Low Cost VOIP Providers

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Thu, 15 Aug 2013 11:47:07 -0700, Don Y <this@isnotme.com> wrote:

Ummm... I think it's called a relay. Connect the solenoid to
something that monitors AC power, such as a common wall wart. The
contacts switch the POTS phone from the ATA when energized, to the
POTS line when the power drops.

Too trivial a control algorithm. You need to be able to "drop"
(in your example) the relay even when power is available (if
you sense something else has compromised the internal phone service).

It's kinda tricky to energize a relay AFTER the power is lost. I
suppose I could charge a cazapitor and dump the charge into a latching
relay release coil if the power is lost. The only problem is that I
get only one chance to change the latching relay state.

Also, consuming electricity 24/7 to protect against something that
isn't *expected* to happen is wasteful. Smarter to use a latching
relay with a power reserve that you can "pulse" the latch/release
coil as needed.

Well, the average packaged relay burns about 350 mw in the coil. At
$0.17/kw-hr, that's 3 kw-hr per year or about $0.52 added to your
electric bill every year. I suspect the ecological damage caused by
the manufacture of the components needed for a more sophisticated
device substantially exceed this cost.

><http://www.ericofon.com/catalog/classic3/images/trimline/wall/trw_green.jpg>

<http://www.ericofon.com/catalog/classic3/trimline.htm>
I have one of the WE desk phone versions. As I recall, the coil cord
on the WE version had a very large vinyl molded connector on the phone
end, and direct wired spade lugs on the handset. Are you sure yours
has a normal handset RJ22 modular jack?

Phone has to reside *in* a closet (I don't want to "see"
any phones in the house!) and only accessed in times of
service outages, etc.

If nobody sees the phone, why do you care about the color of the coil
cord? Again, I live in earthquake country. When he had our last big
shake in 1989, all the phones fell off their hangers and went offhook.
Nobody ever tested the software in the switch for such a massive off
hook condition. Of course, that triggered a bug which caused the
switch to continuously reboot. No phone service for several days
until the bug was fixed in the switch or billing machine (I forgot
which). Since then, all unattended phones get an elastic strap to
hold the phone in place in the event of an earthquake.

Seeing individual feeds to residences ON TOP of the soil
(for months or years -- permanent tempporary fix!) is
not uncommon. And you want to rely on this for *what*??

We do it better. I live in a forest. Most of our telco plant is
aerial (on poles). When the wind blows, the trees fall, breaking the
lines. It's not unusual to see 3 adjacent splice boxes on along the
cable. Also, lots of broken pairs.

>Uncle used to run a CO.

I used to work in a battery room in the 1960's.

Three memorable things from a private
tour he gave me as a kid:

Times have changed. A more recent tour:
<http://www.wap.org/journal/cotour/>
I have some photos of the local CO, but I had to promise not to
distribute them. Basically, it's a museum. Lots of ancient hardware
just occupying space. Plenty of Strowger switches and crossbar racks,
some of which were powered on. When I asked what they were doing, I
was told "depreciating".

--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

 

[Don Y]

Hi Jeff,

On 8/15/2013 3:08 PM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:

On Thu, 15 Aug 2013 11:47:07 -0700, Don Y <this@isnotme.com> wrote:

Ummm... I think it's called a relay. Connect the solenoid to
something that monitors AC power, such as a common wall wart. The
contacts switch the POTS phone from the ATA when energized, to the
POTS line when the power drops.

Too trivial a control algorithm. You need to be able to "drop"
(in your example) the relay even when power is available (if
you sense something else has compromised the internal phone service).

It's kinda tricky to energize a relay AFTER the power is lost. I
suppose I could charge a cazapitor and dump the charge into a latching
relay release coil if the power is lost. The only problem is that I
get only one chance to change the latching relay state.

Lots of ways to energize a relay after loss of (primary) power!
You just need *secondary* power -- whether from a big cap or
a "backup battery" that is busy trying to keep your VoIP
gateway running during a short? power outage (and, just before
it realizes it can't keep itself UP any longer, throws the
relay before shutting down)

Also, consuming electricity 24/7 to protect against something that
isn't *expected* to happen is wasteful. Smarter to use a latching
relay with a power reserve that you can "pulse" the latch/release
coil as needed.

Well, the average packaged relay burns about 350 mw in the coil. At
$0.17/kw-hr, that's 3 kw-hr per year or about $0.52 added to your
electric bill every year. I suspect the ecological damage caused by
the manufacture of the components needed for a more sophisticated
device substantially exceed this cost.

Again, if you've already got the electronics there doing other things,
what is the cost of a few hundred bytes of ROM? (for the algorithm)
You've already assumed the cost of the *relay*...

http://www.ericofon.com/catalog/classic3/images/trimline/wall/trw_green.jpg

http://www.ericofon.com/catalog/classic3/trimline.htm
I have one of the WE desk phone versions. As I recall, the coil cord
on the WE version had a very large vinyl molded connector on the phone
end, and direct wired spade lugs on the handset. Are you sure yours
has a normal handset RJ22 modular jack?

Positive. The cord is on the desk here -- sans handset and base!

Phone has to reside *in* a closet (I don't want to "see"
any phones in the house!) and only accessed in times of
service outages, etc.

If nobody sees the phone, why do you care about the color of the coil
cord?

Nobody sees the color of the carpet in the trunk of my car, either.
Why didn't the manufacturer opt to put whatever he had lying around
in the shop in there when he built the vehicle? I'm sure he could
have saved a few pennies...

