Isn't a jump to reorder without my authorization called slamming? Maybe it needs a registered mail letter to tell them never to do that.
I sure doesn't sound like VoIP. Those long packet latencies don't show up.
-- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/ "gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam. Use another domain or send PM.
Sure, but they still have to pay something to Missy Bell because that's where how the bill comes and is collected.
-- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/ "gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam. Use another domain or send PM.
Is it something like this?
DD-WRT, FreeRadius, phpMyPrepaid...?
Michael
They buy the minutes up front and may be buying it for 1c/min or even less. They will also have factored in average call time and have some of the total cost built into the 10c connect fee. May be paying 1.5c during the day and 1c at night. You do the math based on usage patterns and come up with a number that puts money in the bank at the end of the day. I did cost containment for a dialup provider years back. We had all kinds of data on call usage patterns (time of day, day of week, city, etc) that we factored in to the bottom line equation. Used the info for buying T1 and DS3's and for deciding what to back haul where, or terminate locally.
If you are willing to put the money up front you can get some good deals. Of course, I dont know of any wholesale plan that will let you roll over the minutes - you use them or loose them. And if you are on the backside of the curve and run out of minutes to sell it can be costly.
-- Joe Chisolm Marble Falls, TX
We packed in the land line and long distance charges years ago. Two cell phones cost us about the same as just the local charges on the land line did.
-- Keith
Caller ID, call blocking, call forwarding, etc are all *additional* services each of which has a seperate charge.
I know that, Robert. OTOH, if you purchase amny of those
*additional* services, you can not use the lifeline service. It is not a standard telephone service.-- http://improve-usenet.org/index.html If you have broadband, your ISP may have a NNTP news server included in your account: http://www.usenettools.net/ISP.htm Notice to all employees: In our continuing effort to conform to political correctness, we must insist that all employees call a spade a shovel. That is all.
[added alt.internet.wireless]
I wish I had seen that article when I was first learning to set it up. That's close to what I'm doing. DD-WRT MySQL and FreeRadius (on an internet connected server). I didn't know about phpMyPrepaid and will certainly try it out quite soon. Looks like the author has gone into business providing remote authentication:
However, that's not the tricks I was referring to. Briefly:
I hope this helps.
-- 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
Out here you wouldn't really want to do that. A friend who did has to go into his front yard every hour or so to see if someone left a message. Inside the signal strength is between zero and one "bars". No fun when it's cold or rainy.
-- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/ "gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam. Use another domain or send PM.
What is this "cold and rainy" ?:-)
...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC\'s and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona 85048 Skype: Contacts Only | |
| Voice:(480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |
I\'m really surprised by John Edward\'s behavior...
I expected him to be caught in bed with a guy ;-)
Ah, thanks. I wasn't aware of (1) and (2).
For (5), since you're using a Linux box, does it matter if it's powered down properly or not? 'shutdown -h now' and all that...?
Michael
This:
-- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/ "gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam. Use another domain or send PM.
I remember that.
In June 1963 I had a snowball fight with a friend, right here in Phoenix. He brought a cooler chest full of snow from Flagstaff ;-)
...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC\'s and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona 85048 Skype: Contacts Only | |
| Voice:(480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |
A simulation, struggling to converge, is telling you something
Pay attention !-)
Tell him to build a passive repeater out of a pair of Yagi antennas and some coax.
-- http://improve-usenet.org/index.html If you have broadband, your ISP may have a NNTP news server included in your account: http://www.usenettools.net/ISP.htm Notice to all employees: In our continuing effort to conform to political correctness, we must insist that all employees call a spade a shovel. That is all.
There are two types of RADIUS servers that I'm tinkering with. One is a local RADIUS server at the coffee shop location. It doesn't have a keyboard on which to type the proper shutdown incantation. All admin is done with SSH or HTML. I make sure that write caching to the hard disk is disabled. EXT3 is a journaling filesystem, which recovers nicely from unexpected power failures. I'm currently using a PC104 SBC (single board computah) for the RADIUS server, running from a 2GB CF (compact flash) card. I twice managed to trash some syslog junk that I was storing locally, but otherwise, it seems reliable. One location has utility power problems and I get about 5 reboots per week. Good enough, but with only one live system, it's really too soon to tell.
