Verizon strike [telecom]
Lisa or Jeff
has changed. Today, Vz's unionized employees represent only a small
part of its workforce, and everything today is highly automated.
In my own humble opinion, as a Vz customer, I think Vz has cut back
service quality too much in its landline operations and that is a
factor in their loss of landline subscribers. Some installation has
been outsourced to independent people. Business, repair, and traffic
(operator) offices have been consolidated and it's difficult to get a
hold of a human. When I have gotten a landline employee (that is, a
traditional "Bell Telephone" person), the quality of service is far
higher than what I get from Vz's more modern units, such as wireless
or their sales departments.
History note:
In 1947 there was a phone strike and it was disruptive. The post
office and Western Union both had to add people to handle extra
volume. In NYC, while 90% of the phones were dial, 10% were still
manual*--that meant an operator was required to complete _every_
call. Likewise, all toll calls required an operator, even city-
suburban calls. Subscribers in manual areas were asked to make
emergency calls only. (In the early 1950s dial was added to quite a
few places and calls could be dialed between city and suburb.)
* All of Staten Island, outer edges of Queens and the Bronx. Also
almost all of suburban Long Island. The city's manual exchanges could
be dialed from dial phones with the Panel Switch PCI interface to
manual "B" boards, except of course during the strike. Suburban towns
had old style manual numbers, ie "Babylon 354".
I shudder to think of the massive clerical cost for such 10-15c short
haul toll calls. An operator had to write up a toll ticket and time
the call. Then a clerk had to calculate the charge, then post it to
the customer's phone bill. Sitting there going through a pile of toll
tickets calculating charges by hand all day long, under the watchful
high of a strict supervisor, isn't my idea of a fun job.
I wonder when they first got a real electronic computer and what kind
it was.
Steve Stone
> In my own humble opinion, as a Vz customer, I think Vz has cut back
> service quality too much in its landline operations and that is a
> factor in their loss of landline subscribers.
The company I work for is telling employees who work from home offices
that they should keep their total cost for a work voice telephone line
under $40 per month. The preferred solution is a company VoIP system
which does not require POTS. This supports the thought that Verizon
and other wireline telcos might be losing business to alternate lower
cost providers.
Steve
Lisa or Jeff
> The company I work for is telling employees who work from home offices
> that they should keep their total cost for a work voice telephone line
> under $40 per month. The preferred solution is a company VoIP system
> which does not require POTS. This supports the thought that Verizon
> and other wireline telcos might be losing business to alternate lower
> cost providers.
How would the workers get a VOIP line? I thought one had to have
either DSL (on top of a landline), or, digital cable on top of cable
TV service.
Can one get a data line _by itself_ without anything else attached to
it--and one that would be cheaper than a landline?
GlowingBlueMist
but not all internet providers allow you to order this type. In my area
you can order what is known as a dry loop DSL connection. They do
charge extra for no phone number being bundled with the DSL but it is
still cheaper than a phone number plus a DSL feed.
As for home phone service I use a NetTalk phone adapter. I have used
others like Vonage and Skype.
I got rid of Vonage as it required a PC be powered on all the time to
have continuous phone service, same as Skype (no adapter, just
software). With the NetTalk adapter you can plug it directly into a
router or your PC allowing you much more flexibility.
Here is a link that will take you to a screen for ATT's offering.
http://www.att.com/dsl/
or another third party link showing offerings for them and others.
http://www.connectmyhighspeed.com/dryloop/
I have had mine for a few years from what was Qwest, now CenturyLink.
Steve Stone
> How would the workers get a VOIP line? I thought one had to have
> either DSL (on top of a landline), or, digital cable on top of cable
> TV service.
Yes, and not the employers problem since they don't reimburse for home
office Internet connectivity.
>
> Can one get a data line _by itself_ without anything else attached to
> it--and one that would be cheaper than a landline?
>
I don't know.
Steve
John Levine
>either DSL (on top of a landline), or, digital cable on top of cable
>TV service.
>
>Can one get a data line _by itself_ without anything else attached to
>it--and one that would be cheaper than a landline?
Cable companies will sell you just Internet, although they would rather
sell you a package with TV and phone and someone's cell phone service.
In the past ILECs were supposed to sell bare DSL but I gather that
since the FCC no longer enforces the rules, you can order it but you
can't get it, or if you can, it's more expensive than voice+DSL.
R's,
John
***** Moderator's Note *****
Do you mean that the rules are no longer in effect, that the FCC is no
longer responsible for enforcing the rules, or that the FCC chooses
not to?
Bill Horne
Moderator
David Scheidt
Sure, most places. In Chicago, T, Comcast, and RCN will, if they
serve your building, be happy to sell you just data. (So will a
number of other peple who serve smaller areas of the city.) No, it
won't be cheaper than a basic land line phone. But note that anyone
working from home has to have a data connection these days, so the
marginal cost of getting a connection that supports VOIP is pretty
small (I'd want a dedicated IP telephone, though, and not an analog
through a converter.).
