31 Years of the Digest ... founded August 21, 1981
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The Telecom Digest for August 16, 2013
Volume 32 : Issue 174 : "text" Format
====== 31 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ======
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Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the
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Date: Thu, 15 Aug 2013 00:53:58 -0400
From: tlvp <mPiOsUcB.EtLlLvEp@att.net>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: MetroPCS 4G Service Issues
Message-ID: <15pmnph8e6gk4.1i440xygdmjjd.dlg@40tude.net>
On Wed, 14 Aug 2013 12:02:55 -0400, T wrote:
> ... interesting to me since I was once an OmniPoint
> customer, then VoiceStream, and T-Mobil customer before going to
> MetroPCS. ...
Curious: but for OmniPoint and MetroPCS, I followed your footsteps exactly.
Late summer of 2000 I returned from Belgium with an unlocked 3-band
Motorola TimePort of the P-7389 persuasion, and sought a carrier for it.
Only choice in my neck of the woods would have been OmniPoint -- but they
had zero interest in selling me a SIM or making a customer of me and my
TimePort.
A few days later (once Labor Day had come and gone) it was no longer
OmniPoint, it was VoiceStream, and they were more than happy to sell me a
SIM and make a customer of me. And customer of VoiceStream, and later
T-Mobile, I've been ever since.
What drove you to MetroPCS, if I may be so bold as to ask?
Cheers, -- tlvp
--
Avant de repondre, jeter la poubelle, SVP.
Date: Wed, 14 Aug 2013 20:41:32 -0400
From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: [OT] Has anyone had experience with Social Solutions and/or ETO software?
Message-ID: <520C23BC.1010100@horne.net>
Thanks for reading this.
I work for a non-profit, which provides services to recently-arrived
immigrants, such as instruction in English, help with finding jobs, etc.
The organization is considering buying a software package called "ETO",
owned by Social Solutions Co. (
http://www.socialsolutions.com/
).
Please feedback any information you have about the company or the ETO
product. You may contact me privately if you prefer.
Thanks in advance.
Bill
--
Bill Horne
(Remove QRM from my address to write to me directly)
Date: Thu, 15 Aug 2013 09:49:50 -0400
From: Fred Goldstein <invalid@see.sig.telecom-digest.org>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Only Seven Percent of TV Households Rely on Over-the-Air Signals according to CEA Study
Message-ID: <520CDC7E.6030504@ionary.com>
On 8/14/2013 11:56 AM, Garrett Wollman wrote:
> In article <MPG.2c735fe6509c8bc1989e83@news.eternal-september.org>,
> T <kd1s.nospam@cox.nospam.net> wrote:
>> In article <ku74qr$1m9k$1@grapevine.csail.mit.edu>,
>> wollman@bimajority.org says...
>>> Can you or anyone else explain, by the way, why cablecos put the HD
>>> versions of various services (both local and national programming) on
>>> different "channel" numbers from the downconverted SD versions?
>>> [Moderator snip]
>> In Cox land the HD channels of popular lower channels are just 1000
>> +channel number. For example, ABC6 is 0006 for SD, but 1006 for HD.
> Sure, and for Verizon it's 700 and for Comcast it's 800, but that's
> stupid, and that's what I was asking for an explanation of. There's
> no obvious reason to have separate channel numbers at all. (Separate
> program streams, yes, but not separate consumer-visible channel
> numbers.)
Sure there's good reason. You might have a DVR, in which case
recording the HD version will consume several times as much capacity
as the SD version.
You could also have better reception on one channel than another.
While all cable channels are "supposed to" be equally clear, in
practice it doesn't work that way. Before HFC, weak signals on some
channels were pretty common. Where I live, it's a different problem;
the transmitters are nearby, so OTA signals infiltrate house wiring
and interfere with the QAM streams. And since the HD and SD are on
separate frequencies, if one is hit, the other might work.
Back in the analog-TV days, Continental figured out that they should
not run local TV stations "on channel", as the infiltration would
cause ghosting. So the VHF OTAs were moved up into the 20s.
Translating cable boxes hid this, so only cable-ready sets
noticed. But they didn't coordinate their hidden QAM channel layout
with DTV hidden channel assignments. So Comcast stuck the 10-channel
multiplex that carries almost all of the local OTA SD stations on
(IIRC) 571 MHz, overlapping TV channels 30 and 31, both of which are
full-power DTV channels. Hilarity ensued. (DTV channels are hidden;
stations advertise "virtual" channels, their pre-DTV numbers.) Which
they haven't fixed; I've had to do a lot of tweaking of the cables
around the house (not good quality, self-installed by a previous
owner) to get usable reception.
--
Fred R. Goldstein fred "at" interisle.net
Interisle Consulting Group
+1 617 795 2701
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