I also like all my tires "mounted white" or "mounted black" -- not
some convenient mixture of the two. :>

Again, I live in earthquake country. When he had our last big
shake in 1989, all the phones fell off their hangers and went offhook.
Nobody ever tested the software in the switch for such a massive off
hook condition. Of course, that triggered a bug which caused the
switch to continuously reboot. No phone service for several days
until the bug was fixed in the switch or billing machine (I forgot
which). Since then, all unattended phones get an elastic strap to
hold the phone in place in the event of an earthquake.

Seeing individual feeds to residences ON TOP of the soil
(for months or years -- permanent tempporary fix!) is
not uncommon. And you want to rely on this for *what*??

We do it better. I live in a forest. Most of our telco plant is
aerial (on poles). When the wind blows, the trees fall, breaking the
lines. It's not unusual to see 3 adjacent splice boxes on along the
cable. Also, lots of broken pairs.

Yup. That's how things are back East. All the utilities hang.
And, each time a drunk buys a telephone pole, someone loses
something for some period of time...

Uncle used to run a CO.

I used to work in a battery room in the 1960's.

OK. I recall seeing banks of batteries. And some sort of
*motor* in continuous motion (I think something to do with ring?)

Three memorable things from a private
tour he gave me as a kid:

Times have changed. A more recent tour:
http://www.wap.org/journal/cotour/

I would *hope* so! It's been >40 years since I was there! :>

I have some photos of the local CO, but I had to promise not to
distribute them. Basically, it's a museum. Lots of ancient hardware
just occupying space. Plenty of Strowger switches and crossbar racks,
some of which were powered on. When I asked what they were doing, I
was told "depreciating".

Ha! Yet, probably, still fully functional!

 

[Charlie E.]

On Wed, 14 Aug 2013 04:46:06 -0400, rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> wrote:

With many things you can find good, low cost sources. But with some
things you have to choose... "good, fast, cheap - pick two" is common.

I've been Googling for VOIP providers and none of them seem to fair very
well unless they are a bit pricey with plans that remind me of cell
phones with limited minutes. There seem to be a few low cost providers
but they tend to get poor reviews on voice quality or dropped calls or
even completing calls. I've even read about one provider that only
requires a modest yearly payment, but makes it so hard to do that some
give up and subscribe all over again.

I don't get it. This is not new technology. Has anyone found a decent
VOIP provider? I'd like to use my existing phone number (seems not all
will let you transfer a number) and port the device with me when I
travel. Ideally it would support E911 and allow me to easily update the
info when I travel.

Otherwise I just need for it to replace my land line and not cost any
more. I'm only paying $15 a month to Verizon for that, and of course I
have to spit each time I write the check... I'm not a fan.

What are you using?

I have a Vonage line for the business, that includes an 800 number. It
is strictly a by the minute line, and usually averages about $21 a
month. Quality of the call correlates pretty well with the health of
your internet connection...

 

[Joerg]

Don Y wrote:

Hi Joerg,

On 8/15/2013 2:00 PM, Joerg wrote:
In this case, green (see URL in my reply to Jeff). Not my ideal
choice of color. Rather, dictated by the type of phone that I
wanted and what I had available in my "telephone stash".

Just get a beige phone?

Hard finding a trimline *wall* phone with a mechanical ringer.

Why a mechanical ringer?

You will *notice* a mechanical ringer. "What the hell is that noise?"
Not "yet another chirping cricket".

Some of the basic piezo-ringer phones are amazingly loud. When on full
it knocks you out of bed like the whistles and trumpets at boot camp did.

And, the integrated "dual stud" mounting. Ideally, WE and not
some crap clone. (i.e., do I spend my time finding a phone
or a coiled cord? :> )

Here's several of them:

http://www.walmart.com/ip/Uniden-1100BK-Slimline-Corded-Phone-Black/21805373


But if it has to be Western Electric (probably made in China these days
anyhow), dual-stud (whatever that is), green and with mechanical ringer
then I guess it'll be the yard sale tour. Or thrift stores.

Thrift stores are the route I've been taking. You can find lots
of cheap/crappy phones but few of the original WE units seem to
have survived (or, maybe folks just hold onto them?).

"Trimline" and "Princess" phones are relatively common. But, the
wall mounted variety seem harder to come by. I wouldn't trust
a traditional trimline mounted on a wall to retain the handset
(esp if you can't visually verify its placement "often")

We have a genuine 1927 Western Electric wall phone in the kitchen.
Works. Except you can't dial out, on account of a non-existent dialer.
They hadn't been invented yet. Had to disconnect the crank, of course.

[...]

For water to percolate through 4 ft of soil, the tree has had
a good deal of time to absorb that moisture "on its way down"
(an inch of water will penetrate soil to a depth of 10 inches).

You don't want the roots to sit in "pooled" water (it leads to
"root rot"). Also, you want the water to end up *below* the
roots so you can flush the salts down below their level
(e.g., we water the citrus by quickly filling the earthen "basin"
that surrounds the tree with water to a 3" depth. Let it drain.
Then repeat -- twice more.) It appears to make a big difference
in the health of the trees and quality of the fruit. Neighbors
(same microclimate) who water regularly don't have anywhere near
the yield (nor sweetness) that we get.

Hmm, maybe that's why some trees here just don't want to catch. We have
bedrock very few feet below, some of it sticks out the surface. No
amount of TLC and fertilizing helps.

