30 Years of the Digest ... founded August 21, 1981

Add this Digest to your personal   or  

The Telecom Digest for August 20, 2012
Volume 31 : Issue 199 : "text" Format
Messages in this Issue:
Converting Lat/Long from degrees-minutes-second to decimal degrees (bill)
Re: fios questions (Bruce Bergman)
Re: fios questions (David LaRue)
Re: AT&T sets deadline for 2G sunset in 4 years (T)
Re: Any Non-free SMS Gateways for e-mail to SMS on Wireless Carriers (tlvp)

====== 30 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 that person, or email address owner.
Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without the explicit written consent of the owner of that address. 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: Sun, 19 Aug 2012 20:40:20 -0700
From: bill@horne.VALID-IF-THIS-IS-ELIDED.net
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Converting Lat/Long from degrees-minutes-second to decimal degrees 
Message-ID: <E1T3Iqi-0003JI-1V@telecom.xen.prgmr.com>

Here's a great FCC site that converts Latitude and Longitude in
Degrees, Minutes, and Seconds to or from Decimal Degrees.

http://transition.fcc.gov/mb/audio/bickel/DDDMMSS-decimal.html

HTH.
Bill




Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2012 20:22:55 -0700
From: Bruce Bergman <brucebergman@gmail.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: fios questions 
Message-ID: <CACqS8052ba8TsMWmfFS2vgPgwj0+gCxatnixhTxNL4Qf5zG77A@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, 17 Aug 2012 02:18:06 -0700 (PDT), Michael <
michael.muderick@gmail.com> wrote:

>I may finally make the switch from copper/DSL to FIOS.  I have a
>couple of questions.   I use many of the older Western electric/ATT
>phones in my house.    They work with the old 90volt ringers.   Will
>there be any problems with FIOS regarding this?  How about the
>polarity sensitive dials?   Will they still work?  Will they still be
>polarity sensitive?   What about the backup battery in the FIOS box.?
>Does it need regular replacing? How often?  Does Verizon charge for
>that?  How long does it last in a power failure?  Thanks so much for
>your answers.

If I was offered FIOS, I'd jump - but with one proviso: They want you to
sign the form, and buried in the Fine Print is the right to cut off ALL
copper pairs to the house. They want to save money - but you aren't going
to get Five-Nines Life-Safety reliability on FIOS.

I would insist on keeping one POTS line on a Copper Pair (without any Pair
Gain or other tomfoolery) for the Alarm System RJ31X and dialer, and Fax if
you have one, or a simple Desk Set if you don't.  Do all the long distance
calling on the FIOS line, the POTS line is incoming & local only.

You have a disaster, and two or three hours later you don't have phones
anymore. And Cellular is going to be either down without power, or
hopelessly overloaded - right when you need it the most.  It could go the
other way and FIOS is the one that still works, but that's not the way to
bet.

Just like every Telco Central Office has an Emergency Phone fed from a
totally seperate nearby Central Office - if the apocryphal "fecal matter
impacts the rotary air motivator" and the CO turns into a $5M paperweight,
and it does happen...

They've still got working Dial Tone to call in the cavalry - and tell them
what to bring.

In the case I got to witness first-hand, they got told to bring lots and
lots and lots of spare fuses - Grab 'em all, we'll pick out what we need. I
think Steven L. was still around when Art U. "leveled the busbars" at
Sylmar.

--<< Bruce >>--





Date: Sat, 18 Aug 2012 04:33:36 +0000 (UTC)
From: David LaRue <huey.dll@gte.net>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: fios questions 
Message-ID: <XnsA0B35ABCC419507d764ee9285@178.63.61.145>

HAncock4 <withheld@invalid.telecom-digest.org> wrote in news:26705c03-9f59-
4409-b15e-77787727a6d7@c19g2000vbb.googlegroups.com:

> On Aug 17, 5:18 am, Michael <michael.muder...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> What about the backup battery in the FIOS box.?
>> Does it need regular replacing? How often?  Does Verizon charge for
>> that?  How long does it last in a power failure?
> 
> A friend with FIOS says the backup battery lasts about three hours in
> a power failure.  Unfortunately, when a severe storm knocks out power
> for much longer periods there is no phone service until power is
> restored.  Friends with cable-TV provided phone service also report no
> phone service during power outages.  FWIW  my traditional land-line
> has always remained available even during extended power outages.

