In Phoenix and surroundings that's possible. Out here, less so. We live so far outside metropolis that cell coverage is spotty. Internet doesn't go down as much as it used to but I would not want to rely on it.
The real comeuppance for most people who ditched their landlines happens during a power outage and due to frequent wildfires we do have those. This is why there is an old POTS phone-phone here in my office plus a few spares in the garage. Internet and cordlesss phones will go down instantly, cell towers may last a few hours but usually no more. I've never had the landline go out.
For me it's important to be able to continue GoToMeeting or similar if the power goes. Then I just dial in via landline.
On Thu, 15 Aug 2013 02:38:09 -0400, rickman wrote: [snip]
I have not dug through their web pages but I suspect they are talking about VoIP to VoIP calls. This does not cost them anything from a telco standpoint. It may also be they cover their LD cost in the total package cost. Several do that now days. The provider buys a boat load of LD time and get it very cheap. Then just bundle some number of LD minutes into the users monthly charge. The fine print probably has some limit on your LD. Some providers dont. They just live on the edge and depend on the normal usage patterns. A few accounts use gobs of LD but most dont so it evens out.
The wire line and wireless players (Verizon, ATT, etc) have gateways for VoIP to PSTN calls. For calls the VoIP provider has to route out the gateway the provider is going to get charged for the call, in some form or fashion. It may be local metered or toll or some other billing method. If the call stays "on net" it never hits the gateway, thus no call charges. Ma Bell's children, nieces and nephews, in laws and out laws, know nothing of the call.
E911 is a different creature. A VoIP provider has to have dedicated trunks from their equipment to the switches that handle the E911 calls. There is also address information that has to flow between the provider and the E911 centers. Also, at least a year or so ago, you could not advertise VoIP "E911" as life line. There is no
5 9's type requirement for "Rick's Internet and Emporium". Do not depend on VoIP E911 to save your life.
An ATA is a little box that lets you plug in your normal PSTN handset and hook up to your local LAN. When you pick up the handset the ATA starts talking SIP to your VoIP providers servers. There is a bunch of other crap that goes on, but basically it just turns your normal phone into a VoIP phone. I know people that will take a ATA/phone with them when they travel. They plug the ATA into a local network and have a "local" phone back home. I think now days for domestic travel it is not worth the effort - just use a cell phone.
Jargon: what you are referring to is usually called an ATA (Analog Telephone Adapter).
On that sort of simple device, you might not be able to.
Some of them do allow it, in one way or another. Most such devices actually have small Web servers installed, that can be used to configure them. You might be able to use your PC to access the device's configuration web page, and program a SIP URI into it as a "speed dial" setting. Then, you could call this address from the phone by entering a speed dial code (e.g. 123# to access dialing entry
123) and the call would be routed directly over the Internet to your friend's SIP phone or adapter, without ever going through the PSTN.
If you're making SIP calls through a softphone program running on a PC (using a USB or Bluetooth headset or handset, for example) then it's often possible to type a SIP address directly into a field in the program's dialer window and call directly.
There are a number of companies which specialize in providing this sort of "drop-in" VoIP replacement for a land line. Typically, they'll sell you the necessary ATA (either fully preconfigured, or "plug it in and turn it on and it contacts our servers and configures itself"), handle the number porting, provide you with a DID (phone number) or port over your existing number if you request, and provide you with some amount of call minutes per month (possibly "unlimited within the continental USA"), all for a flat fee (either per-month, per-year, or "lifetime of the device").
Big players in this sort of "easy to set up, simple to use" arrangement include Vontage, Magic Jack, and Ooma. One of those sorts of providers may be the right choice for you.
Beyond this point... well, you really do need to understand VoIP in order to make intelligent choices. You can save money, add flexibility, and add lots of features... but you need to understand the technology and business well enough to know what to ask for, and how to manage your end of the setup.
The next tier of provider is probably companies like CallCentric and Vitelity. They let you pick and choose different sorts of inbound and outbound service (you don't have to have both, and if you do they don't necessarily have to have the same billing rates), they let you use your own ATA or IP phone or softphone or Asterisk server (although many providers will be glad to sell you one), and they give you more control over things via their web portal. These two companies seem to have pretty good and flexible web setups for controlling your account... for example on Vitelity you can order and activate a second phone number in a matter of moments.
Then, there are smaller "bargain" providers such as Future Nine. Their prices may be lower than the previous tier, but their service and support is scarcer (less "hand holding" on the Web or via email or phone... possibly none to speak of). With these providers, you really do need to understand the technology and what your needs are.
There are also providers who specialize in providing VoIP support to businesses... they expect to be working with corporate IP folks, processing orders for hundreds or thousands of lines, helping manage high-volume IP trunks, and so forth. Providers like this don't have much presence in the retail space and may have large minimum orders or service commitments.