We had rose bushes out by the front door. Never did well. I
finally decided to dig them up and plant something else in their
place (had been there from previous owner).

Imagine my thoughts when I discovered a slab of concrete about
12" beneath the soil level! "Sheesh! No wonder the damn things
never thrived!" (Apparently, builder had dumped all his surplus
concrete in that location, then covered it up with dirt...)

Make sure it's not an old septic tank

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

 

[Joerg]

Don Y wrote:

Hi Joerg,

On 8/15/2013 1:38 PM, Joerg wrote:
Don Y wrote:

[Actually, I've been looking for a new coiled cord for the WE phone
I've chosen as this "backup" but they only sell "vanilla" colors
for coiled cords, nowadays -- white, black, beige]

Model 500, 1500, or 2500 phone? I vaguely recall some vendor selling
replacement cords in assorted colors. I just tried "red telephone
coil cord" on eBay search with lots of hits including "vintage" WE
cords (for $12 to $25/ea ouch).

http://www.ericofon.com/catalog/classic3/images/trimline/wall/trw_green.jpg


Make sure your phone company will support pulse dial for the foreseeable
future.

So far, every place I have lived has been backward compatible in
that regard. E.g., I have an old handset from the early 20th
century (one of those HEAVY black *cast* phones) that still
works (I've been sorely tempted to put a little MCU inside it
to count dial pulses and generate touch tones -- just for the
head games it would play with users! I.e., you can understand
a pushbutton phone being able to generate DTMF or pulse. But,
having a *dial* phone generating DTMF? WTF???)

[I think pulse will work on noisier line conditions than DTMF.
Many years ago, we were having terrible phone service. Esp
with the dialup modems! (I *did* say "many years ago"!) A
tech came out to troubleshoot the line one day -- big orange?
box that monitors the condition of the line. He was just getting
ready to walk off with a shrug of his shoulders: "I don't see
anything wrong..." when the noise level shot through the roof.
I.e., you could barely hear *voice* on the line! I suspect I
would have still been able to dial out in those conditions
with the dial pulse phone! (tech ended up switching us to a
different pair and marking the old pair as out of service)]

Phone has to reside *in* a closet (I don't want to "see"
any phones in the house!) and only accessed in times of
service outages, etc.

In order to keep in sync with your level of automation provide a little
slot in the wall, with a big fat electrolytic down in there somewhere.
Power goes (or you push some button) ... *THWOCK* ... a flap falls down
.... phssssssssst .. click ... phone automagically glides out of wall and
locks into emergency position.

That would be cool if I could put it someplace "visible" (so it's
presence would tell me "something is wrong"). But, would require
a lot of work to make it "look good" in each scenario (retracted
and deployed) -- consider SWMBO. Not sure I would want to tackle
that (I have tried really hard to remove everything techy from the
walls, rooms, etc. Even removing the texture from the walls! :-/ )

I've been looking for a motorized projection screen that I could
recess into the ceiling in front of the bookshelves in the front
hallway. That would allow me to get rid of the TV in the living
room, too!

The actual cable *feed* is barely down a foot along the
side of the roadway. It's been patched *twice* in front
of our house in the years we've lived here. No idea
how often it has failed elsewhere in the neighborhood.

Seeing individual feeds to residences ON TOP of the soil
(for months or years -- permanent tempporary fix!) is
not uncommon. And you want to rely on this for *what*??

That's what has kept me from the much faster cable TV Internet. The
previous owners had cable TV and the just plopped the cable into the
landscape. Zero inch burying depth. Here and there one can see tooth
marks from who knows which critter.

Someone in the neighborhood is *always* complaining of an outage.
I don't know if this is a consequence of damage to the (shallow)
cables, faulty insulation/water penetration, etc.

And, they all have horror stories about trying to *contact*
the cable company for service (and, having to wait around
all day for someone to show up: "We'll have a guy there
between 8 and 5..." "Gee! Thanks! I was afraid he might
show up AFTER BEDTIME!!!")

DSL is hopelessly behind in technology out here. 1.2Mbit/sec down and
256k up.

We can easily get 12Mb service. I just don't like TPC (arrogant
bastards).

I am actually thinking about having both DSL and cable modem. Then I
could use cable and fall back to DSL if that goes bad. But DSL has crept
up to $38/mo now. It'll probably climb more because they are losing
market share. I don't think they've got LTE yet out here. That would be
the other option, drop DSL, get cable and have one smart phone contract
that allows a USB LTE stick in the laptop. Just for backup.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

 

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Thu, 15 Aug 2013 15:32:32 -0700, Don Y <this@isnotme.com> wrote:

Lots of ways to energize a relay after loss of (primary) power!
You just need *secondary* power -- whether from a big cap or
a "backup battery" that is busy trying to keep your VoIP
gateway running during a short? power outage (and, just before
it realizes it can't keep itself UP any longer, throws the
relay before shutting down)

Yeah, something like that would work. Assuming a 5 year payback on
investment and $0.50/year savings, can you build such a device for
$2.50? If not, burning the power is cheaper.

Well, the average packaged relay burns about 350 mw in the coil. At
$0.17/kw-hr, that's 3 kw-hr per year or about $0.52 added to your
electric bill every year. I suspect the ecological damage caused by
the manufacture of the components needed for a more sophisticated
device substantially exceed this cost.

Again, if you've already got the electronics there doing other things,
what is the cost of a few hundred bytes of ROM? (for the algorithm)
You've already assumed the cost of the *relay*...

