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TELECOM Digest Sat, 2 Apr 2005 01:02:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 141
Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson
Bell Canada Launches VoIP Without Reg Approval (Jack Decker)
Book Review: The Great Telecom Meltdown (Patrick Townson)
Re: What Happened To Channel 1 (Dan Lanciani)
Re: Vonage May Route 911 Call to Congress, FCC (Tim@Backhome.org)
Re: Cell Phone Compatibility (John Levine)
Re: Verizon, Voicewing and Portability (Steve Sobol)
Re: The Real Reason Why SBC Won't Work With Vonage on E-911 (T. Weintz)
Re: Classic Telephone Call on PC (T. Sean Weintz)
Re: New Technology Brings Back Old Problem For 911 (T. Sean Weintz)
Re: Fax Station ID (T. Sean Weintz)
Re: Blocking VOIP, Other Apps, Clearwire (Fred Goldstein)
Re: GSM-900 (Michael Sullivan)
Re: Does Your Computer Look Like This? (G. Paul Ziemba)
Re: Does Your Comptuer Look Like This? (Michael Sullivan)
Re: Obituary: Schiavo Dies After Feeding Tube Removed (Lisa Hancock)
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; other stuff of interest.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Jack Decker <jack-yahoogroups@withheld on request>
Date: Fri, 01 Apr 2005 19:22:46 -0500
Subject: Bell Canada Launches VoIP without Reg Approval
http://www.phoneplusmag.com/hotnews/54h115345379033.html
By Charlotte Wolter
In a move that could put it head to head with Canadian regulator CRTC
(Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Council), Bell
Canada (BCE Inc.) has launched its consumer voice-over-IP service,
Bell Digital Voice, in one of its local service areas without waiting
for approval by the regulatory authority.
The CRTC has been in the process of developing explicit policies for
VoIP services, but is not expected to issue formal regulations until
later this year. In the meantime, Bell Canada has launched the service
in three locations in Quebec province: Sherbrooke, Quebec City and
Trois-Rivieres, after a trial of several months in Sherbrooke.
"Bell Canada is throwing down the gauntlet," says Jon Arnold,
principal of J. Arnold Associates, a VoIP consulting firm. "They
are saying, 'You are taking too long to make a decision on VoIP.' "
Bell Canada is using the carefully chosen term 'retail Internet
applications' to describe its new service. The reason for the wording
is the only explicit CRTC regulation on Internet services is a 1998
ruling that exempts 'retail Internet applications' from pricing
regulations.
Full story at:
http://www.phoneplusmag.com/hotnews/54h115345379033.html
How to Distribute VoIP Throughout a Home:
http://michigantelephone.mi.org/distribute.html
If you live in Michigan, subscribe to the MI-Telecom group:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MI-Telecom/
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 01 Apr 2005 09:25:45 -0500
From: TELECOM Digest Editor <ptownson@telecom-digest.org>
Subject: Book Review: The Great Telecom Meltdown
Author: Fred R. Goldstein
Publisher: Artech House, Boston
ISBN: 1-58053-939-4
Fred Goldstein, a long time participant in TELECOM Digest has recently
written a new book on the state of affairs in telephony. The book is
entitled, 'The Great Telecom Meltdown'. Published by Artech House,
this 200 page book describes, in sometimes vivid detail, exactly
what went wrong in the telecom industry, particularly in the past
decade. Although Fred does touch on the earlier history of the Bell
System, beginning in 1876 and continuing through and beyond the
divestiture in 1982, the book's major emphasis is on the time frame
of the 1990's through the present.
In today's telecom business environment, you have to have a good grasp
of _what went wrong_ and caused the failure of so many telecom firms
between 2000 and 2002 if you now expect to succeed. Some of the
topics covered in this book include:
Chapter 1: Ma Bell and her Natural Monopoly, 1876-1969.
Chapter 2: The Rebirth of Competition.
Chapter 3: Divestiture: Equal Access and Chinese Walls.
Chapter 4: The Internet Boom and the Limits to Growth.
