Maybe someone with some influence might be listening.

There are so many 10 digit areas now, I would like to see a change in
the way the phone service works. I think it would be pretty easy to
implement if the right person listening.

You should be able to dial any 10 digit number. If it is a local call
then the call would just be automatically connected.

The change would be if you dial a long distance number. You should
get a recording saying.......the number you have dialed is a long
distance number. If you are willing to pay for the call press 1, if
not please hang up.

This replaces the recording.....It is not necessary to dial a 1 before
making this call.
It also replaces the recording......I am sorry you must first dial a 1
before making this call.
It also makes it unnecessary to dial the number again.

"Terry" wrote in message
...
Maybe someone with some influence might be listening.

There are so many 10 digit areas now, I would like to see a change in
the way the phone service works. I think it would be pretty easy to
implement if the right person listening.

You should be able to dial any 10 digit number. If it is a local call
then the call would just be automatically connected.

The change would be if you dial a long distance number. You should
get a recording saying.......the number you have dialed is a long
distance number. If you are willing to pay for the call press 1, if
not please hang up.

This replaces the recording.....It is not necessary to dial a 1 before
making this call.
It also replaces the recording......I am sorry you must first dial a 1
before making this call.
It also makes it unnecessary to dial the number again.

But then they'd have to insert:

Press 1 if you want English
2 for Spanish
47 for Bangledesh

etc......

On Dec 7, 7:28 pm, "Sanity" wrote:
"Terry" wrote in message

...





Maybe someone with some influence might be listening.

There are so many 10 digit areas now, I would like to see a change in
the way the phone service works. I think it would be pretty easy to
implement if the right person listening.

You should be able to dial any 10 digit number. If it is a local call
then the call would just be automatically connected.

The change would be if you dial a long distance number. You should
get a recording saying.......the number you have dialed is a long
distance number. If you are willing to pay for the call press 1, if
not please hang up.

This replaces the recording.....It is not necessary to dial a 1 before
making this call.
It also replaces the recording......I am sorry you must first dial a 1
before making this call.
It also makes it unnecessary to dial the number again.

But then they'd have to insert:

Press 1 if you want English
2 for Spanish
47 for Bangledesh

etc

Yeah I forgot about the illegals to continue enabling them you should
add

Si está dispuesto a pagar por la llamada oprima el número dos, si no,
por favor cuelgue

Terry wrote:
Maybe someone with some influence might be listening.


Mine works that way now: I use Vonage. I don't CARE whether the number is in
my area, the U.S., Canada, or Mexico. I have to dial some extra digits to
reach the UK or EU, but I don't have to worry about the cost.

In fact, with Vonage, I can get an area code for my home phone that
translates into any area of the country. If I want my customers to think I'm
in New York, I can get a 212 area code. If I want them to think I'm in Los
Angeles, I can get a 714.

Our long distance bill (at three-cents/minute) still cost our company over
$200/month. For $19.95 all that went away. That's $19.95 flat for a
telephone number and all the extras: touch-tone, caller-id, call-waiting,
call-forwarding, voice-mail, etc. No 911 access fee, universal service fee,
Al Gore tax, Spanish-American war tax, fuel surcharge, blah-blah-blah.

"HeyBub" wrote in message
...
Terry wrote:
Maybe someone with some influence might be listening.


Mine works that way now: I use Vonage. I don't CARE whether the number is
in my area, the U.S., Canada, or Mexico. I have to dial some extra digits
to reach the UK or EU, but I don't have to worry about the cost.

In fact, with Vonage, I can get an area code for my home phone that
translates into any area of the country. If I want my customers to think
I'm in New York, I can get a 212 area code. If I want them to think I'm in
Los Angeles, I can get a 714.

Our long distance bill (at three-cents/minute) still cost our company over
$200/month. For $19.95 all that went away. That's $19.95 flat for a
telephone number and all the extras: touch-tone, caller-id, call-waiting,
call-forwarding, voice-mail, etc. No 911 access fee, universal service
fee, Al Gore tax, Spanish-American war tax, fuel surcharge,
blah-blah-blah.

