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Message Digest
Volume 29 : Issue 4 : "text" Format
Messages in this Issue:
Re: Long Distance On Same Physical Switch
Re: Long Distance On Same Physical Switch
Re: Long Distance On Same Physical Switch
Demarc/Protector question
Re: Demarc/Protector question
Re: Demarc/Protector question
Re: Demarc/Protector question
Re: FCC now planning "all-IP" phone transition
AT&T asking FCC for "end date" of switched network...
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Date: Sun, 03 Jan 2010 22:34:39 -0800
From: Sam Spade <sam@coldmail.com>
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: Long Distance On Same Physical Switch
Message-ID: <4_f0n.530$V_3.287@newsfe09.iad>
hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:
> On Jan 1, 10:56 am, Sam Spade <s...@coldmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>We accountants call it "incremental costs." The incremental cost of
>>adding Vonage to my existing broadband connection is zero, in so far
>>as the cost of the broadband connection is concerned.
>
>
> That "incremental" cost is zero _now_. But the cost of that last mile
> hasn't gone away and it may go up, especially if today's extensive
> economies of scale disappear.
>
> Also, remember that many new products and services are priced cheap to
> develop a market. Then, the price goes up. I remember when automatic
> teller machines were not only free, there were giveaways to promote
> their use. After they got everybody hooked, they added charges to use
> them.
>
> (Likewise with automatic car toll collection like 'EZPASS'. When it
> first came out it was free with discounts, now there are service
> charges and few discounts.)
>
>
>> ***** Moderator's Note *****
>>
>> Doesn't that imply that the cost of disconnecting the broadband
>> service is zero as well? I'm not joking: it just seems to me that
>> some of the broadband cost would have to be apportioned to the
>> "VoIP" use of the broadband connection, since _disconnecting_ the
>> broadband connection would result in replacement costs.
>
>
> That is correct.
>
> There are numerous ways to account for 'costs', the proper method
> depends on the decision-making to be done with the information.
And, I said that, provided a given enterprise is consistent in its
application.
"Cost accounting" is a loose use of the term when allocating General
and Administrative expenses such as those we speak. More strictly, it
is classification of G and A expenses.
Standard Cost Accounting is real cost accounting, which applies to
work in progress of goods being manufactured; i.e., incremental
accounting for inventory as it is being manufactured.
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 2010 07:02:11 +0000 (UTC)
From: wollman@bimajority.org (Garrett Wollman)
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: Long Distance On Same Physical Switch
Message-ID: <hhs3pj$r73$1@grapevine.csail.mit.edu>
In article <aaddc086-59c5-4324-bfa2-a578e1c191ae@h9g2000yqa.googlegroups.com>,
<hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote:
> HOWEVER, people forget that the equivalent unlimited talk cellphone
> plans--as compared to their old landline--can get quite expensive.
> So, killing a landline will probably mean upgrading their cellphone
> plan to a more costly one.
Unless you have a family of teenage girls, I don't see any reason for
wanting an unlimited-time cell plan. And haven't the teenagers of
both sexes switched to text-messaging now?
(I've been on the same 150-minute/month plan since 2001 and have only
once ever gone over, when I was recuperating from a broken knee away
from home and telecommuting. Amazingly, VZW even let me keep this
plan when I upgraded to a smartphone, although they did make me choose
between the $30 unlimited-data plan and the identical-but-for-price
$45 unlimited-data plan. According to various Web pages, they plan to
eventually prevent $30 subscribers from doing stupid things like using
Microsoft Exchange servers.)
I recently found that my old unlimited-local-calls landline was
costing me about twice as much as it should have, and dropped back to
measured service. I almost never make local calls -- most of my calls
on the landline are regional or long-distance -- so there wasn't much
point in paying an extra $12/mo. for unlimited local calling. I'll
still keep the landline because the phones themselves are more
comfortable -- I actually have my cell busy/no-answer-transfer to my
landline -- and for emergency access.
