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The Telecom Digest for August 13, 2012
Volume 31 : Issue 194 : "text" Format
====== 30 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ======
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Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2012 20:35:48 -0400
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Governor Declares Today "811 Day"
Message-ID: <p06240846cc4c528f23d9@[10.0.1.6]>
Governor Declares Today "811 Day"
In Massachusetts, calling 811 at least three days before digging is
required by state law.
Governor Deval Patrick issued a proclamation designating today,
Aug. 11, 2012 as "811 DAY" in Massachusetts to serve as a reminder for
residents to call 811 to have underground utility lines marked before
starting any digging project. This comes on the heels of a recent
national report by the Common Ground Alliance, which determined that
an underground utility line is damaged during digging projects every
three minutes.
...
http://framingham.patch.com/articles/governor-declares-aug-11-811-day
Date: 11 Aug 2012 16:49:49 -0000
From: "John Levine" <johnl@iecc.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: AT&T sets deadline for 2G sunset in 4 years
Message-ID: <20120811164949.14795.qmail@joyce.lan>
>I thought AT&T was using GSM, and that GSM used TDMA. Are we talking
>apples and oranges?
Yes. Before they used GSM, they used a digital version of AMPS which
they generally referred to as TDMA.
R's,
John
Date: Sun, 12 Aug 2012 08:27:27 -0700 (PDT)
From: Joseph Singer <joeofseattle@yahoo.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: AT&T sets deadline for 2G sunset in 4 years
Message-ID: <1344785247.47146.YahooMailClassic@web121403.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>
Thu, 09 Aug 2012 13:34:23 -0600 Bill Horne wrote:
>
> I thought AT&T was using GSM, and that GSM used TDMA.
> Are we talking apples and oranges?
GSM's underlying technology is TDMA. TDMA is the short-
hand people use to describe the digital technology that
AT&T and Cingular used for their first-generation digi-
tal mobile technology. TDMA is really D-AMPS (IS-54 and
IS-136.) AT&T (and the companies it came from e.g. Bell
South Mobility and Southwestern Bell Mobility) used AMPS
and "TDMA" i.e. IS-54 and IS-136. Both AMPS and IS-136
were sunset in the period of February-March 2008.
*Moderator note: 'TDMA' (<T>ime <D>ivision <M>ultiple <A>ccess) describes
one of several means for providing multiple logical connections over a
single physical connection. Other methodologies include CDMA, FDMA,
'statistical' multiplexing, and 'token passing'. There are various
trade-offs involved in the choice of multiplexing strategy employed.
TEMA gives fixed bandwith, latency, and jitter, making it prefereable
for wireless telephony.
The TDMA name, as Joseph pointss out, was 'commonly used' as a short-hand
description for certain first-generation digital cellular phone technolog,
because the 'time-division' feature -- allowing handling of more calls
on the same number of physical 'channels' -- was a major selling point.
As a technicaal term, it has broader applicability than as a reference to
just that technology. It is not always clear from context as to which
'meaning' of name is intended.
Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2012 13:07:21 -0400
From: Barry Margolin <barmar@alum.mit.edu>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Fastest texters in America face off in New York
Message-ID: <barmar-D74BC1.13072111082012@news.eternal-september.org>
In article <1iv528t6nqmpqg7nh7rs348p3f7cl14lhn@4ax.com>,
Pete Cresswell <PeteCress@invalid.telecom-digest.org> wrote:
> Per Monty Solomon:
> >
> >
> >http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2012/08/08/fastest_texters_in_amer
> >
> >ica_face_off_in_new_york/
>
> I found it amazing that the author managed to write an entire
> article without saying anything specific about how fast the
> winners could text.
The Chicago Tribune mentioned it, perhaps because a home-town boy was
the winner for the 2nd year in a row:
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-08-08/news/sns-rt-us-usa-text-com
petitionbre8771lm-20120808_1_wisconsin-phrases-championship
"Wierschke, a high school student from the small town of Rhinelander in
northeastern Wisconsin, won by texting a 149-character message with
capitalization, punctuation and various symbols, in 39 seconds."
BTW, converting that to normal typing speed, it's 46 words per minute.
Not too bad, as Wikipedia says that an average professional typist can
do 50-80.
--
Barry Margolin, barmar@alum.mit.edu
Arlington, MA
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