The Telecom Digest for November 21, 2010
Volume 29 : Issue 314 : "text" Format
Messages in this Issue:
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Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2010 17:44:36 +1100
From: David Clayton <dcstar@myrealbox.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: We're all hanging up the landline
Message-ID: <pan.2010.11.20.06.44.35.356064@myrealbox.com>
http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/were-all-hanging-up-the-landline-20101118-17zfw.html
We're all hanging up the landline
Lucy Battersby
November 19, 2010
THE number of people ditching fixed-line telephone services in favour of
mobiles is larger than previously thought; just two-thirds of young
Australians connect landlines when they move out of home.
About 14 per cent of mobile-phone users no longer have a fixed-line
telephone at home, says a survey of 18,000 people by the Australian
Communications and Media Authority.
This is bad news for Telstra, which owns and operates the copper wire
telephone network and has experienced declining revenue from this high
margin product line. Its revenue from fixed-line rental and call tariffs
has declined from about $7 billion in 2006 to $5.8 billion last financial
year.
Of those choosing to keep their fixed telephone line, a third said it was
convenient or cheaper than mobile, and just 13 per cent said it was
because fixed lines offer better quality or more reliable service.
About 7 per cent of respondents said they kept a fixed line for an
internet connection.
The number of fixed telephone lines has remained at 10.7 million since
June 2000, but the number of mobile telephone connections has increased
from 8 million to 24.2 million in the same period.
Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2010 17:55:35 +1100
From: David Clayton <dcstar@myrealbox.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: US may disable all in-car mobile phones
Message-ID: <pan.2010.11.20.06.55.31.141293@myrealbox.com>
.........
> FWIW, the best data regarding the dangers of cellphone use by drivers
> came from Australia, which has a very good accident-investigation
> program where they check if a driver was using a cellphone before a
> crash.
>
> Bill Horne
> Moderator
There have been numerous cases of traffic deaths caused by people using
phones highlighted in the media here, so the awareness seems pretty high
and there is a bit of social stigma about using a phone while driving.
Now there are also TV road safety campaigns specifically targeting mobile
use while driving - in the past there have been good results with similar
campaigns highlighting drink-driving (and now driving while under the
influence of drugs) so hopefully the phone campaign will be as effective.
http://www.tacsafety.com.au/jsp/content/NavigationController.do?areaID=13&tierID=1&navID=AEB30EF97F00000100136DA6C7B5DDD4&pageID=421
I almost got clobbered last year by some tool talking on his phone as he
drove straight through a red light while I was on a pedestrian crossing,
so I have a personal bias on this issue......
I still think anyone caught using a phone while driving should have the
device smashed to bits before their eyes, but for some reason this
punishment seems a little excessive to some (can't understand why, I'd let
them have the SIM card first). ;-)
--
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: Sat, 20 Nov 2010 03:02:12 -0600
From: hal-usenet@ip-64-139-1-69.sjc.megapath.net (Hal Murray)
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: History--computer based information operator terminal system
Message-ID: <TsudnTdfV8oJE3rRnZ2dnUVZ_oGdnZ2d@megapath.net>
In article <cd519a85-1407-4931-999b-fc7b0dda7e13@h21g2000vbh.googlegroups.com>,
Lisa or Jeff <hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com> writes:
>A history article in the IBM Systems Magazine describes an IBM System/
>360-50 used to support an on-line lookup system for telephone
>information operators. While the article is more about the computer
>than the telephone operators, it is interesting none the less.
>
>for article please see:
>http://www.ibmsystemsmag.com/mainframe/marchapril09/24886p1.aspx
>(consists of three pages).
I worked on that project. Boy does that bring back memories. Thanks for the
reminder. (I still have my coffee cup from back then.)
I was working for Computer Corporation of America in Cambridge MA. Today, we
would call it a startup. There were 8-10 of us in the company. We had a
data base system that ran on IBM 360s. That was long before SQL.
