On Friday, April 25, 2014 1:17:25 PM UTC-4, jamesgang wrote:
On Thursday, April 24, 2014 6:17:15 PM UTC-4, Robert Green wrote:

"CRNG" wrote in message







stuff snipped







I live in a rural area and around here we consider a dial-tone to be a



miracle. In this state the utilities own the Public Utilities



Commission.







It's that way in almost every state. Here in the DC area Verizon is



actively working to convert all their dial tone/copper wire customers to



FIOS. I've told them repeatedly I don't want a phone line that can't



support a dial up modem, that isn't regulated by the public service



commission, that runs out of battery power in an emergency and that depends



on the stability of the Verizon computer network.







http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/lo...Say-They-Felt-



Pressured-Into-Fios-235098041.html







http://tinyurl.com/n3xgwvp







I'm with you - the sound of a dial tone is a miracle. When all the



cellphones went out in the DC area on 9/11, the landlines kept on truckin'.



I assume that the VOIP service will crash pretty much the same way when



everyone gets on their phone in an emergency all at the same time. It's



really a public safety issue but since the PSC has been "captured" by the



companies they regulate they don't care. They're hastening the destruction



of the copper phone network that has demonstrated far greater overall



reliability than any of its replacement technologies. That's progress, I



guess. )-:







One good thing about being one of the last of the dinosaur dial-up guys is



that with the exodus of subscribers from copper phone lines, there's hardly



*ever* any crosstalk on the lines these says. The tech told me I had the



only dial tone on a 50 pair trunk cable. It's lonely at the top (and



bottom).







FWIW, the Feds probably want everyone to switch to VOIP so they can more



easily monitor everyone's phone conversations.







Give me that old time religion, give me that old time religion, give me that



old time religion, it's good enough for me!







--



Bobby G.



Most of your calls end up on voip before they reach the other end anyway. You think the telcoms are still multiplexing over copper? Think again.

Just because it's not sent over copper doesnt' mean it's VOIP. The telcoms
were sending voice over high speed fiber before there was VOIP. It's the
nature of how the call is established and switched that is the key
difference. With the tradional phone system, once your call is set-up,
you have a time slot connection from source to destination, guaranteed,
through each switch and line from source to destination. You're guaranteed
that each voice sample, every 128 usecs gets from source to destination.
That route stays fixed, essentially an open channel, for the duration of
the call. With VOIP, you have no such fixed arrangement and there is no guarantee on the timing of any particular packet, the order or the routing.
A lot of work has gone into trying to fix the problems in voice quality
caused by the latter, but it's an inherent and substantial difference in
the design of the two systems.