-GAWollman
--
Garrett A. Wollman | What intellectual phenomenon can be older, or more oft
wollman@bimajority.org| repeated, than the story of a large research program
Opinions not shared by| that impaled itself upon a false central assumption
my employers. | accepted by all practitioners? - S.J. Gould, 1993
Date: Mon, 04 Jan 2010 09:53:43 -0700
From: Robert Neville <dont@bother.com>
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: Long Distance On Same Physical Switch
Message-ID: <9t64k5d2phsakd9glnfl662piu1i2sn3fv@4ax.com>
wollman@bimajority.org (Garrett Wollman) wrote:
>Unless you have a family of teenage girls, I don't see any reason for
>wanting an unlimited-time cell plan. And haven't the teenagers of
>both sexes switched to text-messaging now?
>
>(I've been on the same 150-minute/month plan since 2001 and have only
>once ever gone over, when I was recuperating from a broken knee away
>from home and telecommuting.
I think you are overlooking local calls. I've been using Vonage for going on 4
years now. With out of state relatives on both sides, work related calls and a
teenager at home for part of that time, we run a combined 1200-1400 minutes a
month on the land line, plus another 500 or so on three cell phones.
I'd stay with Vonage, but we're on a marginal DSL connection now with no
immediate prospects for improvement, so I've just started reconfiguring things
to use a standard land line along with Google Voice and will drop Vonage
shortly.
Date: Sun, 3 Jan 2010 09:57:45 +0000
From: Marcus Jervis <anonymous@not-valid-domain.com>
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Demarc/Protector question
Message-ID: <BAY131-W9D2D94D668903E0347DB2C5750@phx.gbl>
There is a standard telco demarc/protector on the outside of my home,
installed some time back by Qwest or US West, depending on the year.
Open it up, and there is one of those modular connectors that allows easy
isolation from the inside wire. The RJ11 jack is connected to the telco drop,
and the modular connector that plugs into it is connected to the inside wire.
My question is this:
Is the actual protector between the telco drop and the modular jack? Or is it
between the plug and inside wire?
Tad Cook
Seattle, WA
Date: 4 Jan 2010 16:53:15 -0000
From: John Levine <johnl@iecc.com>
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: Demarc/Protector question
Message-ID: <20100104165315.73913.qmail@simone.iecc.com>
>Is the actual protector between the telco drop and the modular jack?
>Or is it between the plug and inside wire?
The former. There is probably another door you can open with a
special tool or, with some twiddling, long nosed pliers. You should
find the protector between the screwposts where the drop is attached
and the jack. There should be nothing but wire between the jack and
the posts for the inside wire. Remember that it's perfectly legitimate
to plug your phone or whatever directly into that jack if you want.
R's,
John
Date: Mon, 04 Jan 2010 10:24:02 -0600
From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi)
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: Demarc/Protector question
Message-ID: <joqdnetdLc6_i9_WnZ2dnUVZ_oBi4p2d@posted.nuvoxcommunications>
In article <BAY131-W9D2D94D668903E0347DB2C5750@phx.gbl>,
Marcus Jervis <anonymous@not-valid-domain.com> wrote:
>There is a standard telco demarc/protector on the outside of my home,
>installed some time back by Qwest or US West, depending on the year.
>
>Open it up, and there is one of those modular connectors that allows easy
>isolation from the inside wire. The RJ11 jack is connected to the telco drop,
>and the modular connector that plugs into it is connected to the inside wire.
>
>My question is this:
>
>Is the actual protector between the telco drop and the modular jack? Or is it
>between the plug and inside wire?
The protector is on the telco side of the dmarc. If somebody could show that
dangerous voltage entered their property (the inside wiring) from the telco,
the telco would be liable for all the damage that it did on the customer
premises.
A protector is 'cheap insurance' against such claims.
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 2010 17:39:35 +0000 (UTC)
From: David Lesher <wb8foz@panix.com>
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: Demarc/Protector question
Message-ID: <hht94n$sck$1@reader1.panix.com>
Marcus Jervis <anonymous@not-valid-domain.com> writes:
> Is the actual protector between the telco drop and the modular jack?
> Or is it between the plug and inside wire?
On the telco side, so they can have you pull the demarc plug, THEN test
for the protector & outside plant up to it being shorted to
ground. (Protectors should fail shorted...)
