Long Distance On Same Physical Switch [Telecom]
Justin Goldberg
have more than one area code, where those numbers are not local to
each other, even though they seem to be on the same physical switch.
For example switch NWORLAMODS0 in New Orleans houses the 985-801
exchange as well as 504-212, according to localcallingguide.com.
Rate centre New Orleans, LA Covington, LA
Rate centre V/H 08483/02638 08383/02692
LATA 490 490
Distance* 36 miles 58 km
Local call+ N
Or does a number being on the switch irrevelant with number
portability? Or is there something else I'm missing?
I think the US should keep the old circuit switched system around for
hospitals, 911 and other emergency services, and eliminate long
distance altogether.
David Lesher
> I know this is a total newbie question, but I see many switches which
> have more than one area code, where those numbers are not local to
> each other, even though they seem to be on the same physical switch.
> For example switch NWORLAMODS0 in New Orleans houses the 985-801
> exchange as well as 504-212, according to localcallingguide.com.
> Rate centre New Orleans, LA Covington, LA
> Rate centre V/H 08483/02638 08383/02692
> LATA 490 490
> Distance* 36 miles 58 km
> Local call+ N
> Or does a number being on the switch irrevelant with number
> portability? Or is there something else I'm missing?
A switch may host a number of remotes, of various smarts. SLC's and
such are dumb mux's, sending all calls back to the host.
ORM's such as BRRDMDBR are more independent; they do much of what the
full 5E does, but still lean on the host that can be up to ?150 miles?
away.
--
A host is a host from coast to coast.................wb8foz@nrk.com
& no one will talk to a host that's close........[v].(301) 56-LINUX
Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433
is busy, hung or dead....................................20915-1433
Sam Spade
> A switch may host a number of remotes, of various smarts. SLC's and
> such are dumb mux's, sending all calls back to the host.
>
> ORM's such as BRRDMDBR are more independent; they do much of what
> the full 5E does, but still lean on the host that can be up to ?150
> miles? away.
Then, there are the metro end-office switches that are rated both for
the community in which they are located and they also contain a
downtown rated office code to keep down an otherwise high demand for
FEX service.
These may have all but died out by now. But, they were a hot item in
the Los Angeles area for many years.
hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com
> I know this is a total newbie question, but I see many switches
> which have more than one area code, where those numbers are not
> local to each other, even though they seem to be on the same
> physical switch.
It's nothing new.
For decades certain urban city switches handled nearby suburban
exchanges, even though the suburban exchange had different calling
plans and was in a different rate center.
Today we can have a situation where a single area code covers multiple
LATAs. People can dial with only 7 digits, but it is handled and
charged as a long distance call when crossing the LATA. Of course
today we [have] many places where two neighbors will have two
different area codes, and we have legacy situations where a cross-
LATA call between two adjacent exchanges (against the border) are
handled as a local call.
Keep in mind that many local and short-haul toll calling plans are
based on ancient legacy practices. While there might not be physical
message-unit registers connected by timer-relay to a phone line, the
billing remains the same in certain areas.
Today many people have unlimited domestic long distance on their home
land line. When I was a kid, that concept was laughable, outward WATS
lines were terribly expensive and only for large companies. I wonder
what percentage of homes [have] that service today. I bet quite a few;
it's not that expensive.
David Lesher
>> ORM's such as BRRDMDBR are more independent; they do much of what
>> the full 5E does, but still lean on the host that can be up to ?150
>> miles? away.
> Then, there are the metro end-office switches that are rated both
> for the community in which they are located and they also contain a
> downtown rated office code to keep down an otherwise high demand for
> FEX service.
The ORM above has 2 prefixes; one with DC Metro calling, one local.
It not only spans a county (& calling area) border but also a telco
district. THAT must make their paperwork phun.
Sam Spade
>
> Today many people have unlimited domestic long distance on their home
> land line. When I was a kid, that concept was laughable, outward WATS
> lines were terribly expensive and only for large companies. I wonder
> what percentage of homes [have] that service today. I bet quite a few;
> it's not that expensive.
>
I have Vonage since its inception. It is used for my consulting service
and also for all toll outgoing calls for my wife and myself. (our AT&T
wireline phone is toll blocked.) We live in the 949 area code of
coastal Southern California. But, my primary Vonage number is in area
code 202 in Washington, DC, thus a cross-nation FEX line of sorts, with
outward WAAS thrown in.
Think what this would have cost in the legacy days. Somewhere around
$4,000 or $5,000 a month in 1970 dollars.
Vonage also includes toll-free to Canada and 60 foreign countries (and
counting).
My wife can now call her good friend in Kyoto, Japan as casually as she
calls someone two blocks away.
har...@hallikainen.com
> I have Vonage since its inception. �It is used for my consulting
> service and also for all toll outgoing calls for my wife and
> myself. (our AT&T wireline phone is toll blocked.) �We live in the
> 949 area code of coastal Southern California. �But, my primary
> Vonage number is in area code 202 in Washington, DC, thus a
> cross-nation FEX line of sorts, with outward WAAS thrown in.
>
> Think what this would have cost in the legacy days. �Somewhere
> around $4,000 or $5,000 a month in 1970 dollars.
>
> Vonage also includes toll-free to Canada and 60 foreign countries
> (and counting).
>
> My wife can now call her good friend in Kyoto, Japan as casually as
> she calls someone two blocks away.
This is indeed impressive. So, where are the cost savings that allow
such dramatically lower costs?
On the FEX, I guess that in the 1970s, they would have nailed down a
circuit across the country for your use. That would indeed be
expensive. They could have brought up the circuit only when needed
(like an 800 number) for substantial savings.
Between yesterday and today, of course, bandwidth costs have been
dramatically reduced. Data compression also allows lower bitrates for
voice. POTS has access to the lower bandwidth costs and could, I
suppose, use compression. POTS, of course, uses circuit switched
instead of packet switched, so the circuit is dead in one direction
about half the time (remember TASI?). So, there is some additional
cost savings there. But even then, POTS costs are considerably above
Vonage or other VoIP services. Is the difference in bandwidth usage
(dedicated 64kbps in each direction for POTS versus bursts for VoIP)?