Not really. The only thing I've assumed is that the device has to be
more efficient than buring $0.50/year in power.

OK. I recall seeing banks of batteries. And some sort of
*motor* in continuous motion (I think something to do with ring?)

Yep. A 90VAC 20Hz generator. The device was geared and was also used
to produce dial tone, busy signal, and various alerts.
<http://www.tech-faq.com/frequencies-of-the-telephone-tones.html>
There should be some details here, but I don't want to look right now:
<http://www.telephonecollectors.info>
I also may have something in my collection of BSP's (Bell System
Practices).

Continuous ring voltage was available on all the frames. It wasn't
difficult for me to resist the temptation to harass someone deserving
with a dose of continuous ringing since it would be obvious where the
continuous ring had originated.

I have some photos of the local CO, but I had to promise not to
distribute them. Basically, it's a museum. Lots of ancient hardware
just occupying space. Plenty of Strowger switches and crossbar racks,
some of which were powered on. When I asked what they were doing, I
was told "depreciating".

Ha! Yet, probably, still fully functional!

Some parts probably are. Due to the long depreciable life required by
the IRS for CO equipment, the stuff has to used for many years beyond
obsolescence. My guess is that being used really means apply power at
least once per year. So, I guess they turn everything once every
year, blow a few fuses, and then turn it off.


--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

 

[Michael A. Terrell]

Don Y wrote:

Gack! *Green*? (I've probably got a hundred black, white, beige,
etc. but no *green*) I *don't* want 25'. I want a SHORT cord
(i.e., so that *coiled* it is perhaps 2 ft long?). Phone is
mounted about 3 ft above the "floor" so I want the cord to
"remain dangling" at all times instead of curling up on the
floor...

A business that rebuilt 1A2 phones went out of business a few years
ago, and owed me money. I took what I could get from them. The
standard cord stretches to 7', and retacts to about two feet.


--
Anyone wanting to run for any political office in the US should have to
have a DD214, and a honorable discharge.

 

[Spehro Pefhany]

On Thu, 15 Aug 2013 21:40:51 -0500, the renowned Joe Chisolm
<jchisolm6@earthlink.net> wrote:

I do something similar. I have one phone with a hotspot plan on it. If
my main internet connection goes down I turn on smart phone hotspot.
I dont have everything but enough for me and the other half to keep
working until the main service comes back up. It's not cheap but worth
it for the backup capabilities. Plus we can always do email from the
phones.

--
Chisolm
Republic of Texas

FWIW, during our flood last month when power was off for about 10
hours, tethering notebooks to cellular data only lasted for some hours
before dying. The cable boxes on poles were flashing their red trouble
lights after 5-6 hours too. Nothing like the reliability of phone
lines, water and NG utilities. I still have dial-up account, but I
didn't try it (was too busy trying to rig up a supply for the sump
pump).

There's free Wifi at most coffee shops (at least half a dozen within a
short drive, many of them 24/7) but they close their doors if the
power goes out (a fairly rare occurence, maybe once a decade for that
length of outage).

Some routers have an auto-rollover WAN capability if you need
redundancy (gets expensive though).


Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany
--
"it's the network..." "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog Info for designers: http://www.speff.com

 

[Don Y]

Hi Joerg,

On 8/15/2013 4:34 PM, Joerg wrote:

DSL is hopelessly behind in technology out here. 1.2Mbit/sec down and
256k up.

We can easily get 12Mb service. I just don't like TPC (arrogant
bastards).

I am actually thinking about having both DSL and cable modem. Then I
could use cable and fall back to DSL if that goes bad. But DSL has crept
up to $38/mo now. It'll probably climb more because they are losing
market share. I don't think they've got LTE yet out here. That would be
the other option, drop DSL, get cable and have one smart phone contract
that allows a USB LTE stick in the laptop. Just for backup.

We don't subscribe to cable -- too few hours in a day to spend
them watching TV :>

In a jam, I could fall back to dialup access to several "private"
systems that I have accounts on. Or, drive 2 miles to the public
library for access to their WiFi (and wired) network. Or, a mile
to the Kinkos or gelateria for their wireless, etc.

But, it's just as easy to live without the access for a few days!
:>

 

[Don Y]

Hi Spehro,

On 8/15/2013 9:23 PM, Spehro Pefhany wrote:

FWIW, during our flood last month when power was off for about 10
hours, tethering notebooks to cellular data only lasted for some hours
before dying. The cable boxes on poles were flashing their red trouble
lights after 5-6 hours too. Nothing like the reliability of phone
lines, water and NG utilities.

We lost our natural gas supply last winter (or the winter before?
I lose track of time :> ). Eery sensation -- you don't *expect*
gas to be unavailable. Complicated (and CAUSED!) by an exceptional
cold spell which drove demand up to levels that the supply couldn't
accommodate. IIRC, they ended up shutting *off* the supply to
parts of town so the rest of town had usable pressure.

I still have dial-up account, but I
didn't try it (was too busy trying to rig up a supply for the sump
pump).

I keep several large 12V batteries (some from cars, others gelled
electrolyte from electric wheelchairs, etc.) topped off in the garage
from a solar panel. Normally used to run the pump for rainwater
harvesting (paying for electricity to pump harvested water seems
like it defeats the purpose!).

But, in an outage, I drag ~1.5KVA UPS's out to the garage and plug
the batteries into the UPS's in lieu of the little dinky batteries
normally present in the UPS's. Neighbors get a bit annoyed seeing
the house lit up while they are in the dark :> (perhaps the only
*good* reason to have CFL's on hand. I've yet to have a battery
exhausted with them as loads!)