Chapter 5: The Deutoronomy Networks.
Chapter 6: Losing by Winning: Wireless License Auctions.
Chapter 7: Competitive Access Providers, A Costly Way to Local Competition.
Chapter 8: DLECS and ELECS: An Exercise in Oversupply.
Chapter 9: CLECS Winning Strategies are Met by Rule Changes.
Chapter 10: Focusing on the Bottom Line.
and subchapters here are: Asset Valuation is Risky.
Accounting was Scandalous.
WorldCom and the Limits to Mergers.
AT&T Acted in Good Faith on Worldcoms Numbers.
Global Double Crossing.
New Services Need to Fit into the Food Chain.
Old Dinasaurs Die Hard.
Fred speaks in a rather blunt way and explains what has gone wrong
with the telecom industry, especially in the past few years. Fred and
I have been on radio 'talk shows' together in years past, so I had
some correspondence with him in email recently and asked him a few
questions which are covered below:
PAT: What were the most important legal or regulatory changes that led
to the meltdown?
Fred: The Meltdown happened because several bubbles burst at once. The
telecommunications industry isn't one thing, it's really several sectors.
They all benefited from the late 1990s boom, and they all melted down
together. A lot of people have assumed that the Telecom Act of 1996 was
the main culprit. But that turns out to have played a minor role. Two
things really had more to do with it. First off, the 1984 AT&T divestiture
created a fully competitive long distance sector, which enabled anyone to
string fiber. Second, the Internet was opened to the public in 1992 and
privatized. That created a huge demand for bandwidth, which got people
interested in stringing more fiber. By 1998, supply was starting to
overwhelm demand. This led to cheaper long distance calling rates, which
killed the industry's cash cow.
PAT: How were so many investors, entrepreneurs, and even economic
journalists led so far astray?
Fred: Capitalism feeds on greed and foolishness. The stock market was
booming, investors were looking for places to put their money, and
entrepreneurs were willing to take it. People were looking for
excuses to jump onto the bandwagon. Some industry analysts even drank
the flav'r'ade by believing the story that the Internet was doubling
every hundred days. That one factoid helped justify billions of
dollars of investment. Yet it was not based in reality. It came from
a Worldcom UUNET salesman's "best case scenario", what would happen
*if* the Internet were doubling every hundred days. But it got retold
and retold until the 1998 Worldcom annual report stated it as fact. Of
course we now know that Worldcom's reports could be an exercise in
creative writing.
PAT: Was the meltdown a surprise? What are the warning signs of a new
bubble?
Fred: No, it wasn't really a surprise at all, because too much money
was being spent irrationally. Equipment vendors and network operators
were gearing up to handle increasing demand for dial-up ISP
connections, just as the big users were starting to shift to
broadband. Venture capital-fed DSL operators were lining up next to
each other in crowded telco central offices, putting in several times
as much equipment as the local market could possibly support.
Competitive access providers were trenching fiber atop each other down
the same "NFL city" streets. And the big European operators formed a
round firing squad when they overbid in the 2000 UK and Germany "3G"
license auctions.
PAT: What public telecom policies would be best for consumers and
investors?
Fred: Policies need to encourage competition where it is economically
sustainable, while regulating monopolies to prevent them from abusing
their customers. The current FCC gets it entirely wrong, emphasizing
the private-property nature of the telephone company's wire plant, and
is moving to allow the incumbent telephone companies to take control
of Internet service and even content that traverses "their" wire. The
FCC then encourages competitors to string their own parallel
facilities. This is entirely wrong, as the history of the past decade
shows that overbuilding is rarely profitable. The only winners were
the early investors who sold out to greater fools.
The outside plant is a natural monopoly, a public utility, that should be
available on a cost-based nondiscriminatory basis. The FCC's
"hypothetically efficient competitor" policy only works during a boom cycle
like that of 1996-1999, which can never be sustained. Once the local wire
or fiber is properly regulated, innovation can take place over that wire,
making more efficient use of capital and therefore having a reasonable
chance at becoming profitable.