Is it regulatory? Why the big difference? In both cases, we're just
transmitting bits.
Harold
Steven
almost nothing; companies like Level III which sell to other carriers
have huge networks that, because of the way business is, are not
getting used, so the price goes down. Ten years ago they built
several hubs, I worked on the one in LA and from what I have seen it
is less then 50% in use.
I have unlimited long distance and never really make it pay, but it
had brought down the costs of other services that are bundled.
--
The only good spammer is a dead one!! Have you hunted one down today?
(c) 2009 I Kill Spammers, Inc., A Rot in Hell. Co.
John Levine
>such dramatically lower costs?
Fiber offers multiple orders of magnitude more bandwidth than anything
made of copper, and modern computer technology makes switches vastly
smaller and cheaper than the early electronic switches.
This has nothing to do with VoIP. The long distance service on my
landline charges 10 cpm to Japan and 5 cpm to most of Europe, and I
could find better rates if I used it to make a lot of international
calls. (I also have a Lingo VoIP phone that includes Europe in the
monthly minute bundle.) My prepaid Tracfone lets me call Japan and
Europe for the same 10 cpm they charge for domestic calls.
R's,
John
David Clayton
..........
> Between yesterday and today, of course, bandwidth costs have been
> dramatically reduced. Data compression also allows lower bitrates
> for voice. POTS has access to the lower bandwidth costs and could, I
> suppose, use compression. POTS, of course, uses circuit switched
> instead of packet switched, so the circuit is dead in one direction
> about half the time (remember TASI?). So, there is some additional
> cost savings there. But even then, POTS costs are considerably above
> Vonage or other VoIP services. Is the difference in bandwidth usage
> (dedicated 64kbps in each direction for POTS versus bursts for
> VoIP)? Is it regulatory? Why the big difference? In both cases,
> we're just transmitting bits.
How long has it been since the actual "wire" infrastructure was the
major cost component in voice calls?
The billing component these days on legacy comms must be just about
the biggest cost that is incurred by a provider.
--
Regards, David.
David Clayton
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
Knowledge is a measure of how many answers you have, intelligence is a
measure of how many questions you have.
jsw
Valley, NE) were hosted remotely off of the 84th St. office in
Omaha and were indeed toll calls from each other. At the time
they were both toll-free from 84th. St. subs but true toll
calls, charged by the minute, between the two.
A couple years ago the calling area was expanded and the
402-359 prefix was added to the Omaha rate center, so now they
are a local call between them.
I also vaguely remember that the Floral Park CO, very close
to the Queens-Nassau border hosted (then) 212-343 as well as
some 516 prefixes. I forget the exact details, as there was
'zone calling' in effect at the time, but I do remember that
(then) 212-343 was a local call from me, but some of the
prefixes out of that same office were a more expensive call
from me at the time. This was early 1970s, and I'm straining
to dust off rusty memory cells to remember the exact details.
IIRC, Floral Park was 5 Xbar at the time.
wes...@aol.com
In a message dated 12/30/2009 6:17:56 PM Central Standard Time,
diesp...@killspammers.com writes:
> There is [such] a huge amount of surplus bandwidth that is costs
> almost nothing; companies like Level III which sell to other
> carriers have huge networks that, because of the way business is,
> are not getting used, so the price goes down.
My original home town of Perry, Oklahoma, is the home of Ditch Witch
and they were selling their machines like mad a few years ago during
the fiber rush. They the industry discovered they had more fiber than
they could use for many years, much of it idle, and demand for Ditch
Witches suddently fell off and Ditch Witch put over 1,000 employees on
furlough.
Wes Leatherock
wes...@aol.com
wlea...@yahoo.com
Sam Spade
>
> I have unlimited long distance and never really make it pay, but it
> had brought down the costs of other services that are bundled.
>
Today, if an AT$T wireline customer in California wants just Caller ID,
it's an astounding $9 per month.
Vonage bundles it, and many other features, in their basic unlimited
service, as do other VOIPs and the wireless carriers.
In California I suspect the AT&T wireline unit (Pacific Bell) must be
hurting these days.
Is wireline going to self-destruct?
***** Moderator's Note *****
That's a _very_ good question. When I worked at N.E.T., I would have
laughed at the idea, but I wonder if the baby bells, or in fact _any_
of the ILECs, can adapt to the changing telecom world.
The Engineer in me wants to predict that the system will reach
equilibrium when the ILECs lose enough customers to force them to cut
rates, but that's not likely. I grow more and more convinced that
wire-line service will fade to the point where there's not enough
revenue to maintain it.
You might think that business users, who are still mostly in the
wire-line camp, will demand wire-line because they depend on their
existing phone systems and networks so heavily. That dependence,
however, will lead them to seek and adopt alternatives to wire-line,
such as VoIP, because wire-line costs will rise as home users abandon
it for cellular. It will become a vicious circle, with decreasing
revenues driving lower maintence and higher adoption of alternatives.
At some point, there will have to be another political debate about
the value of universal service: remember that it has always been
subsidized by high-profit offerings, and that such offerings are
facing competition from more agile, lower-margin CLECs. This comes at
the same time that demand for long-distance is decreasing (due, I
think, to email use), and also at the same time that business users
become more aware of viable alternative services which offer dramatic
cost savings over traditional circuit-switched long-distance.
The end result is that ILECs will be very tempted to allow wire-line
to wither on the vine, favoring high-profit cellular users and "gotta
have it" business customers, both of whom can be served by the robust
infrastructures of the cities, while low-profit, high-maintenance
ex-urban copper paths are left to rust.
That's my 2�.
Bill Horne
Moderator
Steven
I believe that is why AT&T and Verizon are pushing U-verse and FIOS
both are VOIP services which cost almost nothing to maintain. The
only cost will be the copper and that is now starting to be replaced
[by] fiber.