I'd like to add that the FIOS UPS does not keep up the internet side of the  
conversation.  It only works for maintaining the phone connection.  Any
intermittant outages (brownouts) will reset the internet router.

For that reason I plugged my FIOS UPS into the computer room UPS.  A small
300W would go a long way, but I have a rack mount UPS that keeps several 
servers up as well.

I've also not had any problem with my legacy phones and the FIOS Phone.

David




Date: Sat, 18 Aug 2012 02:07:23 -0400
From: T <kd1s.nospam@cox.nospam.net>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: AT&T sets deadline for 2G sunset in 4 years 
Message-ID: <MPG.2a98fb29ce929c61989d8f@news.eternal-september.org>

In article <20120816184423.73331.qmail@joyce.lan>, johnl@iecc.com 
says...
> 
> >> I thought AT&T was using GSM, and that GSM used TDMA. Are we talking 
> >> apples and oranges?
> >
> >I believe GSM uses a subset of CDMA, not TDMA. 
> 
> You are mistaken.  GSM is most definitely TDMA.
> 
> The next generation, LTE, is indeed CDMA.
> 
> R's,
> John

Thanks! Time Division only has so many voice slots per channel. CSMA is 
more like CSMA/CD in computer networks. It detect collisions and 
therefore allows a slightly better capacity than TDMA but with the 
caveat that you don't get a guaranteed time slot. 




Date: Sat, 18 Aug 2012 23:25:58 -0400
From: tlvp <mPiOsUcB.EtLlLvEp@att.net>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Any Non-free SMS Gateways for e-mail to SMS on Wireless   Carriers 
Message-ID: <17hssuv0qgflj.f4i6a2zqzlro$.dlg@40tude.net>

On Fri, 17 Aug 2012 11:52:07 -0700 (PDT), Joseph Singer wrote:

> Oh, and something you need to know about carrier specific 
> gateways that use 10-digits@[mobile number gateway] is 
> that they only let you use 140 characters rather than 
> 160 character limit you have with a regular phone-to-phone SMS.

More to the point, I think (in theory): you do get 160 characters ...
but -- 11 of those get used for the 10-digits@ part of the address;
more get used for the [mobile number gateway] part of the address;
another 1-3 get used for the [space] (or [space][slash], or perhaps even
[space][slash][space]) required between address and SMS body (ya never know
just which). 

And if you're using a "Subject:" line, every character it uses counts
against your SMS body character-count. 

So even a Verizontal 10-digits@vtext.com address should let at best a
139-character SMS (with no Subject: line) go through untruncated.

OK, that was in theory.

In practice: I just sent myself identical "Subject:"-less emails each
consisting of five 35-character lines, each successive pair of which were
separated by a terminating [CR][LF] pair, to SMS email addresses of the
form 10-digit-#@tmomail.net and 10-digit-#@vtext.com.

Surprise: all 175 characters, and all 8 [CR][LF] characters, were displayed
as received on my T-Mobile handset.

But on my Verizon handset, what came through was the full first four lines,
with their terminating [CR][LF] pairs (148 characters there), and the first
14 characters of the 5th line (all told, 162 characters of SMS text).

So: theory and practice diverge (as usual, I suppose :-) ). HTH.

Cheers, -- tlvp
-- 
Avant de repondre, jeter la poubelle, SVP.






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 Bill Horne. 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 moderated by Bill Horne.
Contact information: Bill Horne
Telecom Digest
43 Deerfield Road
Sharon MA 02067-2301
339-364-8487
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) 2012 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 (5 messages)

Return to Archives ** Older Issues