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The Telecom Digest for April 27, 2013
Volume 32 : Issue 90 : "text" Format
====== 31 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ======
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Date: 26 Apr 2013 03:07:45 -0000
From: "John Levine" <johnl@iecc.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Wireless access expands in NYC subway
Message-ID: <20130426030745.67949.qmail@joyce.lan>
>IMHO, this is not a good idea. Subway stations now have a liberal
>complement of pay telephones for emergency or urgent phone calls.
>When trains pass through the stations become very noisy making
>conversations almost impossible. Passengers talking on their phones
>will be very distracted and at risk for taking the wrong train,
>blocking the path of other passengers, falling down the many
>staircases, falling into the platform gap, or even falling into the
>tracks. ...
A large number of stations on the NYC subway, probably the majority of
them, are at or above grade, so people's cell phones have always
worked there. If the phones are so dangerous, why don't we hear about
distracted people plunging from trestles?
Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2013 13:06:17 +0000 (UTC)
From: briang@panix.com (Brian Gordon)
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Why Don't Cell Phones have Dial Tones?
Message-ID: <kldu49$nh1$1@reader1.panix.com>
In article <1366898374.93671.YahooMailClassic@web121903.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>,
Joseph Singer <joeofseattle@yahoo.com> wrote:
>Phones have come a long way since the old landline days. Our
>smartphones are light, fast, and have more computing power than NASA
>used to put a man on the moon.* Some advances came not by adding
>things to the phone, but by taking things away. Noticeably missing for
>anyone of a certain age is the dial tone. What happened to it? We
>don't need it anymore. Or, at least the phones don't.
>
Many cellphone users are still billed by the minute for all connect
time. You have to connent to your cellphone network for them to send
you a dialtone, so it is cheaper for the user to not have one. That's
my guess, anyway.
--
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
| Brian Gordon -->briang@panix.com<-- brian dot gordon at cox dot net |
| brianggordon@hotmail.com Bass: Lexington "Main Street Harmonizers" chorus |
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Date: 26 Apr 2013 20:53:24 -0000
From: "John Levine" <johnl@iecc.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Why Don't Cell Phones have Dial Tones?
Message-ID: <20130426205324.74864.qmail@joyce.lan>
>Many cellphone users are still billed by the minute for all connect
>time. You have to connent to your cellphone network for them to send
>you a dialtone, so it is cheaper for the user to not have one. That's
>my guess, anyway.
Interesting guess, but wrong.
The point of a dial tone on a landline is to tell the subscriber that
your line has been connected to the equipment at the central office
that handles dialed digits. But that's not how cell phones work.
When you turn on a cell phone, it looks for a tower, registers with
the tower, and then indicates that it's online, typically by showing a
signal strength icon or the like. It pings the tower every once in a
while and may switch towers if another tower has a stronger signal.
(Things are a little messier with CDMA, but the principle is the
same.)
When you make a cell call, the digits you dial are buffered in the
phone until you hit send, at which point the phone sends them in a
packet to that tower, which then responds by assigning a channel or
the CDMA equivalent. The phone then switches to that channel and I
believe that all of the call progress tones come from the switch.
So there's no dial tone because there's no point. If your phone
weren't already talking to a tower it wouldn't let you make the call.
R's,
John
PS: I gather there are phones like the Jitterbug which provide a fake
dialtone for the benefit of users who like that sort of thing. But
it's generated in the handset, and tells you nothing useful.
Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2013 06:59:04 -0700 (PDT)
From: HAncock4 <withheld@invalid.telecom-digest.org>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Why Don't Cell Phones have Dial Tones?
Message-ID: <05f1192c-69dd-4790-8a6d-75a720b69f84@e13g2000yqp.googlegroups.com>
On Apr 25, 9:59 am, Joseph Singer <joeofseat...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Phones have come a long way since the old landline days. Our
> smartphones are light, fast, and have more computing power than NASA
> used to put a man on the moon.* Some advances came not by adding
> things to the phone, but by taking things away. Noticeably missing for
> anyone of a certain age is the dial tone. What happened to it? We
> don't need it anymore. Or, at least the phones don't.