PAT: And how are your sales going on the book? Is the price per copy
seriously $79 per copy?
Fred: Yes, list $79, not that it was my idea -- Artech House does
technical books which tend to have a small audience that is really,
really interested, and can get the company to pay. Textbooks often go
at that price too, since they know the audience has little choice,
once they manage to get the book assigned. If the book does well
enough, maybe I can talk them into a lower price for another printing.
It is moving rather well for Artech, several hundred so far, and its Amazon
number has gone as high as 13,000 or so, before drifting down of course,
which means they've moved a few copies.
PAT: Thanks for talking with me about this.
Fred: And thank you!
===============================
You can look on Amazon for 'The Great Telecom Meltdown' or you can
inquire of the publisher, Artech House http://www.artechhouse.com .
Patrick Townson
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 1 Apr 2005 02:46:44 EST
From: Dan Lanciani <ddl@danlan.com>
Subject: Re: What Happened To Channel 1
ihatespam@crazyhat.net (DevilsPGD) wrote:
> In message <telecom24.134.12@telecom-digest.org> Dan Lanciani
> <ddl@danlan.com> wrote:
>> Except that (according to the original proposal) it won't run in the
>> clear anywhere you can "tap" without relatively sophisticated die
>> probing equipment. Are you aware of some change in the approach or
>> are you just assuming that the manufacturers will screw up the
>> implementation? If the latter, remember that the original proposal
>> also incorporates key revocation for compromised device families.
> Sure, but imagine the legal backlash if suddenly Sony's TVs no longer
> work.
I don't imagine that there would be much legal backlash as long as
"legitimate" users were supplied with an upgrade, especially if that
upgrade were provided before the remaining devices were made to fail.
Note that this seems to be exactly what is happening with some
receivers that predate the broadcast flag mandate (you remember, the
receivers that the FCC and broadcast flag apologists claimed would
continue to work unchanged after the flag was enabled) so there is
precedent. See for example:
http://product.samsung.com/stb_upgrade/
Now of course, there are cost tradeoffs between plugging a hole and
placating the "legitimate" owners of the equipment you need to
upgrade. Given that the original broadcast flag proposal was pretty
much a rehash of existing digital rights management proposals for
other consumer content (and the broadcast flag mandate is a great way
to get that DRM infrastructure deployed) I suspect that the costs of
key revocation have already been considered.
Dan Lanciani
ddl@danlan.*com
------------------------------
From: Tim@Backhome.org
Subject: Re: Vonage May Route 911 Call to Congress, FCC
Date: Fri, 01 Apr 2005 06:09:05 -0800
Organization: Cox Communications
Typical arrogance of SBC. Sounds like AT&T in 1970.
What SBC is conveniently forgetting is that the 911 system belongs to
local or regional government (the residents and taxpayers) not the
@#!&* legacy phone company.
I presume Vonage is smart enough to make that case.
Jack Decker wrote:
> http://news.com.com/Vonage+may+route+911+call+to+Congress,+FCC/2100-7352_3-5647706.html
> By Ben Charny
> Staff Writer, CNET News.com
> Internet phone provider Vonage may ask Congress and the Federal
> Communications Commission to help it solve problems with SBC over
> subscriber access to the 911 emergency call network.
> SBC's decision not to work more closely with Vonage, made public
> Wednesday, may delay efforts to fix the problem that keeps a majority
> of U.S. Net phone providers from successfully routing 911 calls to the
> right emergency calling center. Many of those 911 calls are instead
> sent to non-emergency operators, with no guarantee the calls will
> reach dispatch centers close enough to provide the most effective
> help.
> In mid-February, Vonage asked SBC, BellSouth, Qwest and Verizon, the
> nation's largest local phone companies collectively known as the
> Bells, to provide access to their 911 infrastructure within the next
> 60 days. At first, it appeared the logjam had been broken: SBC met
> with Vonage to work out the logistics; Verizon, the largest Bell, also
> committed to testing just such a system; and Qwest, the smallest of
> the Bells, began considering its options.