AT&T spent a whole day out at my house, an MTech as well as 2 Core
techs working on my house wiring as well as replacing my 30 year old
drop, 10 bad splices and 11 more bridge taps. My DSL is now running
at 5.4 MH on a 6MH circuit and it is down to 55% from 95%. I was also
told that they plan on now installing another U-Verse Node and [will]
replace the old lead cable; they say that we will have U-verse in the
first 3 months of next year. The fiber is there: all they have to do
it engineer and place the Node. I have no idea if it was my complaint
to the PUC last Thursday or the 15 times they were out here in the
last 3 months. I have never seen the PUC act that fast. The Core
Manager with AT&T told me that one reason is that I'm an active CO
Tech with 40 years on the job and clearly wording the complaint with
the PUC right down to what I thought the problem was. If they had been
honest with me on the problem and not having someone who had any idea
call me and give me the company line about I'm too far out for U-verse
and told me it was a cable problem that were working on the complaint
would never had been filed. Now I have to work with some of these
same people doing work for them installing CO equipment, at least for
now I'm doing work for Verizon.
Neal McLain
> This is indeed impressive. So, where are the cost savings that
> allow such dramatically lower costs?
> Between yesterday and today, of course, bandwidth costs have
> been dramatically reduced. Data compression also allows lower
> bitrates for voice. POTS has access to the lower bandwidth
> costs and could, I suppose, use compression. POTS, of course,
> uses circuit switched instead of packet switched, so the
> circuit is dead in one direction about half the time (remember
> TASI?). So, there is some additional cost savings there. But
> even then, POTS costs are considerably above Vonage or other
> VoIP services. Is the difference in bandwidth usage (dedicated
> 64kbps in each direction for POTS versus bursts for VoIP)?
> Is it regulatory? Why the big difference? In both cases,
> we're just transmitting bits.
"We're just transmitting bits." Sure, if you ignore the last-mile
costs -- the cost of constructing, owning, operating, and maintaining
the analog outside plant and the cost of providing operating power for
the customer's telephone.
ILECs have to pay these costs while Vonage (and VOIP providers
generally) avoid these costs by riding on the internet connections and
the electrical power that customers purchase separately. That's a
substantial part of the "big difference."
We've had this discussion several times before here on T-D, and
somebody always says, "yeah, but I have an internet connection anyway
because I...." Ok, fine, you have it anyway for other reasons. But
that doesn't change the fact that *somebody* still has to pay the
last-mile costs.
Bill Horne wrote:
> The end result is that ILECs will be very tempted to allow
> wire-line to wither on the vine, favoring high-profit cellular
> users and "gotta have it" business customers, both of whom can
> be served by the robust infrastructures of the cities, while
> low-profit, high-maintenance ex-urban copper paths are left to
> rust.
So how will all those ex-urban customers get telephone service? Will
the entire country eventually get wired for high-speed internet
service and five-bar cellular service, so we can all switch to VOIP or
cell?
Perhaps it will. Perhaps the feds will provide enough stimulus
funding to pay for it.
I don't discount the fact that federal and state regulatory bodies
have contributed to all this. But the fact remains that somebody has
to pay the last-mile costs, and one way or another, that somebody is
us.
Neal McLain
***** Moderator's Note *****
Not to put to fine a point in it, but ...
... the ex-urban customers don't generate enough income to make ILECs
want to keep them. I don't know if alternatives will emerge, but I
think wire-line service will go away. Remember that wire-line is
maintenance intensive, and ILECs are facing increasing costs for their
increasingly old and unionized work force. The net (pun intended)
result is likely to be benign neglect: as service quality goes down,
more ex-urban users will grit their teeth and buy a cellphone.
It used to be that "home" users were a dependable profit center for
ILECs, where the majority of such customers payed "fixed" monthly
bills to avoid the uncertainty of message-unit charges. No longer:
compared to the huge profits from cell users, who pay for
*everything*, *every* *time* they use it, and who pay for maintenance,
and who think that poor voice quality, drop-outs, and picket-fencing
are the way telephones are _supposed_ to sound, wire-line customers
are a drag on the market. The cellular divisions of the major ILECs
are mostly non-union, and the cellular infrastructure is mostly
erected and maintained by contractors who can be thrown away as easily
as an old cellphone.
Bill Horne
Moderator
John Levine
> want to keep them.
Sure we do. You put money into the USF fund, it then pays lavish
subsidies for us rustics. Thanks!
R's,
John
***** Moderator's Note *****
That should be "_we_ rustics".
Bill Horne
Moderator
Geoffrey Welsh
> I believe that is why AT&T and Verizon are pushing U-verse and FIOS
> both are VOIP services which cost almost nothing to maintain. The
> only cost will be the copper and that is now starting to be replaced
> [by] fiber.
While I suspect that fiber costs at least as much to install as copper and
the installation is far more complicated than POTS service (almost nothing
else is as simple as plugging a telephone into a jack, and it rarely
requires configuration adjustment <grin>) the point of the new facilities is
not so much to reduce the costs but rather to increase revenue. This is the
new monopoly M.O.: when you have near-100% market saturation and can't
expand your territory, your increase revenue by offering higher priced
services. (The old monopoly philosophy was to increase revenue by embracing
costs and using them to justify rate increases, but competition has
undermined that somewhat.)
.
hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com
> "We're just transmitting bits." �Sure, if you ignore the last-mile
> costs . . .
> ILECs have to pay these costs while Vonage (and VOIP providers
> generally) avoid these costs . . .
>
> We've had this discussion several times before here on T-D, and
> somebody always says, "yeah, but I have an internet connection anyway
> because I...." �Ok, fine, you have it anyway for other reasons. �But
> that doesn't change the fact that *somebody* still has to pay the
> last-mile costs.
These are all very important points, especially the last sentence.
_Somebody_ has to pay the costs of the "last mile", and they are
expensive.
While it is true that many people have Internet connections, it is
also true a great many people do not nor have any interest in them.
(Every public library I've ever been in has public PCs and they are
heavily used.)
What will complicate matters in the future is that various
communication modes that once were separate are today blended
together. The playing field constantly changes. Today we have
Verizon pushing its FIOS which also provides TV system, and cable
companies pushing telephone service. How it will play out is very
hard to see.