Cell phones did not have a dial tone. Here is an index to the BSTJ
covering their early development (very comprehensive description of
all facets of the technology).
http://www3.alcatel-lucent.com/bstj/vol58-1979/bstj-vol58-issue01.html
For those interested in radio wave propagation, the following may be
of interest:
January 1953--Comparison of Mobile Radio Transmission at 150, 450,
900, and 3700 Mc
http://www3.alcatel-lucent.com/bstj/vol31-1952/articles/bstj31-6-1068.pdf
The original mobile phones, back in the late 1940s, were manual.
However, in the 1960s an improved system came out where the subscriber
sets had dials. Would anyone know if that system offered a dial tone?
***** Moderator's Note *****
The Improved Mobile Telephone System (IMTS) predated the computer
revolution, and the dial pulses were sent via tone-based signalling,
in real time. Each customer had their own "tip & ring" connection to a
Class 5 office at the location of the IMTS terminating unit. Ergo,
each customer was connected to their own telephone line when they
picked up the handset in their car, which meant that they needed to
hear dial tone to know when to dial.
Bill Horne
Moderator
Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2013 15:00:04 +0000 (UTC)
From: danny burstein <dannyb@panix.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Why Don't Cell Phones have Dial Tones?
Message-ID: <kle4pk$mnd$1@reader1.panix.com>
[snip]
>> things to the phone, but by taking things away. Noticeably missing for
>> anyone of a certain age is the dial tone. What happened to it? We
>> don't need it anymore. Or, at least the phones don't.
A couple of years ago one of the news programs had
an "anniversary review", so to speak, of cellphone history.
One clip in it (which I wish I'd have been able to record..)
showed an early demo of cellphone to a room of reporters.
They were walked through the process of picking up the handset
and pushing the key pad.
And... when they picked up the handset, the speaker advised
them to, yes, listen for the dial tone.
So the concept, at least, was there. Whether the first practical
and marketed units had a dial tone, I can't say. In my own
case I had a mobile unit that was silent, but that was already
a few years after the rollouts.
--
_____________________________________________________
Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key
dannyb@panix.com
[to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]
Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2013 12:54:00 -0700 (PDT)
From: HAncock4 <withheld@invalid.telecom-digest.org>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Why Don't Cell Phones have Dial Tones?
Message-ID: <485656ef-6e26-4c55-8e21-f96de751ed8e@t5g2000yql.googlegroups.com>
On Apr 26, 11:00 am, danny burstein <dan...@panix.com> wrote:
> And... when they picked up the handset, the speaker advised
> them to, yes, listen for the dial tone.
> So the concept, at least, was there. Whether the first practical
> and marketed units had a dial tone, I can't say. In my own
> case I had a mobile unit that was silent, but that was already
> a few years after the rollouts.
The BSTJ article that describes the prototype test set in 1979 makes
use of the SEND function in the same way it is used today. There was
no dial tone.
http://www3.alcatel-lucent.com/bstj/vol58-1979/articles/bstj58-1-123.pdf
(11 meg)
Perhaps the newsclip being shown for the anniversary was for a
cordless phone, not a cellphone. Newscasters aren't that accurate on
subtle technical matters, and often 'historical' clips aren't the
right ones for what they're discussing. For instance, articles on
central office telephone operators often have a picture of what is
clearly a PBX switchboard, not a central office switchboard (eg
555/556 or 608, which were distinctive designs and AFAIK were only
used as PBXs). News articles dealing with railroads often have a
photo of a train completely different than the subject of the news
story.
P.S. Now I remember that the 1969 Metroliner public telephone did
have dial tone, but that was a specialized service. Those phones had
automatic handoff from one radio segment to the next, though most of
the segments were large.
Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2013 21:32:38 -0700 (PDT)
From: Joseph Singer <joeofseattle@yahoo.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: The Shame of Boston's Wireless Woes
Message-ID: <1366950758.97447.YahooMailClassic@web121906.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>
Tue, 23 Apr 2013 08:50:05 -0400Monty Solomon referred to an Atlantic article:
> Almost immediately after Monday's tragic bombings at the Boston
> Marathon, the city's cellular networks collapsed. The Associated
> Press initially reported what many of us suspected, that law
> enforcement officials had requested a communications blackout to
> prevent the remote detonation of additional explosives. But the
> claim was soon redacted as the truth became clear. It didn't take
> government fiat to shut down the cellular networks. They fell apart
> all on their own.