I've never tried it, mostly because I'm not in 2 places at one time. Since the call is NOT going through the Future-Nine switch, but is rather SIP to SIP, there would be no charges. I kinda cheat and have static IP addresses at both ends, so a direct connection would not need a number lookup, but could also be done with DDNS. I also cheat and have one of my 4 "lines" setup for a direct SIP to SIP connection, but not between my phones. I'm sure I can make it work, even with a one line SIP phone.
Measure the jitter, especially when there's lots of traffic. Setup QoS. Then play.
Run traceroute to see who provides his backhaul. I do radio links and they can have rather severe packet loss if there is interference present. You won't see it at the MAC or IP layers because the radios retransmit lost packets. However, you'll see it as erratic changes in latency, which shows up as jitter. Run a continuous ping test to your gateway router over the wireless link using a better resolution ping than what MS provides, such as: If you see wide variations in latency and/or lost packets, you have jitter.
I've done much the same thing with my computer consulting biz. Every year, I would make a list of my customers, in order of revenue generated and how high they raised my blood pressure. I would then sort them to determine which customers were the most aggravating and least profitable. They were asked to go find someone else to do their work. After 30 years of filtering, I have a fairly reliable customer base. (The only problem is that everyone is getting older and retiring).
Yep and there's a reason for that. With the PSTN (public switched telephone network), all you have to do is dial the phone number, and the call goes through. Everything in between is handled by Ma Bell. The most complicated thing you'll run into is dialing a 1 for long distance and area codes.
The various VoIP networks are NOT part of the PSTN. This is for good reason as the major cost savings in using VoIP are to *NOT* go through the PSTN. In order to do that, you need to know how the call is routed, how to dial, and possibly some diagnostics. If you don't want to do all that, then just get a full service VoIP provider with support, and let them deal with it for you.
(Last time I checked, this is still a technical newsgroup).
Sigh. I'm disappointed.
Sure. I was assuming that you wanted something "Low Cost" as described in your Subject line. You don't get full service and support along with low cost. If you want "Low Cost", you have to do much of the work yourself.
You don't. It's part of the programming (provisioning) of the phone. I spend quite a bit of time tinkering with the dial plan, so I've gotten to know it quite well. Trick, such as a password for long distance, are easy. However, the first time I saw one, I knew that it was going to be an uphill battle. More:
Definitely not. Future-Nine is cheap and reasonably reliable. They are not for users that need tech support, setup help, hand holding, and troubleshooting assistance. What you gain by rolling your own VoIP device are features, versatility, control, and low cost. If these are not worthwhile and a simple POTS replacement will suffice, any of the full service providers should suffice.
I was doing quite a bit of hacking the first year or so while I was learning how it worked. I haven't done much more than minor tweaks in the last 2 years or so. Most of what I do is setup other peoples VoIP systems for them. If your expectations do not go beyond a POTS replacement, you won't need to do much hacking. If you are going to use any of the admittedly complex features, some tinkering will be required.
--
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
Agreed. The phone service *within* our house is moving to "over IP" (though not strictly VoIP -- as I just deal with phones as "audio devices" in much the same way I deal with "speakers" on the network).
But, there will be a bridge between the PSTN (landline) and the house so I can avail myself of the high availability associated with that legacy network while augmenting it (internally) with features that wouldn't typically be available on a wired landline.
Unfortunately, I haven't found an FXS/FXO device that I'm happy with, yet, and not sure I want to go down the "certification road" :< One of the big issues is being able to fall back to an all-copper connection between *a* handset and the CO -- for those cases when power fails (UPS exhausted) or something else breaks. I want a regular WE phone with a mechanical ringer (distinctive, nowadays) to keep me "connected" and *aware* of the outage.
[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]
I'm far more concerned about getting EMS when/if I *need* it ("seconds count").
Our utilities are buried, here -- for the most part. Which tends to keep the "up" more (except CATV which is barely 6 inches below grade). OTOH, there doesn't seem to be any prohibition about planting trees "wherever". I imagine root growth has probably been responsible for several cable outages and wonder how long it will be before a buried telephone trunk (hundreds of pairs) falls victim?
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.
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).
We just had Comcast business class service installed in our office building. They had to run the coax across the roadway. The service was highly reliable for exactly one week, when the city decided to replace a sewer line, and dug up the Comcast cable.
I live in earthquake country. I'm visualizing thousands of wire breaks after the next earthquake.
Incidentally, the main PG&E natural gas line runs down the street in front of my office. It's the same type that ruptured and blew up in San Bruno in 2010. Yep, trees everywhere but I'm good at ignoring impending disasters.
--
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
VoIP in the house is fine, as long as that doesn't use the regular Ethernet. That's the problem in companies, they get suckered into deals "Oh, it'll be low cost, we can use your existing LAN" and then they have to live through phases of dismal voice quality.
Just keep an older phone plugged in at all times.
What other color would you want?
Yes, that's the other advantage. People ditching their landlines usually don't think about all this. It doesn't have to be the ambulance, it could be something more simple, like getting the advice nurse on the phone after a spider bite. If all you have left is the cell phone and the tower already ran out of juice this can become harrowing.