> While Verizon and BellSouth are now cooperating, SBC has refused to do
> so, telling the FCC that Vonage and other Net phone providers need to
> develop a standard way to route the 911 calls appropriately. What
> Vonage was asking to test, SBC claimed, was a proprietary fix. "SBC
> can not agree to engage in numerous individual tests with each and
> every VoIP provider," it recently told the FCC, referring to the Net
> phone technology also known as voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). A
> spokesman wasn't immediately available for comment.
> Vonage spokeswoman Brooke Schulz said Vonage is considering asking
> Congress and the FCC to demand SBC open up its 911 infrastructure to
> Vonage and other Net phone operators. In rebuking SBC's proprietary
> claim, Schulz said operators Packet8, AT&T's CallVantage and Verizon
> Communications VoiceWing Net phone service all use the same 911
> products, "so how can SBC call what we're doing proprietary?"
> Full story at:
> http://news.com.com/Vonage+may+route+911+call+to+Congress,+FCC/2100-7352_3-5647706.html
------------------------------
Date: 1 Apr 2005 02:50:26 -0000
From: John Levine <johnl@iecc.com>
Subject: Re: Cell Phone Compatibility
Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA
> I have a couple of inactive cell phones (Motorola 120e and Samsung
> GS-x426) that are lying around because I have taken phone
> upgrades. ... The Motorola was originally used in the Verizon
> Wireless network, and the Samsung was used in the AT&T Wireless
> network, but I have a feeling other providers could work with these
> phones.
It's good you asked, because your feeling is wrong.
The Moto 120e is a dual-band CDMA phone, and is doubtless locked to
work only on Verizon. The Samsung is a GSM phone that is locked to
ATTWS. To work on any other network, they'd need to be unlocked. If
you still have service with the carriers, you could try calling them
or going to one of their stores and ask nicely if they'll unlock them,
but don't be surprised if they say no.
If you could unlock them, a big if, the CDMA phone would work with
other CDMA 800/1900 carriers, many of of the second tier telco-related
ones like Alltel. The GSM phone would work on other GSM networks,
which in the US basically means Cingular (the part that didn't used to
be ATTWS) and T-Mobile.
I'd suggest selling them as locked phones and making it clear that
they're for Verizon and ATTWS.
R's,
John
------------------------------
From: Steve Sobol <sjsobol@JustThe.net>
Subject: Re: Verizon, Voicewing and Portability
Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 19:48:40 -0800
Organization: Glorb Internet Services, http://www.glorb.com
Robert Bonomi wrote:
> My folks, in another state, have 'cable Internet' -- they don't have
> any choice, being a couple of thousand feet too far away from the
> C.O. for DSL. A few weeks ago, the cable company did an over-night
> 'upgrade' of the head-end equipment. It was FIVE DAYS before my folks
> Internet connection worked again.
That's interesting. I'm in a relatively unpopulated corner of the Town
of Apple Valley, part of the Victor Valley which is in California's
High Desert region. The population of Victor Valley is around
300,000. Other than Barstow, which is served by Time Warner Cable, all
of the cities here (as well as several San Bernardino County
municipalities "down the hill" on the other side of the mountains) are
served by Charter. Apple Valley itself has about 60,000 people living
here.
I had an extremely aggravating week one week about 18 months ago,
where something at my headend broke, and Charter kept coming out to
fix it, and it kept breaking. Repeatedly, over the course of six
days. They finally got it fixed permanently. I forget what it was.
It was aggravating because I was telecommuting to work at the time,
and my job description primarily involved working online. :)
But since then, Charter's been rock-solid in this area. It's gotten to
the point that if I have a problem, I assume it's my el-cheapo SMC
Barricade router* -- and usually, that's a correct assumption, and
rebooting the router fixes the problem.
**SJS
*I don't know if all Barricades suck. Mine does, but mine's the
bottom-of-the-line model from about three years ago, and I bought it
for $30 new, so I don't really expect much out of it.