IIRC, many sump pumps have provisions for battery operation
(for precisely the reason you've encountered)

 

[Joe Chisolm]

On Thu, 15 Aug 2013 16:34:19 -0700, Joerg wrote:

Don Y wrote:
Hi Joerg,

On 8/15/2013 1:38 PM, Joerg wrote:
Don Y wrote:

[Actually, I've been looking for a new coiled cord for the WE phone
I've chosen as this "backup" but they only sell "vanilla" colors
for coiled cords, nowadays -- white, black, beige]

Model 500, 1500, or 2500 phone? I vaguely recall some vendor
selling replacement cords in assorted colors. I just tried "red
telephone coil cord" on eBay search with lots of hits including
"vintage" WE cords (for $12 to $25/ea ouch).

http://www.ericofon.com/catalog/classic3/images/trimline/wall/
trw_green.jpg


Make sure your phone company will support pulse dial for the
foreseeable future.

So far, every place I have lived has been backward compatible in that
regard. E.g., I have an old handset from the early 20th century (one
of those HEAVY black *cast* phones) that still works (I've been sorely
tempted to put a little MCU inside it to count dial pulses and generate
touch tones -- just for the head games it would play with users! I.e.,
you can understand a pushbutton phone being able to generate DTMF or
pulse. But, having a *dial* phone generating DTMF? WTF???)

[I think pulse will work on noisier line conditions than DTMF. Many
years ago, we were having terrible phone service. Esp with the dialup
modems! (I *did* say "many years ago"!) A tech came out to
troubleshoot the line one day -- big orange? box that monitors the
condition of the line. He was just getting ready to walk off with a
shrug of his shoulders: "I don't see anything wrong..." when the noise
level shot through the roof. I.e., you could barely hear *voice* on the
line! I suspect I would have still been able to dial out in those
conditions with the dial pulse phone! (tech ended up switching us to a
different pair and marking the old pair as out of service)]

Phone has to reside *in* a closet (I don't want to "see" any phones
in the house!) and only accessed in times of service outages, etc.

In order to keep in sync with your level of automation provide a
little slot in the wall, with a big fat electrolytic down in there
somewhere. Power goes (or you push some button) ... *THWOCK* ... a
flap falls down .... phssssssssst .. click ... phone automagically
glides out of wall and locks into emergency position.

That would be cool if I could put it someplace "visible" (so it's
presence would tell me "something is wrong"). But, would require a lot
of work to make it "look good" in each scenario (retracted and
deployed) -- consider SWMBO. Not sure I would want to tackle that (I
have tried really hard to remove everything techy from the walls,
rooms, etc. Even removing the texture from the walls! :-/ )

I've been looking for a motorized projection screen that I could recess
into the ceiling in front of the bookshelves in the front hallway.
That would allow me to get rid of the TV in the living room, too!

The actual cable *feed* is barely down a foot along the side of the
roadway. It's been patched *twice* in front of our house in the
years we've lived here. No idea how often it has failed elsewhere in
the neighborhood.

Seeing individual feeds to residences ON TOP of the soil (for months
or years -- permanent tempporary fix!) is not uncommon. And you want
to rely on this for *what*??

That's what has kept me from the much faster cable TV Internet. The
previous owners had cable TV and the just plopped the cable into the
landscape. Zero inch burying depth. Here and there one can see tooth
marks from who knows which critter.

Someone in the neighborhood is *always* complaining of an outage. I
don't know if this is a consequence of damage to the (shallow) cables,
faulty insulation/water penetration, etc.

And, they all have horror stories about trying to *contact* the cable
company for service (and, having to wait around all day for someone to
show up: "We'll have a guy there between 8 and 5..." "Gee! Thanks!
I was afraid he might show up AFTER BEDTIME!!!")

DSL is hopelessly behind in technology out here. 1.2Mbit/sec down and
256k up.

We can easily get 12Mb service. I just don't like TPC (arrogant
bastards).


I am actually thinking about having both DSL and cable modem. Then I
could use cable and fall back to DSL if that goes bad. But DSL has crept
up to $38/mo now. It'll probably climb more because they are losing
market share. I don't think they've got LTE yet out here. That would be
the other option, drop DSL, get cable and have one smart phone contract
that allows a USB LTE stick in the laptop. Just for backup.

I do something similar. I have one phone with a hotspot plan on it. If
my main internet connection goes down I turn on smart phone hotspot.
I dont have everything but enough for me and the other half to keep
working until the main service comes back up. It's not cheap but worth
it for the backup capabilities. Plus we can always do email from the
phones.

--
Chisolm
Republic of Texas

 

[Don Y]

Hi Jeff,

On 8/15/2013 4:40 PM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:

On Thu, 15 Aug 2013 15:32:32 -0700, Don Y <this@isnotme.com> wrote:

Lots of ways to energize a relay after loss of (primary) power!
You just need *secondary* power -- whether from a big cap or
a "backup battery" that is busy trying to keep your VoIP
gateway running during a short? power outage (and, just before
it realizes it can't keep itself UP any longer, throws the
relay before shutting down)

Yeah, something like that would work. Assuming a 5 year payback on
investment and $0.50/year savings, can you build such a device for
$2.50? If not, burning the power is cheaper.

