tree systems, like hit 6 for this or 7 for that
but they seem to have been taken care of. I don't recall any individual
numbers that were blocked for any reason other than just simple mistakes
in call routing. Those were taken care of by a simple trouble ticket
and the tech support people fixed the problem.
Many people combine netTalk with Google Voice in order to fill in any
features they want or think are not working the way they like.
There are a couple of forums you might want to post a question or read
as a new or prospective user.
Under the "Questions" forum ther is one titled "Area Code Availability"
were people post questions about any local area codes available where
they live. NetTalk does not have a method setup for you to find out if
an area code is available for use by a purchaser until they have already
bought the unit. This forum has people there who have access to the
local area codes look-up info and will answer you.
Another forum of interest to new users is under "DOU Talk" and under
that the actual forum or thread entitled "List of Routers that work
well/badly with DOU/TK6000"
There are a few routers that just do not seem to play well with any VOIP
service and those are listed along with those that people find work just
fine with out having to make a bunch of router configuration changes, if
any. Since your friend already has a MagicJack I expect there to be no
router problems unless he/she had problems making MagicJack work at the
beginning. Still it does not hurt to check the list.
By the way the "netTalk DOU" group of forums are the most current as
that is what is currently being sold. The older TK6000 that came first
is no longer produced or sold so those groups move slowly.
Keep in mind that most people who post questions in the forums are those
who have or think they have a problem. Those that are happy with the
service seldom post questions, but do reply to them.
I can make a few test calls for you if you email me directly at one of
my throw away email address' Send a note to cyfnas-at&-gmail.com
(replace the -at&- with the @ symbol to use it). It may be a disposable
email but it's still handy so I try to mask it from the bots to keep the
spam down, not that I normally read inbound there unless I'm expecting
something.
Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2011 11:24:13 -0700
From: AES <siegman@stanford.edu>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Flash Exploits on the Loose: Update Now
Message-ID: <siegman-CFF20A.11241326062011@sciid-srv02.med.tufts.edu>
In article
<1309008518.70679.YahooMailClassic@web34202.mail.mud.yahoo.com>,
"John C. Fowler" <johnfpublic@yahoo.com> wrote:
> AES wrote:
> > Where does a nervous novice find Adobe Flash Player (or a relevant Adobe
> > Updater) on his Mac, so he can start them up and check for updates and
> > version numbers?
>
> My favorite place to check my Flash Player version is at Adobe's site:
>
> http://www.adobe.com/software/flash/about/
>
> This will tell you what version you are currently running, if you have
> it installed at all, and the most recent versions for each of the
> operating systems. If you see you need to upgrade, there is a link to
> the download center.
Thanks much for this (also to earlier poster of this link).
For those of us using ClickToFlash with Safari (and liking it very
much), to do what you suggest above we need to go to that web page and
then click on the second Flash block on the web page, located to the
right of the text beginning with "Adobe Flash Player is the standard for
delivering...".
Interestingly, this gives for me "You have version 10,2,153,1 installed"
-- and yes, those are commas in the version number. Maybe just a
trivial formatting error? Also, EasyFind says that what's on my MacBook
is just "Flash Player.plugin" (about 23 MB), and the Get Info for that
plugin says its version is "10.2 r153" -- close, but not exact.
Is that the "Adobe Flash Player" we're talking about here? (Are plugins
technically apps?)
Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2011 12:15:14 -0700
From: AES <siegman@stanford.edu>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Battery power support today
Message-ID: <siegman-412F8B.12151426062011@sciid-srv02.med.tufts.edu>
In article
<343284bf-681f-4599-abb3-8f26393bf02a@x10g2000vbl.googlegroups.com>,
Lisa or Jeff <hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote:
> On Jun 18, 4:19 am, David Clayton <dcstarbox-use...@yahoo.com.au>
> wrote:
>
> > My question is based on the rapid changes in comms technology and the way
> > we increasingly rely on 24/7 availability these days, you would think that
> > this is the sort of thing that needs some solid quantification (is that a
> > word?) of what works and what doesn't so we know if we building more or
> > less resilient infrastructure.