--
JustThe.net - Apple Valley, CA - http://JustThe.net/ - 888.480.4NET (4638)
Steven J. Sobol, Geek In Charge / sjsobol@JustThe.net / PGP: 0xE3AE35ED
"The wisdom of a fool won't set you free"
--New Order, "Bizarre Love Triangle"
------------------------------
From: T. Sean Weintz <strap@hanh-ct.org>
Subject: Re: The Real Reason Why SBC Won't Work With Vonage on E-911
Date: Fri, 01 Apr 2005 16:38:12 -0500
Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com
TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response to a writer:
> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Can't you just see SBC chomping at the
> bit to get the old 'Bell System' out of cold storage and back into
> service with all its old ways, albiet modernized somewhat? Put this
> thing down -- refusal to work on 911 with VOIP carriers as one more
> thing to negotiate when the FCC is asked to approve the AT&T/SBC
> merger. PAT]
Scary. I am in what was SNET (Southern New England Telephone) territory.
What was I believe the oldest RBOC in the country -- in fact I am right
now sitting only about 1500 feet away from the site first commercial
switching office in the country.
SBC bought out SNET a few years back, and has done NOTHING for us but
take what WAS good service and make it lousy, while raising prices and
laying off workers. Back in the monolithic BELL ATT days, things were
MUCH more reliable than they are now. I'm talking REAL sloppy stuff --
botched record keeping, service suddenly shifted to a different set of
pairs on the underground feed for no apparent reasons, etc. etc.
SNET HAD been in the process of running fiber all over our state (and
starting to do Cable TV!) when SBC bought them out and nixed all that.
I HATE SBC. My only hope now is that perhaps Verizon will get big enough
to buy them out? Or maybe some sort of deal that would give our state to
Verizon? (All the surrounding states, and even a teeny tiny portion of
this state, have Verizon as the local RBOC ILEC.)
------------------------------
From: T. Sean Weintz <strap@hanh-ct.org>
Subject: Re: Classic Telephone Call on PC
Date: Fri, 01 Apr 2005 16:43:01 -0500
Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com
Gerhard Nowak wrote:
> Hi there,
> Since 3 months I try to get any proggy and tried out everything starting
> from Hyperterminal to make a phonecall on my laptop!
> Its just not possible! It's amazing, how all related programs guide
> into the wrong direction.
> Please help, if there is anybody out there to do so. Maybe I got
> something wrong, or else. I don`t know:
> If I use hyperterminal of windows -- and all other proggies are
> derived from this - I can call a party, of course; and I also hear the
> voice, but there is never a conversation and I can never answer, I can
> not even "lift" the phone of the hook!
> What to do?
> Thanks in advance,
> Gerry
I've never seen a program that will do what you are trying to do.
What would have to happen is the computers sound card would have to
record your voice on the sound cards microphone, digitize it, and then
play it back out the modem. To do that, you need a modem that shows up
as a multimedia device under windows (most don't) and of course you also
need software to actually do what I describe above. I have never seen such.
Plenty of software will DIAL for you, but then expects that once the
call is made you will pick up the call on a plain old handset plugged
into the passthru port on your modem.
------------------------------
From: T. Sean Weintz <strap@hanh-ct.org>
Subject: Re: New Technology Brings Back Old Problem For 911
Date: Fri, 01 Apr 2005 16:47:07 -0500
Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com
Jack Decker wrote:
> "What we want to make people aware of is they are not able to access
> 911 like you can on a traditional phone," said Mackinac County 911
> Coordinator Pam Matelski. "The dispatch center will not get your
> information."
<tongue in cheek mode>
Given the amount of airtime this issue has been given, anyone who is NOT
aware of the VOIP vs. 911 issue should be left to die when calling 911,
thus weeding their stupidity out of the gene pool and hopefully
improving humanity.
<\tounge in chee mode>
Seriously. Ths issue has been beaten to death in the media.
------------------------------
From: T. Sean Weintz <strap@hanh-ct.org>
Subject: Re: Fax Station ID
Date: Fri, 01 Apr 2005 16:51:38 -0500
Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com
Robert Bonomi wrote:
> Sorry, John, but you are *wrong*.