Keep in mind that a particular technology eventually levels off.
There isn't much investment today to improve AM radio receivers and
broadcast equipment and phonograph records and players since people
have switched to FM and satellite and CDs/Ipods for music.
> ***** Moderator's Note *****
>
> Not to put to fine a point in it, but ...
>
> ... the ex-urban customers don't generate enough income to make ILECs
> want to keep them. I don't know if alternatives will emerge, but I
> think wire-line service will go away. Remember that wire-line is
> maintenance intensive, and ILECs are facing increasing costs for their
> increasingly old and unionized work force. The net (pun intended)
> result is likely to be benign neglect: as service quality goes down,
> more ex-urban users will grit their teeth and buy a cellphone.
I wouldn't rule out legacy wireline phone services just yet; I think
they'll be around for a long time to come.
The phone companies have evolved tremendously since the old days.
They use sub-contractors and their old unionized workforces have
shrunk dramatically. Service bureaus and business offices have been
centralized many miles from the actual town of service. At the same
time local service rates are up.
For decades people said the IBM mainframe was a dinosaur and dead, but
to this day mainframe products remain an important part of IBM's total
revenue base. Not as much as the past, but still important.
As mentioned above, someone _still_ has to provide the last mile, and
the legacy phone companies are in an extremely strong position to do
so, whether by ancient copper lines or modern fibre. Note that
running wires through developed areas requires legal finese and skill
which the legacy companies have.
Steven
Calif. she can't get DSL, no digital cable and Satellite is an expensive
option and it is only 1.3 MH for over $200.00 a month plus equipment. I
was talking to the AT&T Core Manager who got the PUC I had filed and he
did some searching for me and found out that they are planning to
install U-verse up there sometime near the end of next year. They have
fiber in place that was placed there for the Forest Service and it is no
longer being used, plus a new Metro was just installed so they might not
only get U-verse, but Fiber to the door. That area is at the edge of
snow sports.
Rob Warnock
+---------------
| > ... the ex-urban customers don't generate enough income to make ILECs
| > want to keep them.
|
| Sure we do. You put money into the USF fund, it then pays lavish
| subsidies for us rustics. Thanks!
| ***** Moderator's Note *****
|
| That should be "_we_ rustics".
|
| Bill Horne
| Moderator
Actually, it shouldn't. "Us" is correct in the position in which
John used it, the object of a preposition: "pays ... for us ...".
....unless you're trying to make some joke equating rustic with
being poor at grammar.
-Rob
-----
Rob Warnock <rp...@rpw3.org>
627 26th Avenue <URL:http://rpw3.org/>
San Mateo, CA 94403 (650)572-2607
Sam Spade
> I have a friend that lives up in the mountains East of Sacramento,
> Calif. she can't get DSL, no digital cable and Satellite is an
> expensive option and it is only 1.3 MH for over $200.00 a month plus
> equipment.
Hughes top tier provides 5.0 Mbps/300 Kbps.
It's $350 a month. For some folks that choose to live in the remote
areas of Montana, or such, that is petty cash. The point is, the
market offers that option.
Sam Spade
>
> We've had this discussion several times before here on T-D, and
> somebody always says, "yeah, but I have an internet connection anyway
> because I...." Ok, fine, you have it anyway for other reasons. But
> that doesn't change the fact that *somebody* still has to pay the
> last-mile costs.
We accountants call it "incremental costs." The incremental cost of
adding Vonage to my existing broadband connection is zero, in so far as
the cost of the broadband connection is concerned.
***** Moderator's Note *****
Doesn't that imply that the cost of disconnecting the broadband
service is zero as well? I'm not joking: it just seems to me that
_some_ of the broadband cost would have to be apportioned to the
"VoIP" use of the broadband connection, since _disconnecting_ the
broadband connection would result in replacement costs.
Bill Horne, who is trying to recall his college accounting lessons
Moderator
Steven
She also has the option of Digitalpath, which is a WiFi system along the
way of Cellular, again this is a large cost. She is not a large user,
just e-mail, so it may be enough. I only use my system for this
newsgroup and a couple of others as well as e-mail, so I have a lot of
extra bandwidth and costs also, but there are times I do need it since I
have to handle time sheets and other record keeping from home. I just
got my MiFi router and with it I get almost the same speeds as I get at
home, I'm temped to switch to this and drop my DSL. I thought about the
area she lives in and looked into using a WiFi system like mine for her,
but according to the service area map, she is in a Digital Black Hole,
with no service other then roaming. but it is just a couple of miles
from an area that just went 4G, 3G is in operation and 4G later this
year. I have to go up to Oregon later this month and she might be able
to get it to work with an external ant, so I'll see if I can stop by and
check it; right now it is snowed in. on the roof, like I use for WiFi.
Sam Spade
The key is the incremental cost of the *existing* broadband connection
is zero. OTOH, the incremental cost of electricity to power the VoIP
adapter is not zero, but no one would account for that because it is
immaterial.
Let's say this is an office environment. Our commercial broadband
service costs us $125 a month (big pipe). If we add 5 Vonage lines it
is still $125 per month for the broadband connection. If we now charge
some increment of that $125 per month to our telephone expense, the
result is to understate the cost of the broadband service.
The "bottom line" (pun intended) is that two companies could choose to
allocate differently, which is fine so long as they are consistent.
Something of this nature is not specified in accounting practices or
principles.
Neal McLain
> Neal McLain wrote:
>
> > We've had this discussion several times before here on T-D, and
> > somebody always says, "yeah, but I have an internet connection anyway
> > because I...." �Ok, fine, you have it anyway for other reasons. �But
> > that doesn't change the fact that *somebody* still has to pay the
> > last-mile costs.
>
> We accountants call it "incremental costs." �The incremental cost of
> adding Vonage to my existing broadband connection is zero, in so far as
> the cost of the broadband connection is concerned.
Q.E.D.
Neal McLain
hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com
> We accountants call it "incremental costs." �The incremental cost of
> adding Vonage to my existing broadband connection is zero, in so far
> as the cost of the broadband connection is concerned.