--
A host is a host from coast to coast.................wb8foz@nrk.com
& no one will talk to a host that's close........[v].(301) 56-LINUX
Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433
is busy, hung or dead....................................20915-1433
Date: Mon, 04 Jan 2010 11:56:39 -0500
From: Dave Haber <dave@losangelestelephone.com>
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: FCC now planning "all-IP" phone transition
Message-ID: <cJudnRBQ0M9VgN_WnZ2dnUVZ_rZi4p2d@speakeasy.net>
On 12/7/2009 9:46 AM, John Mayson wrote:
> If you thought that the digital TV transition, with its billion-dollar
> coupon program for converter boxes, was a migration nightmare, wait
> until it's time for the phone system to dump its legacy
> circuit-switched system and move to an all-IP communications network.
> That day could be coming sooner than you think; the Federal
> Communications Commission has just requested comment on its planning
> for the transition.
>
> More here: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/12/fcc-plans-for-death-of-circuit-switched-phone-networks.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss
>
> Or here: http://z.mayson.us/dlufy
First they came for the NTSC televisions, and I did not speak out -
because I was not an antique television collector.
They can have my analog phones when they take them from my cold, dead
hands.
--
Dave Haber
Massapequa Telephone, part of the global C*NET System
C*NET 1-798-7619
Date: Sun, 3 Jan 2010 21:31:52 -0800
From: "Paul Hoffman" <prhkgh.remove-this@and-this-too.comcast.net>
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: AT&T asking FCC for "end date" of switched network...
Message-ID: <B95AEE2E4FB0474F9FB864E59118E561@prhpc>
Recently AT&T asked the FCC to set a date to transition completely off
traditional "switched technology" telephone networking, in favor of
packet switched (internet-style) networking. [AT&T claimed that]
maintaining two parallel networks that accomplish essentially the same
thing was wasteful and uneconomical, and this has caused quite a bit
of posts, especially between collectors and users of 'old telephone
technology' such as me.
At the time I read about AT&T's request I did not realize the petition
was for the technology in and between central offices, and not a bid
to remove all copper twisted pair out to consumer's premises. However
with the ever-increasing amount of fiber either to premises or to
centralized communication near the end users, my [concerns] remain the
same.
Right now I have home [phone] service [from] my CATV provider, and
they give me an RJ11 "dial tone source" jack, that I merely connected
into my existing house IW wiring after lifting the IWs from my
landline protector at the side of my house. So if the outside plant
copper were to go away, or even the CO switch located a block from my
house were to change, big deal. I'm already not using them (at least,
not for my local loop.)
Also, as far as I can tell, POTS stuff is pretty much copper ONLY from
the last CO to the houses, and in many cases not all that way either
as fiber is pushed closer and closer to the customer premises, or
directly into them in some cases. So if switched technology were to
be phased out, AT&T would beef up their internet backbones, surplus
dozens of backbone ESS switches and probably hundreds of local CO
switches, and start to recover enough copper strung throughout the
country to probably defray most of the transition costs.
And as it is now for me, over CATV Coax on the same feed that gives me
my home internet network and cable tv transmissions, things work fine,
right up to and including running it to my 555xbrd as it's one and
only "trunk". So changing from 'switched technology' to 'packet based
technology' does NOT mean the end of grandfathered analog (switched)
telecommunications gear.
Those who have actually built their own outside plant may have another
story (unless they get IP access way down the road where their "feed"
interfaces with existing POTS cabling.)
The real losses:
1. Transmission quality - MAYBE ...although quite frankly my home line is
working as well (if not better) over CATV coax as it did
w/traditional T&R copper back to the CO.
2. Service during power outages and/or other disasters. Even if the
future continues to have battery plants backed up by diesal
generators in central offices, it won't be of much use to those who
are wired up like me. BUT, even if they are backed up well in the
central offices, how about the fiber feeds to local distribution
units in the field? How much battery backup do those
end-of-the-fiber boxes have with them? 6 hours? 12? Two years
ago a transformer blew during a 110-115F heatwave, and it took the
local power company 5 days to replace it and restore power to my
house. If I had still been on T&R copper from the central office
my home phones would have worked because (at least some of them) do
not depend on local power. As it was, since I was off CATV coax
and had a very small UPS to back it up, my home phone was dead
about 3 hours into the commercial power outage. Fortunately it was
not a wide area power grid disruption, so my cell phone still
worked...
In a major earthquake, we'll be back [to] depending on ham radio
operators, as I strongly doubt all those cell towers will remain
operational...
Paul H.
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End of The Telecom digest (9 messages)
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