---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message-ID: <20170904184758.GA27738@telecom.csail.mit.edu> Date: Mon, 4 Sep 2017 14:47:58 -0400 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> Subject: Hurricane Harvey leaves Texans without internet, phone service By Samantha Ehlinger Hurricane Harvey knocked out cable, internet or telephone service to more than 180,000 homes, 364 cellular towers and disrupted service at 16 centers that process 911 calls in Texas and Louisiana by Monday, according to the Federal Communications Commission. Cell phone service was severely limited in the coastal counties of Refugio and Aransas - where 85 and 95 percent, respectively, of cellular towers were still down Monday, according to FCC data released Monday afternoon. Just four of the 26 cellular towers in Refugio County were still operating Monday. http://www.expressnews.com/business/technology/article/Hurricane-Harvey-leaves-Texans-without-internet-12069221.php -- Bill Horne (Remove QRM from my email address to write to me directly) ------------------------------ Message-ID: <20170904184507.GA27715@telecom.csail.mit.edu> Date: Mon, 4 Sep 2017 14:45:08 -0400 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> Subject: AT&T outage map Recent reports mostly originate from: Houston, Mountain View, Duluth, Baytown, Dallas, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Arkadelphia, and Austin. Downdetector.com has a list of problem areas, almost all in Texas. Of course, once the waters recede, we'll find out if the company intends to follow Verizon's lead post-Sandy, and tell everyone that they have to switch to cellular service. http://downdetector.com/status/att/map -- Bill Horne (Remove QRM from my email address to write to me directly) ------------------------------ Message-ID: <C6B18756-9841-4F19-B9C4-F682C927B236@roscom.com> Date: Sun, 3 Sep 2017 10:41:13 -0400 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> Subject: Texans' do-it-ourselves rescue effort defines Hurricane Harvey Texans' do-it-ourselves rescue effort defines Hurricane Harvey People from the Lone Star State have an almost genetic disinclination to rely on the government for anything. So during Hurricane Harvey, the people saved each other. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/texans-do-it-ourselves-rescue-effort-defines-hurricane-harvey/2017/09/02/f41bb8ee-8f2f-11e7-8df5-c2e5cf46c1e2_story.html ***** Moderator's Note ***** If I had been in charge of disaster recovery after hurricane Katrina, I would have put the houses in New Orleans' ninth ward on barges, connected them to utilities, and let the newly-formed community of "boat people" work out how to keep things afloat. As it is, there are still large areas of the ninth ward which are just heaps of rubble. Likewise for Houston: there just doesn't seem to be anyone with the common sense to tell people they'll have to rebuild their homes so that they can't be flooded out again. Dirt is cheap enough: each house owner who's building form now on, and all the ones which will be receiving tax money for repairs, should be forced to build up their foundations so that the next flood will be an occasion for a party instead of a life-threatening disaster. This isn't rocket science: the Netherlands have been doing it for centuries. Bill Horne Moderator ------------------------------ Message-ID: <86a297d6-47ac-43a0-9b00-e906f040bcad@googlegroups.com> Date: Sun, 3 Sep 2017 13:05:33 -0700 (PDT) From: HAncock4 <withheld@invalid.telecom-digest.org> Subject: Sixty years ago - W.U. pioneer data transmission and error detection In 1957, Western Union telegraph facilities were used to transmit remote data to computers for processing. Teleprinter terminals were also used for interactive processing. Because of the amount of critical numerical information transmitted, transmission errors had to be found and corrected. (AT&T was also doing reearch into this, discussed previously in this newsgroup). The basic telegraph Baudot transmission code did not have provisions for error checking. Various methods were used to detect errors, such as a hash total at the end of a block of characters. While we take error correction for granted these days, it remains a key part of data transmission, even if it is transparent to most of us. An article in the January 1957 Western Union Technical Review describes their pioneer data transmission and error detection efforts. Very early on, punched cards were fed into a machine that converted the data into a Baudot paper tape for transmission. At the other end, another machine converted the output paper tape back into punched cards. Later IBM machines could transmit the punched cards directly. Self checking codes for data transmission http://massis.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives/technical/western-union-tech-review/11-1/p015.htm The same issue has other articles that may be of interest: Stock Ticker switching http://massis.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives/technical/western-union-tech-review/11-1/p027.htm Soldering Fluxes http://massis.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives/technical/western-union-tech-review/11-1/p035.htm ------------------------------ ********************************************* End of telecom Digest Tue, 05 Sep 2017