That "incremental" cost is zero _now_. But the cost of that last mile
hasn't gone away and it may go up, especially if today's extensive
economies of scale disappear.
Also, remember that many new products and services are priced cheap to
develop a market. Then, the price goes up. I remember when automatic
teller machines were not only free, there were giveaways to promote
their use. After they got everybody hooked, they added charges to use
them.
(Likewise with automatic car toll collection like 'EZPASS'. When it
first came out it was free with discounts, now there are service
charges and few discounts.)
> ***** Moderator's Note *****
>
> Doesn't that imply that the cost of disconnecting the broadband
> service is zero as well? I'm not joking: it just seems to me that
> _some_ of the broadband cost would have to be apportioned to the
> "VoIP" use of the broadband connection, since _disconnecting_ the
> broadband connection would result in replacement costs.
That is correct.
There are numerous ways to account for 'costs', the proper method
depends on the decision-making to be done with the information.
A company considering closing a single store wouldn't consider total
company overhead ("fully allocated costs") in that decision; rather,
it would consider the costs and revenue of that store (and some other
things). But total company overhead still has to be considered for
financial reports. [I am trying to sum up a year's worth of cost
accounting study into a single paragraph.]
As to which to use, what _Is_ changing the issue for many people is
that they already have a cellphone and have no intention of giving
them up. So with that the costs of a landline look more expensive.
HOWEVER, people forget that the equivalent unlimited talk cellphone
plans--as compared to their old landline--can get quite expensive.
So, killing a landline will probably mean upgrading their cellphone
plan to a more costly one.
Sam Spade
And, I said that, provided a given enterprise is consistent in its
application.
"Cost accounting" is a loose use of the term when allocating General
and Administrative expenses such as those we speak. More strictly, it
is classification of G and A expenses.
Standard Cost Accounting is real cost accounting, which applies to
work in progress of goods being manufactured; i.e., incremental
accounting for inventory as it is being manufactured.
Garrett Wollman
<hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote:
> HOWEVER, people forget that the equivalent unlimited talk cellphone
> plans--as compared to their old landline--can get quite expensive.
> So, killing a landline will probably mean upgrading their cellphone
> plan to a more costly one.
Unless you have a family of teenage girls, I don't see any reason for
wanting an unlimited-time cell plan. And haven't the teenagers of
both sexes switched to text-messaging now?
(I've been on the same 150-minute/month plan since 2001 and have only
once ever gone over, when I was recuperating from a broken knee away
from home and telecommuting. Amazingly, VZW even let me keep this
plan when I upgraded to a smartphone, although they did make me choose
between the $30 unlimited-data plan and the identical-but-for-price
$45 unlimited-data plan. According to various Web pages, they plan to
eventually prevent $30 subscribers from doing stupid things like using
Microsoft Exchange servers.)
I recently found that my old unlimited-local-calls landline was
costing me about twice as much as it should have, and dropped back to
measured service. I almost never make local calls -- most of my calls
on the landline are regional or long-distance -- so there wasn't much
point in paying an extra $12/mo. for unlimited local calling. I'll
still keep the landline because the phones themselves are more
comfortable -- I actually have my cell busy/no-answer-transfer to my
landline -- and for emergency access.
-GAWollman
--
Garrett A. Wollman | What intellectual phenomenon can be older, or more oft
wol...@bimajority.org| repeated, than the story of a large research program
Opinions not shared by| that impaled itself upon a false central assumption
my employers. | accepted by all practitioners? - S.J. Gould, 1993
Robert Neville
>Unless you have a family of teenage girls, I don't see any reason for
>wanting an unlimited-time cell plan. And haven't the teenagers of
>both sexes switched to text-messaging now?
>
>(I've been on the same 150-minute/month plan since 2001 and have only
>once ever gone over, when I was recuperating from a broken knee away
>from home and telecommuting.
I think you are overlooking local calls. I've been using Vonage for going on 4
years now. With out of state relatives on both sides, work related calls and a
teenager at home for part of that time, we run a combined 1200-1400 minutes a
month on the land line, plus another 500 or so on three cell phones.
I'd stay with Vonage, but we're on a marginal DSL connection now with no
immediate prospects for improvement, so I've just started reconfiguring things
to use a standard land line along with Google Voice and will drop Vonage
shortly.
Sam Spade
> I'll still keep the landline because the phones themselves are more
> comfortable
>
> -GAWollman
>
With Vonage you can use any phone you can use on POTS.
Garrett Wollman
Robert Neville <nob...@nowhere.com> wrote:
>wol...@bimajority.org (Garrett Wollman) wrote:
>
>>Unless you have a family of teenage girls, I don't see any reason for
>>wanting an unlimited-time cell plan. And haven't the teenagers of
>>both sexes switched to text-messaging now?
>>
>>(I've been on the same 150-minute/month plan since 2001 and have only
>>once ever gone over, when I was recuperating from a broken knee away
>>from home and telecommuting.
>
>I think you are overlooking local calls.
I'm "overlooking" them because I don't make any. Well, maybe once
every so often to reschedule a dentist appointment or something of
that nature. I'm at a loss as to what else I might make a local call
for that isn't more easily accomplished online.
David Clayton
> Garrett Wollman wrote:
>
>> I'll still keep the landline because the phones themselves are more
>> comfortable
......
> With Vonage you can use any phone you can use on POTS.
As with most VoIP boxes that have the "standard" analogue handset
connection.
I have my cordless phone/answering unit plugged into mine, having given my
land-line number the flick last year, and using Naked DSL since then (I
had my VoIP service for a couple of years before finally cutting off the
land-line - time proved its value).
T
dcs...@myrealbox.com says...
>
> On Mon, 04 Jan 2010 11:41:50 -0800, Sam Spade wrote:
>
> > Garrett Wollman wrote:
> >
> >> I'll still keep the landline because the phones themselves are more
> >> comfortable
> ......
> > With Vonage you can use any phone you can use on POTS.
>
> As with most VoIP boxes that have the "standard" analogue handset
> connection.