--
sig 23
***** Moderator's Note *****
If I wanted to use my DSL line for phone service, what brand(s) of
phone could I get that I could plug in to an Ethernet port? What do
the phones cost, and how do I get service for them?
Bill Horne
Moderator
Free Lunch
<hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote in comp.dcom.telecom:
Charter certainly offers internet-only.
***** Moderator's Note *****
Love the domain name!
Bill Horne
Moderator
Steven
> On Sun, 14 Aug 2011 09:54:49 -0700 (PDT), Lisa or Jeff
> <hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote in comp.dcom.telecom:
>
>
>
>
> ***** Moderator's Note *****
>
> Love the domain name!
>
> Bill Horne
> Moderator
Charter is the most hated company in the US. They billed me for service
10 months after their installer removed everything from my house.
--
The only good spammer is a dead one!! Have you hunted one down today?
(c) 2011 I Kill Spammers, Inc. A Rot in Hell Co.
***** Moderator's Note *****
I was referring to the domain name that the OP uses: "nofreelunch.us".
Bill Horne
Moderator
John Levine
>have continuous phone service, same as Skype (no adapter, just
>software).
Huh? When I had Vonage, they provided me a Cisco ATA-186 with one
jack for the RJ-45 from the router and another jack with the RJ-11 to
the phone. I couldn't have run it through my PC if I wanted to.
R's,
John
Dave Platt
>
>If I wanted to use my DSL line for phone service, what brand(s) of
>phone could I get that I could plug in to an Ethernet port? What do
>the phones cost, and how do I get service for them?
Grandstream, Aastra, Polycom, Gigaset, and quite a few other companies
which make VoIP phones... most have two Ethernet ports and a built-in
switch, and most speak SIP. Cisco makes VoIP phones as well, but many
of these come preconfigured to use Cisco's own VoIP protocol rather
than SIP.
Various Aastra models seem to be selling for between $65 and $200,
depending on features. Prices vary a lot depending on brand, model,
and where you buy from.
If you are willing to buy used kit, you can often find real deals.
I've bought several SIP phones and analog-telephone adapters through
electronics recyclers and at a local electronics flea-market, and I
don't think I spent more than $15 on the most expensive one.
To get full service for these phones, you'd deal with a telephony
provider who will handle both VoIP origination, and can terminate a
DID phone number and route the call to you via SIP. There are many
such providers... some cheap and some expensive, some fly-by-night and
some with long histories of stability. Plans range anywhere from flat
rate "all you can use" (up to a large limit per month) for a flat
rate, down to pay-as-you-go-by-the-minute. Ask around for
recommendations from existing VoIP customers.
It's possible to have an existing DID number "ported" over to a VoIP
provider, just as you can port them to alternative analog dialtone
providers or to cellphone providers. The FCC has made it clear that
VoIP providers are bound by the same rules w.r.t porting of existing
numbers.
You can quite easily "buy" DIDs in two or more cities (or overseas)
and have the calls terminated to your same SIP phone or adapter or
gateway/proxy. This can be very handy if you travel a lot or do work
in several cities... you can have a local number in many places at not
much expense.
For what it's worth - I recently ported my wife's low-usage business
line over from analog (about $15/month) to VoIP, with the existing
number being terminated by Vitelity. Cost per month is under $2 for
the DID, plus about a penny and a half per minute for calls (inbound
or outbound).
I've got another line with no DID, but outbound servide through Future
Nine... about a penny a minute. Oddly, it's cheaper by a hair to call
landlines in London, than landlines here in the U.S.
Both of these use our existing home DSL service, so there's no
incremental data cost.
A word of caution... VoIP running on consumer-grade DSL will probably
not provide call service that's entirely as reliable and glitch-free
as standard switched-circuit "analog" from your telco, because very
little of the TCP/IP backbone that the calls traverse will carry any
sort of quality-of-service guarantee. Occasional stutters in the
voice are to be expected (but I don't find them as common or severe as
the artifacts present in most cellphone calls.)
I do recommend keeping at least one analog land-line with a phone that
requires no separate electrical power to operate... it's good to have
a plain and simple fallback in an emergency (natural disaster, network
outage, etc.).
--
Dave Platt <dpl...@radagast.org> AE6EO
Friends of Jade Warrior home page: http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior
I do _not_ wish to receive unsolicited commercial email, and I will
boycott any company which has the gall to send me such ads!
Robert Bonomi
In _most_ areas you can get a 'naked' (no dial tone) DSL circuit.
The cost of such a circuit is -- almost always -- higher than the
cost of DSL when it is bundled with an existing voice circuit.
This is -not- surprising, if you think about it. The telco has 'costs'
(maintenance, etc.) associated with the physical circuit that are included
with the _first_ service provisioned on the pair. any additional service
that 'piggy-backs' on the the same pair does not have to include those
costs, since they're already paid for.