So far, I haven't lost any "sectors" on the CF cards. In anticipation of a CF card drive failure, I have 2 spares sitting next to each machine. When all else fails, or I can't login remotely, I have them swap CF cards. That causes lots of problems with dropped connections and authentication failures, so I save that for special occasions.
I'm also working on a mini-ITX version, as my supply of cheap PC-104 boards has hit zero.
The other type of RADIUS server is located at my office and eventually in an ISP's server farm. The customer does not power down this RADIUS server. It services multiple customers, stays up all the time, and is not expected to survive a graceless power failure (which it will do quite nicely anyway).
However, neither of these fit my recommendation for easy power cycling. It's not intended to power cycle a server, just the DSL modem, router, and wireless devices. Such commodity hardware is not particularly known for high uptime, and will sometimes hang. I just want to make it easy for the coffee shop owner to recover.
-- 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
That would require some major prep work with the chain saw and log splitter, plus he'd have to sit precisely in one spot.
-- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/ "gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam. Use another domain or send PM.
Ahhh..so the "lifeline" service is geared to the gainfully unemployed Socially Insecure.
I've setup outside antennas for such situations. I can usually install a suitable antenna in a tree or on the roof. I do better with the 800MHz antennas than with the 1900MHz variety. Biquad seems to work well. Yagi's are a pain in the posterior, but they can be bought commerically. Put something on the roof, run LMR-400 coax to an N connector. From there, a pigtail adapter to the cell phone or docking station. For a really cool installation, some docking stations have an RJ-11 phone jack, where an ordinary POTS phone can be used. Plug in a cordless phone, and he'll have "cellular" service around the house. The newer adapters use BlueGoof to simulate a headset, so there's no need for a custom cable.
The catch is that many of todays cell phones do not have an external antenna jack. For those, I've done tolerably well with a loop pickup, or a nearby patch antenna. It has to be close and in the near field or it becomes a "passive repeater" with the accompanying loss issues. I've also played with ceramic patch antennas, which are much smaller, with fair results.
The best such antenna coupler I've built was a resonant cavity with a loop pickup inside. Almost all of the RF from the xmitter went to the coax connector (as measured by my spectrum analyzer). However, the customer wanted to see the display on the phone, which was difficult to do. Tuning stability was also an issue as the cavity required retuning for each style of phone. Great idea technically, but useless.
There are also in building repeaters:
If all else fails, have him install a flagpole or tower. Attach a long cord to the phone for power and headset audio. Place inside a plastic Tupperware tub, and hoist it to the top of the tower. Instant extended range. It's much easier to run DC and audio than RF. If he needs to go anywhere, just lower the package to ground level. If environmental issues are a problem, just make sure he has a good warranty on the phone. (Note: the average lifetime of a cell phone is about 18 months). Hmmm.... I should patent this idea.
-- 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
I've read about many of those techniques in the past. Some legal, some borderline, some outright illegal such as booster amps. But at the end of the day you have just turned an untethered cell phone into a really, really expensive POTS device. Plus maybe a royal back pain from climbing that old pine tree, sap that won't come out of the clothes anymore, a rash from the poison oak at its bottom, and so on.
What I recommended to my friend was to get a real telephone. I think Walmart has them for ten bucks and you never get a low battery warning or overage because of too many lengthy local calls on those ;-)
-- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/ "gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam. Use another domain or send PM.
Happened again in Jan '84 I think it was. I had a couple of inches of snow at my house out north of Beardleys road (now 101). Woke up that morning and it was all white in the backyard, but for the pool. Was fun driving Beardleys and Union Hills over to Scottsdale for work.
-- Joe Chisolm Marble Falls, TX
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