>
> I have my cordless phone/answering unit plugged into mine, having given my
> land-line number the flick last year, and using Naked DSL since then (I
> had my VoIP service for a couple of years before finally cutting off the
> land-line - time proved its value).
Made the switch five years ago and never looked back.
Robert Neville
>Made the switch five years ago and never looked back.
I have been on Vonage on top of either cable/dry dsl for over 4 years
now and don't have any particular issue with VOIP in general, other
than when operated as a customer application over residential
broadband, it is highly dependent on the bandwidth, latency and
stability of the underlying circuit.
In my case, VOIP on cable HSI was excellent. I had sufficient
bandwidth both directions and there wasn't any jitter that interfered
with call quality. My current dry DSL line is much slower -
1.5Mbps. Still plenty for downlink, but the limited uplink made
simultaneous calls and file transfers/embded video web pages a
problem.
Finally broke down and ordered a standard voice line. Plan to use
Google Voice as a front end which should get me within $5 or so of
what I was paying to Vonage each month.
Sam Spade
> T <kd1s....@cox.nospam.net> wrote:
>
>
>>Made the switch five years ago and never looked back.
>
>
> I have been on Vonage on top of either cable/dry dsl for over 4 years
> now and don't have any particular issue with VOIP in general, other
> than when operated as a customer application over residential
> broadband, it is highly dependent on the bandwidth, latency and
> stability of the underlying circuit.
>
My cable ranges 18.79 to 27.59 megabits down and 2.71 megabits up. So,
needless to say, it works great here.
But, I have taken my adapter to Hawaii and used it on DSL for 1 month
384 kbs up, 1.5 megabits down, and couldn't see any deterioation in quality.
Having said that, this country in general is lagging behind the
industrial world on "pipe" size.
hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com
> How long has it been since the actual "wire" infrastructure was the
> major cost component in voice calls?
Tough to say, indeed, wire may not have been the 'major' cost
component in voice calls.
Terminal equipment--the gear that converts analog to digital and back,
repeaters, and multiplexers--all cost serious money in the past. A
1975 Bell System text noted the high cost of terminal equipment and
that in some cases it was cheaper to simply use wire instead of
multiplexing.
As noted in a prior post, the huge drop in the cost of electronic
computers has allowed for big savings in the cost of terminal
equipment.
Another cost component was the switchgear itself--the design,
construction, installation, and maintenance of electro-mechanical
switches was not cheap. Considerable advance engineering went into
designing the optimum amount of switchgear for a particular central
office--too small would cause service jams and too big was wasteful.
> The billing component these days on legacy comms must be just about
> the biggest cost that is incurred by a provider.
While costs have gone down, telephone switches and terminal gear still
cost serious money. There are physical concerns to maintaining fiber
links whether underground or aerial. Buildings are still needed.
hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com
>>> (I've been on the same 150-minute/month plan since 2001 and have only
>>> once ever gone over, when I was recuperating from a broken knee away
>>> from home and telecommuting.
>
>> I think you are overlooking local calls.
>
> I'm "overlooking" them because I don't make any. �Well, maybe once
> every so often to reschedule a dentist appointment or something of
> that nature. �I'm at a loss as to what else I might make a local call
> for that isn't more easily accomplished online.
When comparing cellphones to landlines, one thing we must remember is
that cellphones usually include _incoming_ calls as part of the
monthly bill while a landline does not.
My landline gets plenty of unwanted legal and illegal solicitation
calls--marketing surveys, political surveys, charity drives and even
illegal sales pitches. My answering machine gets plenty of them. I
don't get such calls on my cellphone, but if I were to port my
landline phone number--which is (sadly) in many directories--will I
start getting such calls on the cellphone? I know they're not supposed
to call cellphones, but I know they callers don't always honor those
rules. This includes calling nursing home phones or sending spam text
messages to my cellphone. (I disconnected my texting ability since I
had to pay for the spam text). Anyway, the point is that these
minutes add up and have to be included.
The usage of incoming and outgoing calls of a household will of course
vary greatly by household. But I dare say even a single person alone
will use more than 150 minutes of talk time a month total of combined
landline and cellphone--that comes out to only five minutes per day
per month--not a whole lot. I'd figure an individual person would
talk at least 15 minutes per day on average.
A cellphone replacing a landline might not need be 'unlimited', but
it'd better have quite a bit more minutes.
My cellphone is free after 9 PM on weeknights, but I find I rarely
talk that late; most people prefer an earlier call.
Lastly, the quality of a cellphone transmission is significantly worse
than a landline.
Garrett Wollman
<hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote:
>The usage of incoming and outgoing calls of a household will of course
>vary greatly by household. But I dare say even a single person alone
>will use more than 150 minutes of talk time a month total of combined
>landline and cellphone--that comes out to only five minutes per day
>per month--not a whole lot. I'd figure an individual person would
>talk at least 15 minutes per day on average.
Why would you figure that? (Speaking as a single person, living
alone, who -- as noted earlier in this thread -- does not spend even
remotely close to that much time on the telephone.) Is there any
*recent* evidence as to what the actual distribution is? (Anything
published in BSTJ is far too old to count as recent.)
I might spend as much as an hour, total, on the phone in a typical
month. Am I a serious outlier, or within a standard deviation of the
mean for youngish single guys?
Thad Floryan
> [...]
> I might spend as much as an hour, total, on the phone in a typical
> month. Am I a serious outlier, or within a standard deviation of the
> mean for youngish single guys?
That's about my usage, too, and it appears you use your phone "smartly",
too. I have several friends, however, who seem to use their phones some
8 to 12 hours each day; I prefer speaking with friends face to face (in
person) and become annoyed when some will allow their ringing cellphone
to interrupt us (I usually turn off the ringer when I'm with others).
People must have too much free time or, perhaps, they're simply not doing
all the things they should and/or need to be doing and, instead, are
playing too much with their phone(s). The new "smart" phones aren't
going to improve this situation; I was examining a neighbor's Nexus last
week (he works for Google) and it's a remarkable device but nothing I
would want or use -- with my V3 I push one button, speak "order pizza",
and 45 seconds later the pizza is ready for pickup in 15 minutes because
they have my number (CallID) and I simply say "repeat the last order". :-)
David Clayton
> On Dec 30 2009, 4:54 pm, David Clayton <dcs...@myrealbox.com> wrote:
........
