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

Classified Ads
TD Extra News

Add this Digest to your personal   or  

 


The Telecom Digest for December 14, 2010
Volume 29 : Issue 337 : "text" Format

Messages in this Issue:

USA broadband isn't broadband per FCC report December 2010 (Thad Floryan)
Re: USA broadband isn't broadband per FCC report December 2010 (David Clayton)
Re: USA broadband isn't broadband per FCC report December 2010 (tlvp)
Re: Question about an old scrambler phone(Scott Dorsey)


====== 28 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 Patrick Townson 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 the recipients of the
email.

               ===========================

Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be
sold or given away without explicit written consent.  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: Mon, 13 Dec 2010 05:49:01 -0800 From: Thad Floryan <thad@thadlabs.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: USA broadband isn't broadband per FCC report December 2010 Message-ID: <4D06244D.8090201@thadlabs.com> I found the following blurb in today's (13-DEC-2010) Slashdot: The FCC has published a new 87-page report titled 'Internet Access Services: Status as of December 31, 2009.' http://www.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2010/db1208/DOC-303405A1.pdf { the 87 page, 2.5MB report is dated December 2010 } The report explains that 68 percent of connections in the US advertised as 'broadband' can't really be considered as such http://www.techspot.com/news/41535-fcc-68-of-us-broadband-connections-arent-broadband.html because they fall below the agency's most recent minimum requirement: 4Mbps downstream and 1Mbps upstream. In other words, more than two-thirds of broadband Internet connections in the US aren't really broadband; over 90 million people in the US are using a substandard broadband service. To make matters worse, 58 percent of connections don't even reach downstream speeds above 3Mbps. The definition of broadband is constantly changing, and it's becoming clear that the US is having a hard time keeping up.
Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2010 07:44:53 +1100 From: David Clayton <dcstar@myrealbox.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: USA broadband isn't broadband per FCC report December 2010 Message-ID: <pan.2010.12.13.20.44.49.88664@myrealbox.com> On Mon, 13 Dec 2010 05:49:01 -0800, Thad Floryan wrote: ......... > The definition of broadband is constantly changing, and it's becoming > clear that the US is having a hard time keeping up. Just goes to show what happens when a specific technical term is hijacked by the ignorant for a totally different purpose - in the end the meaning becomes so devalued that it ends up being utilised by whoever decides it can be used to push their particular barrow. How about we dump "Broadband" and use a nice little TLA like "HSI" (High Speed Internet)? Then technical committees could attach numerical suffixes to it so various grades of service could be readily identified so we all know what we are talking about. -- 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. ***** Moderator's Note ***** My father used to say "Figures don't lie, but liars sure can figure!" Bill Horne Moderator
Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2010 16:03:58 -0500 From: tlvp <tPlOvUpBErLeLsEs@hotmail.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: USA broadband isn't broadband per FCC report December 2010 Message-ID: <op.vnn7gwcpitl47o@acer250.gateway.2wire.net> On Mon, 13 Dec 2010 15:44:53 -0500, David Clayton <dcstar@myrealbox.com> wrote: > ... > How about we dump "Broadband" and use a nice little TLA like "HSI" (High > Speed Internet)? ... You may have to fight at&t for rights to that "nice little TLA" -- they're using "HSI" to name their at&t/Yahoo! DSL service (which, incidentally, starts at as low as 768 kb/s for DL speed, barely 15x 56k modem DL speeds). Cheers, -- tlvp (currently using just such at&t Yahoo! HSI :-) ) -- Avant de repondre, jeter la poubelle, SVP
Date: 13 Dec 2010 14:43:39 -0500 From: kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: Question about an old scrambler phone Message-ID: <ie5t1b$8hj$1@panix2.panix.com> Ernest Donlin <ernest.donlin.remove-this@and-this-too.gmail.com> wrote: > >Now, I'm curious: is that kind of scrambling still possible? It seems >like it would be a neat way to keep the kids from picking up the phone >when I want to gab with the wife. I'm not going to build one, but I >wonder if there's anything I can buy online? It's possible, but it would be more effective just for you and the wife to learn French or even pig latin. The Germans very quickly learned to decrypt voice inversion systems during the war, by ear. They called it "Krenkelcan" encryption because the English word "Telephone" sounds like "Krenkelcan" when inverted. --scott -- "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."
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 781-784-7287 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) 2009 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 (4 messages)

Return to Archives ** Older Issues