The relay is necessary regardless -- you need to be able to
conditionally reconnect an analog phone in the event of a
prolonged outage, etc. So, you also need a driver to engage
the relay (trip a latching relay, etc.)

The cost then becomes one of the software to decide *when*
to trip it (you can buy a whole processor for $2.50! :> )

In a mass produced device, I would imagine some "circuit breaker"
style plastic button would pop up as an indicator that the
relay has been tripped *and* a means by which the user can
*manually* reset the relay after the outage (unless he never
uses that feature)

[I don't worry about bringing things to market. Just identifying
the issues that need to be eventually addressed!]

 

[Don Y]

On 8/15/2013 8:23 PM, Michael A. Terrell wrote:

Don Y wrote:

Gack! *Green*? (I've probably got a hundred black, white, beige,
etc. but no *green*) I *don't* want 25'. I want a SHORT cord
(i.e., so that *coiled* it is perhaps 2 ft long?). Phone is
mounted about 3 ft above the "floor" so I want the cord to
"remain dangling" at all times instead of curling up on the
floor...

A business that rebuilt 1A2 phones went out of business a few years
ago, and owed me money.

Bummer. "Unsecured debt". Always amazing to see how folks are
so willing to walk away from their obligations! :<

(I think every person should incorporate. Often!)

> I took what I could get from them.

Appears they probably go for about $5-10 as NOS (eBay, etc.) -- of
course, folks will want as much as they can get for them! :<

I had a guy, here, who had boxes of "New" DCI video cables. Looked
like a fortune in cables (that a retail outlet would no doubt
sell for $10+, each).

He was heart broken when he learned they were barely worth the
cost of *shipping*!

(We're in the wrong business -- things keep getting *cheaper*!)

The
standard cord stretches to 7', and retacts to about two feet.

Sounds about right. I'd have guessed 6 feet but how much you
stretch it is obviously a subjective matter.

If you were local I'd swap you some (excellent!) baked goods
for one OTOH, all that fat and sugar really isn't good
for anyone... :<

 

[miso]

Maybe I can dumb this down a bit. I assume the free calls are only to
people with SIP phones. If you need to connect to a POTS, there is a charge.

VOIP/SIP is complicated. My ISP has been trying to get me over to their
VOIP for years, since that is their specialty. It just seems like too
much work for me for no real savings since I have way too many minutes
on my cellphone.

But here is something to contemplate. There are SIP apps for
smartphones. You could get a plan like that cheap $30 T-mobile plan that
only has 100 minutes of voice, and then use SIP from your phone on its
data plan to use the VOIP vendor directly, or maybe VPN to your router
and then VOIP as if you were at your house. Basically that is what
google voice does, well except for them spying on you.

If you built a new house, hell yeah, just SIP all your phones and put an
Asterik box in a closest somewhere. This is the future of telephony. In
fact, AT$T claimed they were going to just dump pots and make their
phone system totally digital. Of course they would bill you just like it
was POTS.

 

[miso]

There are people you can pay to set up VOIP systems. A friend of mine
has done a number of large commercial VOIPs, even a campus one with
security phones and direct connection to the cops HT if needed. But my
point is you just pay someone to do this if it sounds too complicated.

This is how the game is played. If you can't do it yourself, you pay
somebody to do it. That could be simply paying Ma Bell a high monthly
rate, or it could be paying a company to set up the SIP.

If you go to WalMart, they have some contraption that is a like a wired
cellphone. I saw it when I was looking at MNVOs before deciding just to
renew my cellular contract. It is a box that is a voice only cellphone.
You pay $15 a month for phone service from StraightTalk. I never met
anyone that used it, so I can't vouch for it.

 

[Joerg]

Spehro Pefhany wrote:

On Thu, 15 Aug 2013 21:40:51 -0500, the renowned Joe Chisolm
jchisolm6@earthlink.net> wrote:

I do something similar. I have one phone with a hotspot plan on it. If
my main internet connection goes down I turn on smart phone hotspot.
I dont have everything but enough for me and the other half to keep
working until the main service comes back up. It's not cheap but worth
it for the backup capabilities. Plus we can always do email from the
phones.

--
Chisolm
Republic of Texas

FWIW, during our flood last month when power was off for about 10
hours, tethering notebooks to cellular data only lasted for some hours
before dying. ...

That is what most people don't realize these days. Cell phones are not a
reliable backup in a longer outage. Once the tower run out of
electricity the cell phone becomes a little brick and being able to
re-chareg it from the car will not help.

... The cable boxes on poles were flashing their red trouble
lights after 5-6 hours too. Nothing like the reliability of phone
lines, water and NG utilities. I still have dial-up account, but I
didn't try it (was too busy trying to rig up a supply for the sump
pump).

The dial-up is only good if it connects to a modem in some distant city.
I doubt that the local Missy Bell or ISP will UPS-feed the steampunk
modem bank.

There's free Wifi at most coffee shops (at least half a dozen within a
short drive, many of them 24/7) but they close their doors if the
power goes out (a fairly rare occurence, maybe once a decade for that
length of outage).

Some routers have an auto-rollover WAN capability if you need
redundancy (gets expensive though).

Mine not too expensive one even has that, but only to a dial-up modem.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

 

[Joerg]

Don Y wrote:

Hi Joerg,

On 8/15/2013 4:34 PM, Joerg wrote:

DSL is hopelessly behind in technology out here. 1.2Mbit/sec down and
256k up.

We can easily get 12Mb service. I just don't like TPC (arrogant
bastards).