>> The billing component these days on legacy comms must be just about the
>> biggest cost that is incurred by a provider.
>
> While costs have gone down, telephone switches and terminal gear still
> cost serious money. There are physical concerns to maintaining fiber
> links whether underground or aerial. Buildings are still needed.
Agreed, but in comparison the cost of counting all the calls,
determining what to charge for them, sending out bills, processing
payments, chasing up overdue accounts and providing "Customer Service"
facilities must be a way higher percentage of any "retail" telco's
costs these days than previously.
I wonder if these admin costs are now the biggest cost component.
Steven
which includes those costs, it is the customer charge. I always thought
that should have been included in the costs of services.
David Clayton
> David Clayton wrote:
........
>> Agreed, but in comparison the cost of counting all the calls,
>> determining what to charge for them, sending out bills, processing
>> payments, chasing up overdue accounts and providing "Customer Service"
>> facilities must be a way higher percentage of any "retail" telco's
>> costs these days than previously.
>>
>> I wonder if these admin costs are now the biggest cost component.
> If you look at the bill; at least in the US; there is a charge on it
> which includes those costs, it is the customer charge. I always thought
> that should have been included in the costs of services.
In Australia it has traditionally been bundled into a catch-all
"Monthly (or whatever) Service Charge" listed with the call costs.
Since true land-line competition began here, this charge had gone
steadily up and and up (and up!) even though the actual cost of
providing dial tone to the vast majority has plummeted in the same
period. Call costs (where there is true competition) have dived in the
same period.
It's a little hard to reconcile how the fixed cost keeps going up when
almost all local exchanges are now fully digital/automated, and
maintenance of external plant has been cut way back in the name of
"efficiency". There used to be a lot more people employed keeping the
service up than in the past, but it costs everyone a lot more.
Most people used to just grumble and accept it, a lot now go VoIP and
let Telstra know where they can insert their expensive dial-tone......
Steven
condition of the outside plant I can understand that. AT&T said that
the repairs as of last week on my complaints is over $60,000 and still
climbing, they have not replaced the 1000 feet of cable from the box to
my block.
Sam Spade
> On Dec 30 2009, 4:54 pm, David Clayton <dcs...@myrealbox.com> wrote:
>
>
> Another cost component was the switchgear itself--the design,
> construction, installation, and maintenance of electro-mechanical
> switches was not cheap. Considerable advance engineering went into
> designing the optimum amount of switchgear for a particular central
> office--too small would cause service jams and too big was wasteful.
>
I guess Erlangs are still around for growing end offices. I don't
imagine there are very many growing end offices, though.
David Clayton
.........
> With all the problems I have had with my voice line and DSL over the
> condition of the outside plant I can understand that. AT&T said that the
> repairs as of last week on my complaints is over $60,000 and still
> climbing, they have not replaced the 1000 feet of cable from the box to my
> block.
Was there ever pro-active maintenance of external cable plant in the
past?
It seems the modern way now is to just let it deteriorate to almost
unusable and then finally do a replacement - probably because
accountants worked out these this is more "cost effective" (in other
words, profitable) despite all the hassles any of the customers using
it suffer during the whole process.
I think I have just figured out that I now qualify for a "Grumpy Old
Men" episode......
T
dcs...@myrealbox.com says...
> Most people used to just grumble and accept it, a lot now go VoIP
> and let Telstra know where they can insert their expensive
> dial-tone......
Same is true here in the U.S. I know for a fact that Verizon has lost
a little over half it's customer base in my state.
Steven
> On Thu, 07 Jan 2010 08:02:10 -0800, Steven wrote:
> .........
>> With all the problems I have had with my voice line and DSL over the
>> condition of the outside plant I can understand that. AT&T said that the
>> repairs as of last week on my complaints is over $60,000 and still
>> climbing, they have not replaced the 1000 feet of cable from the box to my
>> block.
>
> Was there ever pro-active maintenance of external cable plant in the
> past?
>
> It seems the modern way now is to just let it deteriorate to almost
> unusable and then finally do a replacement - probably because
> accountants worked out these this is more "cost effective" (in other
> words, profitable) despite all the hassles any of the customers using
> it suffer during the whole process.
had little or no work done on it in years. The real trouble started
when they reworked cable pairs for U-verse. A manager told me that
they have not done any cable pair recovery in years and have no plans
to do so.
--
The only good spammer is a dead one!! Have you hunted one down today?
(c) 2010 I Kill Spammers, Inc., A Rot in Hell. Co.
Julian Thomas
>
>
>I guess Erlangs are still around for growing end offices.
Does anyone these days speak in Erlangs, let alone know what they are?
--
Julian Thomas: j...@jt-mj.net http://jt-mj.net
In the beautiful Genesee Valley of Western New York State!
-- --
If you have received this email in error, please add nutmeg and
two egg whites, whisk and place in a 350 degree oven for 40 minutes.
Sam Spade
> On Thu, 07 Jan 2010 15:59:45 -0800 Sam Spade wrote:
>
>>
>> I guess Erlangs are still around for growing end offices.
>
> Does anyone these days speak in Erlangs, let alone know what they are?
Indeed they do. Google it.
Here is one example:
http://www.kooltoolz.com/ccm.htm?gclid=CI6ompLek58CFQ_yDAodfG_oMw
Robert Bonomi
Julian Thomas <j...@jt-mj.net> wrote:
>On Thu, 07 Jan 2010 15:59:45 -0800 Sam Spade wrote:
>>
>>
>>I guess Erlangs are still around for growing end offices.
>
>Does anyone these days speak in Erlangs, let alone know what they are?
I'll admit to difficulties converting 'erlangs per ortnight' to SI units.
But that has more to do with finding a workable definition for an "ortnight".