Let's be a little bit realistic here. It's impossible to predict when
a major event is going to happen whether that's natural disaster such
as hurricane, tornado, earthquake, "9/11 bombing" or a terrorist
bombing a public event such as the BAA marathon. Do they really
expect telco to provide 500 or 1000% increase in traffic and maintain
that level of service 100% of the time? I'd say no. It's just not
practical to provide 100% up time through all kind of events that come
down the pike (in this case Interstate 90.)
Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2013 09:58:09 -0400
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: HTC's new phone, the One, is a winner
Message-ID: <p06240883cda037e606c9@[10.0.1.5]>
The One could be the one
By Hiawatha Bray, Globe Staff
The latest sales figures for Apple Inc.'s iPhones are out, and they
look just fine. But for how long? People keep buying the iPhone 4 and
4S and 5 in the confident belief that Apple makes the best
smartphones in the world.
But the latest hardware from Taiwan's HTC Corp. could change that.
The company's new phone is simply called the One. And it is.
...
http://www.boston.com/business/technology/2013/04/24/htc-new-phone-the-one-winner/HYaSYfNKnjqsF7ZiJyPTQK/story.html
Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2013 10:30:51 +0100
From: Stephen <stephen_hope@xyzworld.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: "Fiber-backed" - mean anything specific, or marketing buzz?
Message-ID: <o6ikn85qn0g21hnmsbedvo59so3rlohum4@4ax.com>
On Mon, 22 Apr 2013 21:34:45 -0400, Jim Bennett
<ajbcommconsulting@frontier.com> wrote:
>On 2013-04-22 13:00, Matt Simpson wrote:
>> Considering that almost any internet service is probably going to
>> involve some fiber somewhere, when is it appropriate to call a service
>> "fiber-backed"? And how much more fiber do you need to be "100%
>> fiber-backed"? Does this statement mean anything specific? Or just
>> that they've buried some more fiber?
>
>You have pretty much nailed it. All of the real backbone of both the
>internet and the PSTN are fiber. Closer to the customer, virtually all
>of the remote switches and DSLAMs used in small CO's, and the packet
>switches that are quickly replacing them, connect to the higher level
>switches over fiber. There is microwave backhaul in use in very remote
>areas, such as rural cell towers and very rural CO's, but that is
>irrelevant to this discussion.
FWIW rural bits of many countries still use micriwave backhaul
some modern kit still seems to work in SDH chunks of 155 Mbps, but
will present some or all of them as Gigabit Ethernet
[Moderatro snip]
--
Regards
stephen_hope@xyzworld.com - replace xyz with ntl
Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2013 22:30:12 -0400
From: danny burstein <dannyb@panix.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: just like the real beneficiary of Food Stamps is Big Agriculture...
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.64.1304252229440.11886@panix5.panix.com>
A nice little hatchet job from a Bloomberg reporter
pointing out that Carlos Slim is a major beneficiary
of the "free" phones for the poor program, aka
the completely misnamed "obamafones".
("free" in quotes because the US taxpayer, and/or
the US phone utility payer, is the source of funding)
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-25/richest-man-slim-cited-for-profiting-from-phones-for-poor.html
_____________________________________________________
Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key
dannyb@panix.com
[to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]
Date: 26 Apr 2013 15:42:23 -0000
From: "John Levine" <johnl@iecc.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: just like the real beneficiary of Food Stamps is Big Agriculture...
Message-ID: <20130426154223.74045.qmail@joyce.lan>
>A nice little hatchet job from a Bloomberg reporter
>pointing out that Carlos Slim is a major beneficiary
>of the "free" phones for the poor program, aka
>the completely misnamed "obamafones".
>
>("free" in quotes because the US taxpayer, and/or
>the US phone utility payer, is the source of funding)
>
>
>http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-25/richest-man-slim-cited-for-profiting-from-phones-for-poor.html
>
Indeed. As the story points out later, this is the lifeline phone
service program, which dates back to the Reagan admininstration. Slim
is involved because he owns Tracfone, the largest prepaid MVNO. It's
also probably because the program only pays $9.25/mo and Tracfone is
one of the few wireless carriers that can provide a useful amount of
service at that price. (I have one, and pay $100/yr for about 1000
minutes.)
Beyond that it's just typical right wing grandstanding and demonizing
the poor. Evidently the Republicans have never had to look for a job,
or have too little imagination to envision how hard a job search would
be if you don't have a number where employers can call you back to
schedule an interview or let you know you got the job.
R's,
John
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