---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message-ID: <qsssel$2t5$1@dont-email.me> Date: 12 Dec 2019 02:06:44 -0600 From: "Dave Garland" <dave.garland@wizinfo.com> Subject: Re: Baxter County, AR: A letter to the editor On 12/10/2019 2:23 PM, Naveen Albert wrote: > > all these reports of how much everyone hates CenturyLink strike me > as odd. It's the only RBOC that actually puts on a show of caring > about what they do, as the other RBOCs just clearly want out and > don't pretend to hide that fact... > > If someone wants to clarify this or set me straight, please do. I can't speak to the other vendors, but in my area, CenturyLink provided erratic service and outages (for ADSL) at poor prices (once I had ADSL, VoIP was the obvious choice, at far less cost than landline). CL craft workers told me that some of the problems were because CL was using outside contractors (I had one crew from 1000 miles away) who weren't competent. Of course there's worker turf beefs there (union vs. nonunion, local vs. outside) but it was convincing ("the card was falling out of the socket in the pedestal, we had to wedge it in place"). And CL didn't notify me about cheaper better service until after I left them (for Comcast, whose contractors weren't competent either). Fortunately, next year a local outfit should have me wired with fiber. ------------------------------ Message-ID: <766c7bd8-6722-4f0e-ad97-7069757e1b62@googlegroups.com> Date: 12 Dec 2019 10:27:59 -0800 From: HAncock4 <withheld@invalid.telecom-digest.org> Subject: Re: History trans-Atlantic cable On Thursday, December 12, 2019 at 12:26:05 AM UTC-5, Julian Thomas wrote: > > On Dec 9, 2019, at 16:06, HAncock4 <withheld@invalid.telecom-digest.org> > wrote: > > > > The Bell System opened a voice cable across the Atlantic > > in the mid 1950s. This was a major improvement since > > the radio was unreliable and inadequate. > > I was working at Bell Labs back then; I remember some of what we heard from > the group. > > - The Teredo worm is the enemy of submerged cable! > > - They were trying to extrapolate the lifetime of tubes [hoping for 20 > yrs] on the basis of less than a year of data. This was JUST before > transistors appeared, let alone became reliable. Research into undersea cables had been going on for some time. Bell had experience with shorter cables. There was extensive experience with Western Union telegraph cables, although telegraph is less demanding than voice. For instance, here is an article on the impact of fishing on cables: http://massis.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives/technical/western-union-tech-review/15-4/p139.htm Here is an article about a cable between Florida and Cuba http://massis.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives/technical/western-union-tech-review/05-2/p068.htm The transistor was invented in 1948, although it took roughly ten years for it be developed into a commercial viable product. That is, able to be manufactured at a cost less than a tube and reliable enough to be useful. Initial applications were portable radios, though tubes were continued to be used in consumer audio devices for years. When computers came along, computer makers found that tubes used in audio devices were not reliable enough for high speed digital service. Tiny faults that weren't noticed in audio service would cause computer bit errors. Computer makers developed premium grade tubes where the internal materials were of a higher quality and yield better performance, and also physical placement of the structures were more precise. Tubes were also made under cleaner conditions. Here is an ad for RCA premium tubes https://books.google.com/books?id=sioV46DL7AUC&lpg=RA18-PA14&ots=ZOZ53d1u6N&dq=rca%20premium%20computer%20tubes&pg=RA18-PA14#v=onepage&q&f=false GE https://books.google.com/books?id=sioV46DL7AUC&lpg=RA18-PA14&ots=ZOZ53d1u6N&dq=rca%20premium%20computer%20tubes&pg=RA14-PA100#v=onepage&q&f=false [public replies please] ------------------------------ Message-ID: <6LGdnU03zM1d4W_AnZ2dnUU7-UvNnZ2d@giganews.com> Date: 12 Dec 2019 12:45:35 -0500 From: Retired@home.com (Retired) Subject: Re: History trans-Atlantic cable On 12/10/19 8:20 PM, Julian Thomas wrote: > - The Teredo worm is the enemy of submerged cable! > > ***** Moderator's Note ***** > > I thought the Teredo worm was the reason ships had to cover their > bottoms with copper. I'm surprised that the worms could range to the > depths of undersea cables. Consider that the cable must come up from below at each end. This from Wikipedia: "Many early cables suffered from attack by sealife. The insulation could be eaten, for instance, by species of Teredo (shipworm) and Xylophaga. Hemp laid between the steel wire armouring gave pests a route to eat their way in. Damaged armouring, which was not uncommon, also provided an entrance. Cases of sharks biting cables and attacks by sawfish have been recorded." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine_communications_cable ------------------------------ ********************************************* End of telecom Digest Fri, 13 Dec 2019