*grin*
Bill Horne
For the benefit of those readers who (unlike the moderator) have a life:
Robert is making a play on words derived from the unit "Fulongs per
Fortnight", which is part of the Furlong/Firkin/Fortnight system of
measurements.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FFF_system for more information.
Bill "Back in just 100,000,000 shakes" Horne
(Filter QRM for direct replies)
hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com
> Same is true here in the U.S. I know for a fact that Verizon has lost
> a little over half it's customer base in my state.
"Half its customer base"? That sounds rather extreme.
Keep in mind that if a subscriber keeps his landline and merely
switches to another carrier, Verizon is still supplying the local loop
to the C.O. and getting paid for that, although [it's] likely not as
profitable as other services it could provide.
Also, Verizon is a leading cell phone provider.
I would guess that in terms of telephone lines Vz is still growing.
hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com
> The cable was installed in the 50's and 60's. �Some of the cable has
> had little or no work done on it in years. �The real trouble started
> when they reworked cable pairs for U-verse. �A manager told me that
> they have not done any cable pair recovery in years and have no plans
> to do so.
If as many people as [has been] said [have] truly abandoned
traditional land lines for other modes (eg cellphones or cable TV
[dialtone]) then there are probably plenty of unused pairs in a cable
that could be used as alternates.
hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com
> > While costs have gone down, telephone switches and terminal gear still
> > cost serious money. �There are physical concerns to maintaining fiber
> > links whether underground or aerial. �Buildings are still needed.
>
> Agreed, but in comparison the cost of counting all the calls,
> determining what to charge for them, sending out bills, processing
> payments, chasing up overdue accounts and providing "Customer Service"
> facilities must be a way higher percentage of any "retail" telco's
> costs these days than previously.
>
> I wonder if these admin costs are now the biggest cost component.
The "commercial" aspect of the telephone business has changed
dramatically. In short they have far fewer lower-paid people serving
far more customers because of those changes. Verizon, for example,
moved its business office people out of high rent downtown locations
to low-rent low-wage locations and has far fewer of them since so much
is automated. Processing service orders is easier since it's all
computerized and interlinked. They don't have girls on roller skates
anymore pulling up and replacing accounts from enormous fileboxes.
They have sold off many of their buildings, some in premium locations.
Years ago many subscribers had the lowest class of service offered and
carefully checked every 15c charge on their bill. That meant a large
staff to handle such complaints. Today far more subscribers have flat
rate service, even nation wide flat rate, so there are no 15c calls at
all to be concerned about. For the few subscribers with old plans,
those 15c charges of the 1960s are still 15c--if they haven't been
eliminated altogether. For example, in the Philadelphia area, Verizon
today charges 7c a message unit, the same price as in the 1960s.
Further, Verizon has eliminated that charge on many calls, and, gives
discounts for late at night calls. Today 3c isn't worth someone's
time to call in.
Many cellphone subscribers do not get an itemized bill at all, so that
cost is saved.
Many subscribers no longer get a paper bill by mail, but see it on
line via the Internet, which saves money.
Many subscribers have automatic bill pay where the phone bill is
automatically deducted from one's checking account. That saves
payment processing costs.
Since Divesture, when subscribers could own their own phones and house
wiring, the business office has not been concerned about extension
telephones and inside wire complaints--payment, ordering, dropping. A
big reason they were willing to drop extension rentals was the cost of
servicing extensions compared to the revenue it brought in.
hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com
> >But I dare say even a single person alone
> >will use more than 150 minutes of talk time a month total of combined
> >landline and cellphone--that comes out to only five minutes per day
> >per month--not a whole lot. �I'd figure an individual person would
> >talk at least 15 minutes per day on average.
>
> Why would you figure that? �(Speaking as a single person, living
> alone, who -- as noted earlier in this thread -- does not spend even
> remotely close to that much time on the telephone.) �Is there any
> *recent* evidence as to what the actual distribution is? �(Anything
> published in BSTJ is far too old to count as recent.)
As a single person and knowing many single people, an average of five
minutes per day _combined_ telephone time seems rather low, even with
communicating via email and the Internet. There are a variety of
appointments to be made--not only the dentist, but various doctors,
car service, service people, prescription renewals, pizza orders,
movie or theatre. There are questions for businesses that can not be
handled via email or the Internet. There is keeping up with friends
and family.
Note this is an average. This all represents conversations that can't
be done online. Undoubtedly on some days a single person wouldn't use
the telephone at all, but on other days could easily be on the phone
for hours. For example, calling a bank to discuss a loan or CD
purchase, being put on hold, talking to different people can be ten
minutes or more. Some businesses sadly require merely holding for ten
minutes until someone answers. Talking to a friend or family member
you haven't talked to in a while or needs help with a problem can be a
20-30 minute call or more.
David Kaye
> Verizon, for example, moved its business office people out of high
> rent downtown locations to low-rent low-wage locations and has far
> fewer of them since so much is automated. Processing service orders
> is easier since it's all computerized and interlinked.
When I was a kid they told us that automation would "free" us from
working long hours. What they didn't tell us what that they weren't
going to pay us for all this leisure time we'd get.
Scott Dorsey
>>
> With all the problems I have had with my voice line and DSL over the
> condition of the outside plant I can understand that. AT&T said
> that the repairs as of last week on my complaints is over $60,000
> and still climbing, they have not replaced the 1000 feet of cable
> from the box to my block.
That's not bad at all. If you consider that's 30 years worth of
deferred maintenance, that's only $2,000/year worth of maintenance for
the whole section of plant.
The thing about maintenance costs is that you can pay them now or you
can pay them later.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."
Steven
They still have not done a replacement, just a bunch of fixes. The
PUC is getting weekly updates from both AT&T and me. My DSL took a
dump again and I switched over to my Sprint MiFi and plan on having
them adjust my bills for the past 6 months by 1000%.
I was up in the mountains north of Sacramento and it looks like they
are about 3 months from U-verse there, that will be nice since all
they have is dialup unless you want to spend $200.00 plus $60 a month.
--
The only good spammer is a dead one!! Have you hunted one down today?
(c) 2010 I Kill Spammers, Inc., A Rot in Hell. Co.