Bell Labs was working on computerizing directory assistance. Somehow, one of
our guys got in touch with one of their guys. We claimed that we could do
the data base lookup in under a second. They were rightly skeptical, but
after a lot of discussion and simulation, they funded us to do a serious
prototype. We busted our tails for a couple of weeks and gave them a great
demo at the IBM data center in Philadelphia. (It was the nearest place to
Boston (Homdel?) where we could rent time on a 360 with 2260 terminals.) The
demo worked well enough that we got a contract for the system out in Oakland
that the above article describes.
A big chunk of CCA moved to Oakland for several months. We were all young.
I don't think anybody had kids so working long hours on a neat project was
fun rather than disruptive to our life style. (Several wives/girlfriends
came out for weekends. I got to Yosemite for a weekend in October. We had
Half Dome to ourselves.)
The project covered the whole 415 area code, 1.5 million listings. I think
the breakdown was (roughly):
3/4 million residential
1/2 million business
1/4 million government
Part of our job was to read the tapes that they sent to the printers for the
phone books and extract the data to feed to our system. (The print tapes
were full of quirks and special cases. I didn't work in that area.)
They didn't have room for us or the computer in the main PacBell building in
downtown Oakland so they rented the basement floor of an office building a
few blocks away. We were connected to the main building by a pair of 56 KB
lines. Being the phone company, they understood about backhoe fade. One
line went out the back of the main building and the other went out the front.
I think they didn't converge until they got to our building.
One day, we got a tour of the normal directory assistance operation. There
was a large room full of people. I'd guess 50 of them. Each operator was in
a small booth with a row of phone books in front of her. When the operator
said "What city please?", she really meant "What phone book?". I think the
San Francisco directory assistance was shut down overnight and the calls
forwarded over to Oakland.
The phone books were reprinted monthly. It took about 10 of them to cover
415. The schedule was staggered so a new one arrived every few days. New
listings and changes since the last version sent to the customers had a big
dot next to them so they were easy to find.
The walls of the booth had the numbers for popular restaurants and movie
theaters. Think of it as a cache. The hit rate was impressive. I don't
remember any solid numbers, but I'd guess 10-30%.
There was also a small booklet with the changes since the phone books had
been printed. I think it was updated nightly. It was 10 or 20 pages.
At one end of the big room was a chalk board with today's screwups. If Joe's
Pizza Parlor had a new phone and it got listed wrong or missed the cutoff and
Joe called in to complain, his name and correct number would get up on that
board where everybody could see it.
I think the trial setup had 8 stations connected to our system. There was
some sort of minicomputer at their end of the 56Kb lines. I remember
grumbling that we had to do a lot of processing that should have been done at
their end. Back then, I didn't understand project management. In hindsight,
letting us do all the work was probably the right decision. The API/protocol
was pretty simple. I think it was only an afternoon to get things off the
ground. After that, all the changes were in our code so fixing/tweaking
something didn't take any coordination, negotiation, or memos. Somebody just
told us what to do and we did it.
The goal was to deliver the first screen full of answers in under a second
and have the answer be on that screen most of the time.
The key idea is that the first 3 characters of the last name and the first 3
characters of the street name was enough information to get you down to a
screen full most of the time. That's one seek for a hash table lookup, then
another seek to get the first listing and a few more reads (maybe few short
seeks) to get the other listings on that screen.
3 characters of first name and 3 characters of last name also gets you down
to a single screen most of the time.
After a preliminary test, we started over with 3+4 and 4+3 in order to get
slightly better first-screen statistics. The data base also had middle
names/initials, street numbers, city, and whatever. They were only used
occasionally.
WIL was the nasty case for names. That covered Wilson and Williams and
probably a few other big clumps.
Overall, I think Bell Labs and PacBell were happy with the results. We were
at the right place at the right time.
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
Less telcom related...
The only name I remember from PacBell was Al Aramburu. He was a VP(?) in
PacBell and also a supervisor for Marin County (north across the Golden Gate
Bridge from San Francisco). I think he was on loan to Bell Labs when they
started working on this and he made the west coast arrangements for the
experiment.
>From CCA, Bill Mann, Bob Kittredge, Dave Long and I moved out to Oakland for
several months. Dave Long stayed out there as our man on the scene for a few
months after it was up and working and the rest of us returned to the east
coast. (Apologies if I overlooked anybody.)