Not sure if it's done that way in the US but in Europe we learned to do it this way: Make a trench much wider than needed. Fill with sand, lay cable but in a way that it meanders a wee bit, more sand, then top it off with thin bricks of commensurate width. The bricks won't let roots get through but will also prevent a sharp whack with a shovel. The sand has little nutrition in it even after years so roots don't like it much.
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). 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.
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.
Here, runs across the street are less than 2 inches into the asphalt! E.g., it is not uncommon to come across an "exposed" cable -- esp along the sides of the roadway, away from the crown (more tire wear).
In this block, two such lines were recently reburied. I suspect we'll be seeing them, again, sometime after the winter rains...
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*??
Uncle used to run a CO. Three memorable things from a private tour he gave me as a kid:
- the room in the basement where *all* the lines come in (think sewer pipe full of copper wires!)
- the room upstairs where all these individual pairs are fanned out for access/interconnect
- the little jet engine in the shed out back that ran the backup generator
They just replaced the gas service throughout the neighborhood this year. All new service drops, feeds, etc. I think they are down a minimum of 36 inches *and* located under the roadway. So, while a tree's root crown can easily be several feet "tall" (thick? vertically), it's unlikely that any sizable roots would be able to get at the pipes, there.
(though we've had contractors rip up lines through careless use of back hoes...)
Then that phone rings all the time! :< Did I mention I consider a telephone (doorbell, etc.) to be an *interruption* and don't think "others" should have the final say on whether and when I am "interrupted"? :>
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".
Or, your (cell) *battery* dies while you're in mid sentence!! (oops!)
It's called "shading". Different utilities require it to different extents -- no doubt related to the value of protecting the line!
E.g., gas mains are shaded 12" or more on all sides. Electric is 6", I think. Goal is to prevent rocks and other "hard things" from approaching the service line and physically damaging it (e.g., a rock slowly being pressed into a gas main and causing a small fracture -- gas then follows the pipe in each direction until it can find an outlet... in a home, etc.)
We're very dry, here. So, plants go out of their way to exploit any water sources available. Soil has a high clay content so it doesn't drain well. Nor does water seep *into* it -- unless it has already been disturbed (e.g., by someone digging a trench!). Once water has a way to get down to a certain depth, it will pool
*at* that depth -- draining dreadfully slowly.
[When I planted the first orange tree, I initially dug a 4'x4'x4' hole. (I was told, "imagine you are carving a flower pot out of the soil... how big a pot do you think a *tree* needs?") You could fill this hole with water and it would still be there *days* later! I.e., "it's not deep enough -- keep digging until you break through the clay layer..."]
Well, just use a relay then. Safest might be a wall wart and a low voltage relay. It can also be fed from some other apparatus that would blitz off when power is lost. But reduce the relay current after engagement to a safe hold current so it doesn't become too hot.
Just get a beige phone? :-)
In Germany I had a green phone on my fax line. It came with black cords which looked good. Otherwise SWMBO would have said something.
At least you can charge it from the car battery.
Probably good policy to run the auger every few feet and drill down a bit more from the bottom of the trench, then fill those holes with gravel and sand.
However, then you lose a lot of water because it gets slurped into the lower layers where it does no good in watering plants.
Hard finding a trimline *wall* phone with a mechanical ringer. 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? :> )
Currently has a long (25'?) green cord. But, I want a *short* cord as it hangs on the wall, reasonably close to the ground (so I don't want the excess coiled cord spooling on the ground beneath it).
It's out of sight so I've replaced the long cord with a black short cord (more in line with the cords you would find on a
500 series desk set). But, it will bug me that it's not "right"... :-/
Sure! As long as the spider's venom isn't fast acting! :>
Thats what I did with all the (hand dug) holes for the various valve boxes (irrigation) scattered around the yard. Poured a small concrete slab *under* each set of valves (so there is a "finished" surface to support them and keep the soil from intruding) with a weep hole in the center that feeds a bed of sand *beneath* the slab.
So, heavy rains (think Monsoon) and/or leaking valves don't result in a water-filled hole!
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.
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...
Make sure your phone company will support pulse dial for the foreseeable future.
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'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.
DSL is hopelessly behind in technology out here. 1.2Mbit/sec down and
256k up.
There wasn't the usual carton of contact spray cans in a corner?
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.
Man, you are picky :-)
A friend was bitten by a recluse. That was no fun at all, it can start rotting your flesh away.
[...]
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.
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)]
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!
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!!!")
We can easily get 12Mb service. I just don't like TPC (arrogant bastards).
You will *notice* a mechanical ringer. "What the hell is that noise?" Not "yet another chirping cricket".
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")
Yeah, I also want both my shoes to be the same size! :>
Yup. Lots of critters here that can make you very uncomfortable, at the very least. My other half is very sensitive to scorpion stings (e.g., a visit to the ER). I, OTOH, appear not to notice them until some time later.
I refuse to play chicken with the black widows, etc. And rattle snakes, bob cats, bears, javelina, etc.
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...)
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
I used to work in a battery room in the 1960's.
Times have changed. A more recent tour: 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
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