There is also a 'nuisance' factor associated with a naked DSL pair. Unlike
a pair with 'dial tone', a field tech cannot tell that whether pair is 'in
use' (meaning 'active', not 'off hook') by simply hooking a butt-set onto
the pair, and 'listening' for voice, or dial-tone. There have been *lots*
of 'naked' DSL circuit outages because a field tech unwittingly 'stole' an
active pair to fix another problem.
John Levine
>In the past ILECs were supposed to sell bare DSL but I gather that
>since the FCC no longer enforces the rules, you can order it but you
>can't get it, or if you can, it's more expensive than voice+DSL.
... and Telecom Digest Moderator responded:
>Do you mean that the rules are no longer in effect, that the FCC is no
>longer responsible for enforcing the rules, or that the FCC chooses
>not to?
Some combination of the first and the third.
xR's,
John
Geoffrey Welsh
> In _most_ areas you can get a 'naked' (no dial tone) DSL circuit.
I usually see it labeled as a "dry line" (i.e., no battery.)
> The cost of such a circuit is -- almost always -- higher than the
> cost of DSL when it is bundled with an existing voice circuit.
In Bell Canada territory, the cost depends on your area, and varies
from $7.25 per month to $25.10 per month. Obviously, the low end is a
fraction of what the most basic POTS service costs, but by the time
you add the DSL service, dry line fee, and VoIP service you're saving
little if anything. However, VoIP may an economical option for a
second phone line, which may be very desirable if you work from home.
VoIP service also usually includes features that cost extra to add to
POTS service. It may also permit you to connect to your company's
phone service so that your direct number or extension rings wherever
you want it... but that's another story.
GlowingBlueMist
Right you are John.
Sorry, it appears that my memory was malfunctioning as usual.
I meant to say that I had booted Magic Jack, not Vonage.
Tom Horne
> In _most_ areas you can get a 'naked' (no dial tone) DSL circuit.
[Moderator snip]
> Unlike a pair with 'dial tone', a field tech cannot tell whether
> [the] pair is 'in use' (meaning 'active', not 'off hook') by simply
> hooking a butt-set onto the pair, and 'listening' for voice, or
> dial-tone. There have been *lots* of 'naked' DSL circuit outages
> because a field tech unwittingly 'stole' an active pair to fix
> another problem.
Lineman have been equipped with DSL detecting butt sets for many years
now. When the butt set is connected to a DSL signal pair it sounds an
alarm and / or will not go off hook. So accidental downing of DSL
service is no longer that much of a problem. Some Butt sets can even
function like a piggy back telephone and conduct voice calls without
downing the line. I own two such Harris sets.
--
Tom Horne
Dave Garland
Perhaps, but a couple of weeks ago I had a (naked) DSL problem that
the tech who came out blamed on just such a cause. "Well, I don't
want to say anything against the [new ownership and name] company, but
some of the contractors they hire don't recognize a DSL without
dialtone..."
Whether that was in fact the problem, I have no way to know. But he
then went to the cabinet (2 blocks away) and came back and said "it's
fixed".
Dave
Robert Bonomi
I can state -- from first-hand experience as recently as 2005 -- that
'stealing' "DSL-only' pairs _does_ happen. I
the shop were I was employed at that time provided DSL for all employees,
to support "work-at-home", when needed. One employee was in a near-
saturated neighborhood, and 'lost' their DSL 3 times in a little less than
2 years. The last time got 'messy', as there were =zero= spare pairs when
another customer's line failed. The DSL-only pair got 'stolen', and there
_wasn't_ any pair to 'replace' it with, when the DSL circuit problem was
reported.
T
I had a Linksys RT31P2 that had the same setup. No computer required.
You did need a computer to manage your account but that is the entire
extent of it.
Scott Dorsey
>There is also a 'nuisance' factor associated with a naked DSL pair. Unlike
>a pair with 'dial tone', a field tech cannot tell that whether pair is 'in
>use' (meaning 'active', not 'off hook') by simply hooking a butt-set onto
>the pair, and 'listening' for voice, or dial-tone. There have been *lots*
>of 'naked' DSL circuit outages because a field tech unwittingly 'stole' an
>active pair to fix another problem.
I've had plenty of digital circuits and loop circuits of various sorts
nynexed over the years, but then again I have also had a few active pots
circuits taken down too. Dial tone is no guarantee they won't nynex it.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."
Scott Dorsey
>longer responsible for enforcing the rules, or that the FCC chooses
>not to?
The FCC has authority but no resources to enforce any longer. Witness
the huge amount of consumer electronics out there with no possibility of
ever coming CLOSE to meeting Part 15 requirements. Most of the field
offices are closed down, and the ones that are opening have minimal
engineering staff. Up in DC it doesn't seem like there are any engineers
left at all, just lawyers.