PacBell provided an IBM 360/50 dedicated to this project. Until we got off
the ground, it was available to us (CCA) for whatever we needed. It was an
interesting example of throw-money-at-it for an experiment. We'll learn
enough to make it worth while.
I don't remember when I learned about Moore's law. This was obviously long
before it hit popular culture, even if you restrict your sample set to geeks.
PacBell obviously considered this to be an important project. We never had
any foot-dragging type bureaucratic problems. I don't remember any names,
but the guys/gals in the trenches supporting us were all good.
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
Our system was one of the first 360/50s on the west coast with 384K (yes K)
of memory. We weren't sure everything would work in 256K and
BellLabs/PACBell didn't want to pay for 512K, so we tried 384K.
The system had 3x 2314 disks, a few tape drives, and a printer and card
reader. The 2314s had the dual channel option. Each 2314 had 9 drives, 8
could be online with the 9th was a spare. Each drive was 30 megabytes, 200
cylinders, 20 tracks per cylinder, 7294 bytes per track.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_2314#IBM_2314.2F2319
The whole 2314 was about 5 ft tall, 12 feet wide, and 3 or 4 feet deep.
The I/O gear (tapes and disks) arrived long before the CPU. The IBM field
service guys had plenty of time to play with their local diagnostics that ran
on the CPU in the controller units. So the I/O gear was all tuned up long
before the CPU arrived.
A couple of days after I got there, the CPU came down the freight elevator.
The IBM guys swarmed around it. After they got everything all setup, they
pushed the Power-On button. The main breaker popped. Those guys worked on
360/50s all day long. They knew it inside and out. After a quick huddle
they found the bug in the directions from the factory. The next try got off
the ground.
But it didn't get very far. One of the guys asked something like "Did we
check for loose cards?". The response was several grumbles of "Not me.".
They dumped power and started checking each individual plug in card. That
involved opening the cover (air baffle) on each 8x10 inch section, and then
tapping each card in there with the back of a screw driver to make sure it
was properly seated. Several times, a card dropped out onto the floor when
they opened the baffle/cover. I remember several cries of "Got another
one!" when somebody found a card that wasn't well seated. After they
reseated all the loose cards, the machine booted. I did the the SYSGEN that
evening.
I browsed the web a bit but didn't find a good picture. The main part of a
360/50 was a T as viewed from above. The console was on the bottom of the T.
The CPU was the stem. The top bar was the memory.
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
Odds and ends...
The 360/50 was used by a lot of banks. Bankers are stingy.
When they didn't have a serious problem to work on, the IBM field service
guys used to hang out at our place. Aside from free coffee, we would give
them occasional time on the system when it wasn't busy with real work. They
would try their latest diagnostic software. (Bankers wouldn't give them the
time of day, even at midnight.)
I remember at least one interesting event due to new diagnostics finding a
problem the old ones didn't, but I've forgotten the details.
When the computer was busy, we got to sit around and swap lies.
I remember making a wise ass comment about a big hammer on top of an IBM tool
box. It sure didn't look like anything you wanted near a computer. The
response was: "That's our door fitting tool." :)
Our office manager had worked for PacBell in Nevada on a project that
involved taking aerial pictures of all of their telephone poles. They
contracted it out to somebody with an airplane and camera. They couldn't
sell the pictures to recover some of their costs because they weren't
tariffed for that. For the next round, they bought one set of pictures from
the guy who took them with the understanding that he could/would sell them to
other people.
At one point, PacBell used a lot of IBM 7044s for their billing. They were
getting another one, maybe just in case since IBM was shutting down that
refurbishing line. The CPU fell off the fork lift that was taking it out of
the plane. When it hit the ground, the whole frame was bent slightly. A
quick phone call kept them from taking the refurbishing line apart so they
could run that machine through again.
--
These are my opinions, not necessarily my employer's. I hate spam.
Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2010 04:39:50 -0800 (PST)
From: Neal McLain <nmclain@annsgarden.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: History--computer based information operator terminal system
Message-ID: <c7e956ea-566d-4983-b1b7-7278f8b2ed80@s16g2000yqc.googlegroups.com>
On Nov 19, 11:48 am, Lisa or Jeff <hanco...@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote:
> On Nov 19, 12:04 am, Neal McLain <nmcl...@annsgarden.com> wrote:
>
> > > I think 11n today is used for test codes. Anyone have a list?
>
> > They don't exist. See comment about VSCs above.
>
> Thanks for the link references.
>
> What I was wondering about are test codes. For example, I believe
> "113" initiates a ringback test.
>
> > At this point, I rise to defend my argument that digit 1 was not (and,
> > insofar as possible, still is not) used as the first digit of a
> > subscriber telephone number because "digit 1 cannot be distinguished
> > from an accidental preliminary depression of the switchhook" (Miller,
> > 1933), Wes's argument to the contrary notwithstanding.
>
> I'm a bit confused by your statement. According to the Bell Labs
> history, the concern over accidental switchhook depression concerned
> only deskstand (candle stick) phones. Once the number of such phones
> declined in service (around the 1950s) it ceased to be an issue.
>
> Actually, I don't understand how an accidental 'one' impulse that
> could happen. Perhaps when the user held the phone in one hand and
> lifted the receiver with the other the hookswitch springs allowed a
> "bounce" and thus a false one. Perhaps users 'flashed' the hookswitch
> while waiting for a delayed dial tone and that sent out a false 'one'
> when the dial tone finally came. Note that in old movies users often
> flash the hookswitch "Operator! Operator!" even on dial phones.
> Perhaps in manual days hookswitch flashing was routine. (On calls
> served by cord PBXs or toll calls placed by an operator users were
> instructed to flash to recall the operator well into the 1970s.) Or
> perhaps it wasn't a problem at all but they thought it was at the
> time. (When 7 digit dialing came out they introduced exchange names
> because they said 7 digits were too many for people to remember, but
> later they said that was wrong.)
>>> I think 11n today is used for test codes. Anyone have a list?
>
>> They don't exist. See comment about VSCs above.
>
> Thanks for the link references.
>
> What I was wondering about are test codes. For example, I believe
> "113" initiates a ringback test.
That may have been the case with SxS switches. Today, 11X (and *X)
indicate vertical service codes. There are many unassigned VSCs that
default to error (or busy) tone. As it happens, the entire 113/*3
block is presently unassigned, "Reserved for expansion to 3-digit
VSCs." See
http://nanpa.com/number_resource_info/vsc_assignments.html
>> At this point, I rise to defend my argument that digit 1 was
>> not (and, insofar as possible, still is not) used as the
>> first digit of a subscriber telephone number because "digit
>> 1 cannot be distinguished from an accidental preliminary
>> depression of the switchhook" (Miller, 1933), Wes's argument
>> to the contrary notwithstanding.
>
> I'm a bit confused by your statement. According to the Bell
> Labs history, the concern over accidental switchhook
> depression concerned only deskstand (candle stick) phones.
> Once the number of such phones declined in service (around
> the 1950s) it ceased to be an issue.
Perhaps it's no longer an issue. Perhaps Wes is right: it never
happens in a million cases. I'm not saying it happens; I'm saying
that the numbering assignments in use in the NANP today effectively
prevent such a call from inadvertently reaching any other valid
subscriber number.
I'll be the first to admit that it wasn't originally designed this
way. The entire North American Numbering Plan is a patchwork of
workarounds designed to accommodate hundreds of existing incompatible
numbering plans into something workable. By happy coincidence, the
very fact that 1 and 0 weren't used in the candlestick days made them
available for all the services added since. Thus:
1+1+ = Vertical Service Code
1+0+ = Carrier Access Code
1+N11 = N11 Code (some switches)
1+NXX+ = Intra-NANP dialed call
0+1+ = International dialing access
0+0+ = IXC operator from some coin phones
0+NXX+ = Intra-NANP credit-card/operator-assisted call
And possibly others that I may have missed.