I am actually thinking about having both DSL and cable modem. Then I
could use cable and fall back to DSL if that goes bad. But DSL has crept
up to $38/mo now. It'll probably climb more because they are losing
market share. I don't think they've got LTE yet out here. That would be
the other option, drop DSL, get cable and have one smart phone contract
that allows a USB LTE stick in the laptop. Just for backup.

We don't subscribe to cable -- too few hours in a day to spend
them watching TV :

That's problem #2. We do not have any interest whatsoever in their TV
offerings and they don't really want to sell Internet without it.

In a jam, I could fall back to dialup access to several "private"
systems that I have accounts on. Or, drive 2 miles to the public
library for access to their WiFi (and wired) network. Or, a mile
to the Kinkos or gelateria for their wireless, etc.

Those will usually be out as well. At least that's how it is here when a
larger outage occurs.

The LTE or DSL backup for me would only be if the cable Internet goes
down because their last-mile infrastructure is a bit haphazard.

But, it's just as easy to live without the access for a few days!

Yup. When Gray "Gray-out" Davis was still governor and screwed up the CA
electricity market we got used to continue life sans power. One can cook
a 4-5 burner meal in a Weber grill over charcoal, done it. that was a
bit decadent but the power went outside the "normal" rolling black-outs
just after my wife started to cook. Back then I felt like we had moved
to Romania.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

 

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Fri, 16 Aug 2013 02:10:33 -0700, miso <miso@sushi.com> wrote:

If you go to WalMart, they have some contraption that is a like a wired
cellphone. I saw it when I was looking at MNVOs before deciding just to
renew my cellular contract. It is a box that is a voice only cellphone.
You pay $15 a month for phone service from StraightTalk. I never met
anyone that used it, so I can't vouch for it.

They just resell air time on one of the cellular networks.
<http://www.straighttalkhomephone.com>
<http://www.walmart.com/ip/Straight-Talk-Wireless-Home-Phone/22084643>
Basically, a docking station with the CDMA phone built-in (tethering).
You plug it into your home POTS wiring in the same way as an ATA VoIP
adapter. If you can tolerate the typical cellular audio quality and
don't use an analog fax, it might work.

Maybe it would help to see where such things are going. My crystal
ball needs a workout.

Shared wireless broadband is a concept that has been kicked around
since the early 1990's. The first version was for a service provider
to hang LMDS (27.5 - 31.3 GHz) radios on the poles, and provide short
range (last 100ft) video, phone, and data service. There would be no
wires going into the house and everything would be wireless. The
concept was suppose to give some competition to the incumbent telco
monopolies, but never took hold. Currently, LMDS is mostly used for
backhaul and fiber backup:
<http://www.lmds.vt.edu>

Of course, there were problems. Not enough bandwidth to do the job,
somewhat beyond state of the art at the time, and high cost. What
made it unpopular was the realization that it wouldn't scale into
becoming a 100% replacement for copper because of difficulties with
frequency re-use. It's not totally dead yet as companies do keep
trying:
<http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/05/14/samsung_5g/>

The answer to the frequency re-use problem arrived with discovery of
the unlicensed 67 to 64 GHz band. 60 GHz is the major atmospheric
oxygen absorption hole. RF doesn't go very far in the 60 Ghz band,
making frequency re-use possible and probably practical:
<http://transition.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Engineering_Technology/Documents/bulletins/oet70/oet70a.pdf>
About -10 dB/km. Add -5 dB/km more if it's raining. Not much effect
if the radios are close but really lossy over any distance. Chipsets,
prototypes, and consortia are already available:
<http://www.siliconimage.com/solutions/wireless/hrtx/>
<http://www.anandtech.com/show/5456/wilocity-demonstrates-60-ghz-wigig-draft-80211ad-chipset-at-ces>
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_Gigabit_Alliance>
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WirelessHD>

The first use will probably be indoor wireless HDMI for wireless TV
displays and computer monitors.
<http://researcher.watson.ibm.com/researcher/view_project_subpage.php?id=1150>
The next step will probably be the promised integrated services
(video, phone, data), initially inside the house from indoor wired
access points, but later from service providers from outside on the
poles.

Whether it will happen depends of course on the economics of the
service and the ability of service providers to provide a fiber
backhaul on the poles, both of which are currently unknown.

--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

 

[Don Y]

Hi Joerg,

On 8/16/2013 7:07 AM, Joerg wrote:

DSL is hopelessly behind in technology out here. 1.2Mbit/sec down and
256k up.

We can easily get 12Mb service. I just don't like TPC (arrogant
bastards).

I am actually thinking about having both DSL and cable modem. Then I
could use cable and fall back to DSL if that goes bad. But DSL has crept
up to $38/mo now. It'll probably climb more because they are losing
market share. I don't think they've got LTE yet out here. That would be
the other option, drop DSL, get cable and have one smart phone contract
that allows a USB LTE stick in the laptop. Just for backup.

We don't subscribe to cable -- too few hours in a day to spend
them watching TV :

That's problem #2. We do not have any interest whatsoever in their TV
offerings and they don't really want to sell Internet without it.

Yup. Though I am told you can get some "really really basic" TV
service -- and just don't hook up a TV! (I suspect they want TV
subscribers because "that's their business" and I imagine they
also get a kickback from advertisers, etc. by selling your TV
viewing habits, etc.

In a jam, I could fall back to dialup access to several "private"
systems that I have accounts on. Or, drive 2 miles to the public
library for access to their WiFi (and wired) network. Or, a mile
to the Kinkos or gelateria for their wireless, etc.