> You, "the person" sending the fax are *still* required to place the
> identification information at the top/bottom of every page, or on the
> first page.
> You are correct that _equipment_ manufactured before 20 Dec 1992 does
> not have to do this 'automatically', HOWEVER, just because you are
> using such equipment you are _not_ exempt from the requirement of 47
> USC 227 (d) (1).
So when FAX.COM sends me junk faxes and they put MY OWN PHONE NUMBER
in as the header on the fax, and also send MY OWN NUMBER as the CLID
info (from what is likely a PRI they are using to war dial fax
numbers), they are at least DOUBLY breaking the law, huh?
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 23:04:22 -0500
From: Fred Goldstein <SeeSigForEmail@wn6.wn.net>
Subject: Re: Blocking VOIP, Other Apps, Clearwire
On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 22:37:09 -0500, Jack Decker wrote:
> [Jack Decker Comment: The basic issue here is much larger than VoIP -
> the fact is that most people who pay a monthly fee for broadband
> expect to be able to connect to "the Internet" and all the
> applications available there. For some strange reason a few ISP's
> seem to have the attitude that it's not sufficient that their
> customers are paying for an Internet connection, but instead they feel
> that if they offer an add-on service such as VoIP, they should be able
> to block competitive services. Now, I want you to think about the
> Internet services you use and the web pages you visit, because let me
> tell you, if they make this stick, NOTHING on the Internet is
> guaranteed accessible to you.
But that is, legally, the case. Under current US law, ISPs are
regulated as "information" providers, precisely because they are not
simply providing bit pipes. Sure, most ISPs just pass everything,
because that's what many people want and it's a competitive market.
But it's not as if "ISP" is a licensed common carrier. It's an
information provider. If blocking some things is how they optimize
the performance of other things, that's their business.
Common carriers are a different entity. The problem is that the Bells
do not want to be common carriers any more; they want to provide
"information" service on an exclusive basis, kicking off other ISPs.
That would be very, very dangerous, but it's before the FCC right now
(Verizon and BellSouth Forbearance petitions). Without competition
*or* common carriage at an underlying layer (ATM, what their DSL uses
now), they could block anything they want and that's that. ...
> My point is this: Up until now, Internet providers have pretty much
> acted like common carriers -- in fact, they have evaded prosecution on
> copyright infringement charges by explicitly stating that they were
> common carriers and do not monitor the traffic that their customers
> send back and forth.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. They are NOT common carriers, have never stated
that they were common carriers, and don't want to be common carriers.
ISPs have separate legal rights concerning content owned by their
customers, but it's not part of common carriage.
> Now, all of a sudden, a few of them seem to want
> to go the other way. Well if that be the case, and they no longer
> claim to be common carriers but in fact are actively blocking certain
> kinds of traffic, then watch the lawsuits begin for the traffic they
> DON'T block -- and they have brought it all on themselves by their
> greed.
They are governed by contract law. Clearwire is apparently acting
within its contract. You don't like it? Go somewhere else. That's
the beauty of the ISP business, so long as competition remains
available.
> For those of you who read this and are connected with an Internet
> Service Provider, and if your ISP belongs to the "U.S. Internet
> Industry Association", may I respectfully suggest that you think long
> and hard about David McClure's comments in Light Reading, and whether
> that is the type of organization you wish to belong to.
The USIIA is *not* a real ISP trade association. It is a public
relations front, an "astroturf" operation run by Sam Simon's Issue
Dynamics Inc., public relations agent for the Bells. Simon's IDI
creates phoney organizations in order to promote their clients'
interests. I have an article on him on my web site
http://www.ionary.com/ion-astroturf.html . Other IDI fronts are APT,
TRAC and New Millennium Research Council. So whatever McClure is
saying is what Verizon is thinking.
