34 Years of the Digest ... founded August 21, 1981
Copyright © 2015 E. William Horne. All Rights Reserved.

The Telecom Digest for Sep 23, 2015
Volume 34 : Issue 175 : "text" Format
Messages in this Issue:
Re: Telephony nostalgia -- dialing POP-CORN for free time of day (Michael Moroney)
Any details about the Verizon outage in Raleigh NC yesterday? (Bill Horne)
Skype Service Problems for Some Users Worldwide yesterday (Monty Solomon)
Cellphone capacity may still be inadequate for papal visit, despite upgrades (HAncock4)

I believe that we are soft creatures in a world with some very hard edges. It's remarkable that we survive at all, much less do high deeds or write great music. I think … tension … is a condition of our existence, and I do my best to depict it.
Brian McNaughton

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Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2015 20:12:24 +0000 (UTC) From: moroney@spaamtrap.world.std.com (Michael Moroney) To: telecomdigestsubmissions.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: Telephony nostalgia -- dialing POP-CORN for free time of day Message-ID: <mtscn8$bgg$1@pcls7.std.com> TLVP <misc.tlvp@att.net> writes: >Ages ago, I had written (and must now bring up-to-date) the following: >> On Sat, 17 May 2014 21:19:23 -0700, Thad Floryan wrote: >> >>> ... get the time of day when you call POP-CORN in Northern California. >>> Or 853-XXXX in Southern California. >> >> Nonetheless, the SNET counterpart number, "SPRINGS" (brought up to date >> by prefixing the area code -- 203 777 4647 -- still works, offering temp., >> time of day, and a short telephone PSA, all within a 1-minute spiel. >Alas, now that it's Frontier running the old SNET telecomms show, >that lovely and useful old SPRINGS number has been retired. Dial it, >like I did recently, and an interrupt urges you to "Make sure you have >the right number and have dialed (are dialing?) it correctly." Sad! (Sigh!) 617-NERVOUS still works.
Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2015 21:08:57 -0400 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> To: telecomdigestsubmissions.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Any details about the Verizon outage in Raleigh NC yesterday? Message-ID: <20150923010857.GA16594@telecom.csail.mit.edu> For most of yesterday afternoon, the Verizon wireless network in Raleigh, North Carolina was out of service. I first notice that I could not make calls around 2 PM, and I assumed I'd forgotten to pay the bill, but a local radio station announced that Verizon's cellular network was out of order. I wasn't able to use my cell phone again untill after 5 PM. Does anyone have more details on the outage? Bill -- Bill Horne (Remove QRM from my email address to write to me directly)
Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2015 18:23:39 -0400 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> To: telecomdigestsubmissions.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Skype Service Problems for Some Users Worldwide yesterday Message-ID: <9EFB6C84-F380-412C-B18B-CC5BCB61DD99@roscom.com> Microsoft's Internet calling unit did not specify how many of its roughly 300 million global users were affected. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/22/technology/skype-service-disrupted-for-some-users-worldwide.html
Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2015 10:18:09 -0700 (PDT) From: HAncock4 <withheld@invalid.telecom-digest.org> To: telecomdigestsubmissions.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Cellphone capacity may still be inadequate for papal visit, despite upgrades Message-ID: <e6f2057b-1980-419b-a5ce-f1daa6a31c4f@googlegroups.com> The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that cell phone capacity may still be inadequate for the Philadelphia papal visit, despite upgrades performed by the wireless carriers. The industry calls it a "mass calling event", similiar to halftime at the Super Bowl, a presidential inaugration in Washington, or midnight on New Year's Eve in Times Square. Verizon says it quadrupled its capacity in center city Philadelphia. Other carriers, including Crown Castle International Corp (a wireless infrastructure company) said they made major upgrades as well. for details, please see full article at: http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20150922_Cell_towers_get_upgrade_but_still_may_not_bear_pope_traffic.html ***** Moderator's Note ***** In the past, "Mass Calling Events" were avoided as much as possible - radio stations, for example, were given special exchange codes for their "contest" lines, which have a very limited set of trunks assigned to them, so as to avoid overtaxing the system. When overloads are inevitable - as on Mothers Day - I think it's appropriate to tell customers that the phone network has limited capacity, and that they will get busy signals sometimes. Call me old fashioned, but the desire of some cellular users to have constant, infallible, limitless service mystifies me. -- Bill Horne Moderator

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