Neal McLain
Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2010 04:49:47 -0800 (PST)
From: Neal McLain <nmclain@annsgarden.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Google TV, Usability Not Included
Message-ID: <c69f6bc0-be01-4260-ad7e-a115987e611e@l17g2000yqe.googlegroups.com>
On Nov 19, 3:18 pm, Monty Solomon <mo...@roscom.com> wrote:
> Google TV, Usability Not Included
>
> By DAVID POGUE
> November 17, 2010
>
> Google Mail. Google Phone. Google Voice. Google News.
>
> Holy cow. Is there any corner of our lives where Google doesn't
> want a toehold?
>
> Not anymore. It's here, just in time for the holidays: Google TV!
[Moderator snip]
> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/18/technology/personaltech/18pogue.html
I love Stuart Goldenberg's graphic, but I have to wonder: will we
really be able to get Google TV with rabbit ears?
http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2010/11/18/18pogue.html
Neal McLain
Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2010 17:07:42 +0000 (UTC)
From: Joseph Pine <josephpine@invalid.invalid>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Elegy for the phone book
Message-ID: <Xns9E3671345ACEEnomailnomailorg@85.214.73.210>
Elegy for the phone book
By Dennis O'Toole
November 18, 2010
Since the late 1800s, the best way for a man to prove that he is worthy
of the name has been to grip a phone book sideways and tear it in half.
Women loved, and weaklings feared, those who could grasp a volume of the
Chicago, Boston or San Francisco residential white pages and splice it
like a napkin. For me and thousands of other mustachioed strongmen,
tearing apart perfectly good phone books has been our way of life.
It's one that will soon die out. Everyone looks up numbers online, phone
companies say, so there is no reason to continue making the residential
white pages.
One after another, state governments have agreed. In just the past month,
New York, Pennsylvania and Florida have decided to hang up the white
pages. Later this month, Virginia state regulators may decide that white
pages are no longer in service.
Do my telephone metaphors frighten you? Good. They are meant to.
The Marine Corps has made tearing apart a phone book the sole test for
becoming one of the few, the proud. Green Beret candidates must tear
apart six in less than 20 seconds. Navy Seals must do the same under
water.
History is replete with notable phone-book ripping incidents.
John Dillinger broke out of a Crown Point, Ind., jail by tearing apart
the bars of his cell. The bars, it later proved, had been made out of
phone books.
Wilt Chamberlain shocked the basketball world by ripping apart 100 in a
single game.
Neil Armstrong became the first man to tear apart a phone book on the
moon.
These are just a few examples. I could also cite Richard Nixon's famous
"Checkers" speech where he fended off corruption allegations by putting
his fist through the Dallas white pages. Or, how the Beatles wowed the Ed
Sullivan audience with their hit song, "I Wanna Hold Your Hand (and Tear
up Your Phone Book)." And who can forget Ronald Reagan standing in Berlin
and declaring, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall like I will now tear
apart this phone book!"
Perhaps, in our decadent age of online communication and highly sugared,
caffeinated malt liquor, a new test of manliness will emerge to replace
wanton phone book destruction. One will have to. Because quite soon, life
in a world without phone books will tear the hearts of real men in half.
Dennis O'Toole is a writer and performer in Chicago.
Copyright 2010, Chicago Tribune
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/ct-oped-1118-phone-20101118,0,1086412.story
Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2010 08:58:50 -0800
From: Richard <rng@richbonnie.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: US may disable all in-car mobile phones
Message-ID: <scvfe6l6qhif9jj0cmg79744h9rv1av3kv@4ax.com>
Some U.S. states which banned texting while driving have found that
the accident rate caused by texting has increased.
http://www.examiner.com/diversity-in-detroit/laws-prohibiting-texting-while-driving-increases-accident-rate-generation-view
(From the article)
The reason for the increase is thought to be the tendency of texting
drivers to hide their phone while texting. This creates an even bigger
distraction than was the case when the phone was in plain view,
typically held on top of the steering wheel. By holding their phones
in their laps while typing messages, the distracted motorist must take
their eyes completely off the road.
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