Fred Goldstein k1io fgoldstein "at" ionary.com
ionary Consulting http://www.ionary.com/
------------------------------
From: Michael D. Sullivan <userid@camsul.example.invalid>
Subject: Re: GSM-900
Date: Sat, 02 Apr 2005 05:10:32 GMT
Jason wrote:
> But since we transmit in x freq, then the receiver must tune to x feq
> in order to receive the signal right? Why transmit at x freq and
> receive at y freq?
> Or I have misunderstood. Kindly enlighthen.
Many (but not all) two-way radio transmission systems that operate in
full duplex (which means there are two full-time transmission paths, one
in each direction) use different frequencies for each of the two paths.
One path, known as the downlink, uses frequency X to transmit from the
base station to the mobile, and the other path, known as the uplink,
uses frequency Y to transmit from the mobile to the base station at the
same time. Under this scenario, the handset transmits on Y to a base
station receiver tuned to Y, while the base station transmits on X to
the handset, which is tuned to receive X. Operating in this manner is
known as frequency division duplex, or FDD.
Using paired frequencies that are sufficiently far apart allows the
receiver at each end to be able to operate without getting overloaded
and desensitized by the transmitter at the same end. If the receiver
were tuned to the same frequency being used to transmit at the same
time, it would pick up its own transmitter's strong signal and
wouldn't be able to pick up the much weaker signal coming from the
other end.
Some communications networks use a single frequency for both
transmissions, but alternate the use of that frequency in time so that
neither end is actually trying to receive when it is transmitting,
known as time division duplex or TDD. One way of operating in this
manner is to use "simplex" transmissions, such as on ham radio bands
or old-fashioned taxi dispatching systems, where you say "over" when
you are finished and then the other party keys its transmitter on to
respond. Another way to accomplish it is to alternate between
transmitting and receiving at a constant, high rate, with both units
carefully synchronized.
Keeping the units synchronized at a high enough rate for high-quality
speech is complex, and even more so when the distance between the two
units can vary considerably, since for every mile of distance, there
is a delay between transmission and reception of 1/18,600 second.
Thus, if the system is designed for a maximum transmission distance of
20 miles and a minimum of 0 miles, there must be at least 1/9300
second of dead air at the beginning and end of each time slice to keep
the two transmissions from overlapping, wasting at least 1/2325 second
for each pair of time slices (1 in each direction). If the time
slices themselves are short, as they must be for conversational speech
that isn't going to tolerate significant delay due to the time
compression and decompression involved, a significant amount of
transmission time is wasted.
And that's for just a single two-way voice transmission. GSM networks
combine many conversations into a single paired radio channel, which
is itself time-sliced, utilizing time division multiple access (TDMA);
but GSM separates the TDMA uplink and downlink transmissions by
frequency, using FDD. So GSM is an FDD/TDMA system. In applications
where an appreciable time delay is acceptable, TDD/TDMA can be used,
in which transmission time on a single frequency is sliced up between
up- and downlinks, each of which is further time-sliced into multiple
communications channels.
Michael D. Sullivan
Bethesda, MD (USA)
(Replace "example.invalid" with "com" in my address.)
------------------------------
From: G. Paul Ziemba <paul+usenet@w6yx.stanford.edu>
Subject: Re: Does Your Computer Look Like This?
Date: Sat, 2 Apr 2005 04:19:01 UTC
Organization: The Treehouse
Patrick Townson <ptownson@cableone.net> wrote:
> In 1954, the well-known Popular Electronics Magazine in connection
> with the Rand Corporation put together an artist's conception of what
> computers would look like in fifty years, in 2004. Look at it here.
> http://www.mountainwings.com/past/5082.htm
Wasn't this a FARK photoshop contest entry?
> This is _not_ an April Fool's joke.
"That is not my dog."
G. Paul Ziemba
FreeBSD unix:
8:16PM up 84 days, 21:03, 9 users, load averages: 0.24, 0.22, 0.17
------------------------------
From: Michael D. Sullivan <userid@camsul.example.invalid>
Subject: Re: Does Your Computer Look Like This?