Those will usually be out as well. At least that's how it is here when a
larger outage occurs.

We seldom have large outages. They are sometimes *prolonged*
(e.g., the last one was a result of the main distribution transformer
for the neighborhood catching fire!) but usually just "this feed".

E.g., the folks around the corner are fed from a different branch
so our lights will often be out while theirs are on -- or vice
versa.

The LTE or DSL backup for me would only be if the cable Internet goes
down because their last-mile infrastructure is a bit haphazard.

But, it's just as easy to live without the access for a few days!

Yup. When Gray "Gray-out" Davis was still governor and screwed up the CA
electricity market we got used to continue life sans power. One can cook
a 4-5 burner meal in a Weber grill over charcoal, done it. that was a
bit decadent but the power went outside the "normal" rolling black-outs
just after my wife started to cook. Back then I felt like we had moved
to Romania.

We keep 50 pounds of charcoal on hand (dry). Partly for the few
times we grill outdoors (ribs, etc). But, also, as a means for
getting hot food, boiling water, etc. during an outage.

I've been looking to pick up a small, single burner, propane
"camp stove" for the bug-out-bag. I figure I always have bottled
propane on hand anyway for the torch. Opting for something
like a stove that burns white gas would mean I would have to store
that *just* for use with the stove (wasteful if we never need the
stove!)

Last outage, we tried using the toaster oven with a UPS. Worked
OK (resistive load) but was awfully wasteful of that "reserve power".
Next time I may try the microwave (more efficient use of power)
but I'm not sure how reactive that load would be and how much
I'd have to derate a UPS's capabilities to safely use one!

 

[Joerg]

Don Y wrote:

Hi Joerg,

On 8/16/2013 7:07 AM, Joerg wrote:
DSL is hopelessly behind in technology out here. 1.2Mbit/sec down and
256k up.

We can easily get 12Mb service. I just don't like TPC (arrogant
bastards).

I am actually thinking about having both DSL and cable modem. Then I
could use cable and fall back to DSL if that goes bad. But DSL has
crept
up to $38/mo now. It'll probably climb more because they are losing
market share. I don't think they've got LTE yet out here. That would be
the other option, drop DSL, get cable and have one smart phone contract
that allows a USB LTE stick in the laptop. Just for backup.

We don't subscribe to cable -- too few hours in a day to spend
them watching TV :

That's problem #2. We do not have any interest whatsoever in their TV
offerings and they don't really want to sell Internet without it.

Yup. Though I am told you can get some "really really basic" TV
service -- and just don't hook up a TV! (I suspect they want TV
subscribers because "that's their business" and I imagine they
also get a kickback from advertisers, etc. by selling your TV
viewing habits, etc.

Probably, although they can get your habits only if you use their
converter and it has a calling-home feature. Basic-cable has no box, I
believe.

In a jam, I could fall back to dialup access to several "private"
systems that I have accounts on. Or, drive 2 miles to the public
library for access to their WiFi (and wired) network. Or, a mile
to the Kinkos or gelateria for their wireless, etc.

Those will usually be out as well. At least that's how it is here when a
larger outage occurs.

We seldom have large outages. They are sometimes *prolonged*
(e.g., the last one was a result of the main distribution transformer
for the neighborhood catching fire!) but usually just "this feed".

E.g., the folks around the corner are fed from a different branch
so our lights will often be out while theirs are on -- or vice
versa.

Here we have very little in localized outages. It's mostly a wildfire or
something like that and then the whole village is out.

The LTE or DSL backup for me would only be if the cable Internet goes
down because their last-mile infrastructure is a bit haphazard.

But, it's just as easy to live without the access for a few days!

Yup. When Gray "Gray-out" Davis was still governor and screwed up the CA
electricity market we got used to continue life sans power. One can cook
a 4-5 burner meal in a Weber grill over charcoal, done it. that was a
bit decadent but the power went outside the "normal" rolling black-outs
just after my wife started to cook. Back then I felt like we had moved
to Romania.

We keep 50 pounds of charcoal on hand (dry). Partly for the few
times we grill outdoors (ribs, etc). But, also, as a means for
getting hot food, boiling water, etc. during an outage.

There hasn't been a winter which we didn't enter with at least 200lbs on
hand. Because in winter charcoal is expensive, there won't be any sales,
and I am a year-round barbecuer. When it is really cold and the wood
stove cranks all day I often steal charcoal from that. Burning wood down
to charcoal is also an option but even if "free" from yard cuttings that
would be wasting energy.

I've been looking to pick up a small, single burner, propane
"camp stove" for the bug-out-bag. ...

Propane grills are for wusses

<ducking>

... I figure I always have bottled
propane on hand anyway for the torch. Opting for something
like a stove that burns white gas would mean I would have to store
that *just* for use with the stove (wasteful if we never need the
stove!)

Nah. Real men gather wood, make a fire, open a can of beer and then cook
over the fire.

Last outage, we tried using the toaster oven with a UPS. Worked
OK (resistive load) but was awfully wasteful of that "reserve power".
Next time I may try the microwave (more efficient use of power)
but I'm not sure how reactive that load would be and how much
I'd have to derate a UPS's capabilities to safely use one!

Fire up the old Weber. It's amazing what that can cook. Tonight we will
bake bread in it again, followed by spicy chicken wings that will be
eaten along with the fresh and still warm bread. Maybe also
cheese-filled jalapenos.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/