>
> I agree with [your statement about the] need [for] more quantification
> of this issue.
>
> But I want to note that the phone co long considered 24/7 availability
> to be critical.
As another data point on the preceding sentence:
>From the mid-1950s onward I knew many professional colleagues at Bell
Labs quite well. Not all were in telephony directly, more like electron
device research; but several of them were old timers or senior figures
with long careers at Bell who had been heavily involved in telephony
throughout their careers.
Riding up a Squaw Valley chairlift with one of these old timers in the
late 1980s, motivated by recent multi-day electrical power failures at
my California house, and my inability to get any published standards for
residential service reliability out of PG&E, I asked him what if any
published standards for residential telephone reliability had existed in
the now departed Bell System.
Answer: "No residential customer was to be without dial tone for more
than 18 minutes total per year, for any reason under the control of the
local phone company". [This is from now distant memory, but it was
pretty close to this exact wording.]
Also, any call to an Operator or to Bell services like Repair was to be
answered within 4 rings; and other similar explicit performance
standards.
Wow! Were things like this actually monitored and recorded by the local
telco? Was the resulting information made use of in any way?
Answer: "You bet! They had programs that monitored actual performance
against these standards; these numbers went into performance reviews for
managers; and they definitely impacted the promotions for managers at
all levels, including upper levels."
Some years later I was visited by a former student who was at the time
developing the hardware for some new form of telephone service to be
delivered by a cable TV company over their residential TV cables.
Thinking of my earlier exchange I asked him more or less the same
question. The answer was that they were developing their hardware to a
reliability standard of not more than 45 minutes/year downtime for any
reason [I think that was the number; it was definitely under an
hour/year.]
Finally, I recall that every once in a while I'd hear one of the black
dial phones in one of my early houses give a single little "ping", often
in the stillness of the night. Somewhere I acquired the impression that
this was the telco, checking that we did indeed have dial tone. Other
old timers may be able to say if this is correct.
Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2011 15:59:24 -0400
From: "\(PeteCresswell\)" <x@y.Invalid>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Battery power support today
Message-ID: <jl3f0758p22l27sr8ocm4nqhfdh539vi12@4ax.com>
Per Lisa or Jeff:
>1) a big ugly box is attached to
>your house, and some people find those boxes objectionable,
"Big" and "Ugly" might be subject to judgment of reasonable
people.
But on our house's FIOS install, the outdoor box isn't much
different from the box that handled the POTS interface.
Indoors, however, there is a box that is not there for POTS.
I wouldn't call it big or ugly... but YYMV.
The trick with that box is to make sure they install it somewhere
that it is convenient/easy to get to for battery replacement -
yet out of sight.
I didn't think of this when they installed our first box and it
wound up in the crawl space. Bad Idea....
I since got them to move it to the closet where I keep my NAS box
and router. No problem there.....
--
PeteCresswell
Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2011 10:46:37 -0400
From: T <kd1s.nospam@cox.nospam.net>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Battery power support today
Message-ID: <MPG.287261db265df694989d3e@news.eternal-september.org>
In article <845331.60718.qm@web65704.mail.ac4.yahoo.com>,
marklsmith@yahoo.com says...
>
> >On Jun 15, 5:06 am, David Clayton <dcstarbox-use...@yahoo.com.au>
> >wrote:
>
> >In very general terms, my impression from the news media and informal
> >conversation is that old landline POTS is more reliable than Wireless
> >or Cable phones. How 'much more' I can't say. In some plain old
> >regular snowstorms that snarl traffic my cellphone wouldn't work on
> >account of busy circuits, but I always got dial tone on landlines.
>
> But dial tone doesn't mean you can call anywhere. During the Northeast
> blackout in the 60s I was in Rhode Island and when the lights went out
> it seemed like everyone was trying to call their relatives. We had
> dial tone 90% of the time (other 10% dead air) but no calls were going
> through. We got the famous "Please try your call later."
> recording. After a couple of hours we were able to call Maine which
> was mostly unaffected by the blackout.
>
> Mark Smith
Probably because while the central offices were fully backed up, the T
carriers probably had no redundant power at the repeater points. That
resulted in trunk losage, no doubt.
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