Date: Sat, 02 Apr 2005 05:14:40 GMT
Patrick Townson wrote:
> In 1954, the well-known Popular Electronics Magazine in connection
> with the Rand Corporation put together an artist's conception of what
> computers would look like in fifty years, in 2004. Look at it here.
> http://www.mountainwings.com/past/5082.htm
> This is _not_ an April Fool's joke.
No, it's not an April Fool's joke. It's a hoax. The photo at issue
came from a Photoshopping competition on fark.com. Debunked at:
http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/hoaxes/computer.asp
--
Michael D. Sullivan
Bethesda, MD (USA)
(Replace "example.invalid" with "com" in my address.)
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Shucks, gee-whiz; I can't get anything
past you guys, can I? Oh well, Patrick, nice try, but no cigar. PAT]
------------------------------
From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com
Subject: Re: Obituary: Schiavo Dies After Feeding Tube Removed
Date: 1 Apr 2005 07:30:05 -0800
Organization: http://groups.google.com
Lisa Minter wrote:
> By MIKE SCHNEIDER, Associated Press Writer
From a communication point of view, the facts of this story were
terribly distorted. The parents' point of view and their videos got
very widespread airing on TV, but the dry boring medical assessments
got much less airing. As a result, many viewers got the impression
the girl was in better shape than she was. Further, the Internet was
used to transmit all sorts of false malicious gossip about her
husband; he was doing far more to take care of her than generally
described.
For those who read all the way to the back of the newspaper or watched
the late night cable news, the full facts were shown. But most people
don't or can't do that.
I'm sensitive to this issue because I went through it with a family
member. When someone is that sick -- as I've seen in nursing
homes -- they don't look or act as nicely as the parents' videos showed.
> "And so his heartless cruelty continues until this very last moment,"
> said the Rev. Frank Pavone, a Roman Catholic priest. He added: "This
> is not only a death, with all the sadness that brings, but this is a
> killing, and for that we not only grieve that Terri has passed but we
> grieve that our nation has allowed such an atrocity as this and we
> pray that it will never happen again."
This kind of thinking is really disturbing. The intimates are
certainly entitled to their point of view. However, other familes
simply do not share those religious attitudes about medical care. A
feeding tube is not lifting a glass of water, it is surgical
procedure. Like any medical procedure, there is a choice of
proceeding or not, and that must be weighed upon the expected the
results.
This situation has shown there are some people who believe that every
medical procedure possible must be applied or it is a "killing" as the
priest above says. But other people do not see it that way. I'm
afraid their views will be imposed on the rest of us.
> ... with many arrested as they tried to bring her food and water.
That illustrated the lack of understanding in this case. They
could've brought her all the food and water they wanted and it would
not have done a damn bit of good.
> Court-appointed doctors ruled she was in a
> persistent vegetative state, with no real consciousness or chance of
> recovery.
What is sad is that many people refused to accept this medical fact.
It was reviewed again and again by many doctors. Yet some others --
based only on what they saw on TV -- claimed otherwise.
> [her parents] said she laughed, cried, responded to them
> and tried to talk.
Sadly, there was absolutely no real evidence of that. If any of that
actually occured, there would've been no case or issue because no
doctor would pull the tube given that.
I don't like to criticize the parents in their time of grief, but they
chose to involve the country's legislators and turn this into a
national spectacle. The fact is they were in denial about their
daughter's condition. It is terribly painful for parents to lose a
child and many parents don't handle it well. But that doesn't justify
dragging in the US Congress.
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I do not like to criticize the family
or Ms. Shiavo's husband either in this time of grieving for all of
them. But I really suspect that this 'lose-lose' situation for all of
them -- and all of us, really -- is going to continue to backfire on
the various politicians who persisted in sticking their nose into the
mess, for example, the brothers Bush and certain other elements of the
far right, including Terry Randall, all of whom, I suspect are hoping/
wishing that the stench will go away soon. Far too many newspapers and
radio/television outlets have 'changed formats' to one of "All
Schiavo, all the time" recently. PAT]
------------------------------
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