I had Vonage and it sucked. The calls constantly broke up and there was
always an echo. They also pulled a bait and switch on me for a fax line and
charged me 3x as much as they stated on the phone. I switched to packet 8
and that sucked even worse, same connection problems as vonage but the worse
customer service. At least vonage tried to improve the situation while I sat
for days waiting on a response from packet 8.

Homer wrote:


Services like Vonage and Packet8 can only be as good as the quality of
the ISP you have, and never as good as "digital phone" the cable
company offers directly. This is because the cable providers have
allocated network resources to tie directly into Ma Bell, the traffic
never has to be routed over the Internet.

My Vonage DOES connect via our cable connection thence to our ISP. From
there, who knows.

We don't get echos or dropped connection, but your milage may vary.

In article , Homer
wrote:

With Digital Phone

I wish someone could point to a "digital phone". They don't exist.

They are all analog. Pick-up an old rotary phone from the 30s at a garage
sale and they (usually) will work if properly connected to a common dial tone.
Talk about backward compatibility!

purchased through Comcast, Time-Warner, Cox, etc... you
get a dedicated line from your home to the cable head end, where your
call is connected there

I respectfully disagree. (Wait! This is usenet.) Your muther wears combat
boots! HA! grin

Cable telephone service is "dedicated" until it reaches the voice
port/RT/conversion box/whatever, usually mounted on the outside of your house.
Some have the converter box inside the house.

There it is converted to digital. It then "rides" the common, coaxial cable.
The digital signal is then processed elsewhere and connected to the common,
public switched network.

The incumbent telco provides [drum roll] Digital Phone Service, too. They did
for YEARS before the cable companies even began offering dialtone.

The difference is that your analog phone service is carried on a dedicated
copper pair for a greater distance than just the back of your house: Often
several miles to the Central Office. There, it is converted to a digital
signal and connected to the public, switched network. Sometimes, the copper
pair runs to a nearby, neighborhood remote terminal or pair gain system.
There, then, is where the analog-to-digital conversion takes place.

Don't be too impressed by the concept of Digital Phone Service. With the
possible exception those whose hearing is through the use of a cochlear
implant, we all have analog ears. Thenk-kew.
--

JR

Jim Redelfs wrote:

In article , Homer
wrote:

With Digital Phone

I wish someone could point to a "digital phone". They don't exist.

They definitely do exist. Cisco has a whole commercial grade line of
VOIP phones. One the consumer level there are a substantial number of
digital VOIP phones available, particularly integrated cordless units.


They are all analog. Pick-up an old rotary phone from the 30s at a garage
sale and they (usually) will work if properly connected to a common dial tone.
Talk about backward compatibility!

The above noted units definitely will not operate on a traditional telco
loop.


purchased through Comcast, Time-Warner, Cox, etc... you
get a dedicated line from your home to the cable head end, where your
call is connected there

I respectfully disagree. (Wait! This is usenet.) Your muther wears combat
boots! HA! grin

Not dedicated line, dedicated bandwidth, not subject to impact from
cable modem service. And unlike Vonage et al, once you reach the head
end, you connect to a "real" telco type switch and dedicated
interconnects to the traditional PSTN, while the Vonage users just get
aggregated with the cable modem traffic from the other nodes in the
cable system and dumped out on trunks to the Internet backbone. Very
different data paths.


Cable telephone service is "dedicated" until it reaches the voice
port/RT/conversion box/whatever, usually mounted on the outside of your house.
Some have the converter box inside the house.

Yes, they typically place their equivalent of a SLIC at the house demarc
point and support traditional analog POTS devices inside the house.


There it is converted to digital. It then "rides" the common, coaxial cable.
The digital signal is then processed elsewhere and connected to the common,
public switched network.

Yes and no. There isn't a lot of coax left in the cable company's plants
these days, most are "fiber to feeder" with fiber optics from the head
end out to many local nodes, each serving a relatively small number of
homes ~25-250 depending on the system. Rather similar to the telco's RT
setup with a remote terminal unit of SLICs serving a housing development
with fiber back to the CO.


The incumbent telco provides [drum roll] Digital Phone Service, too. They did
for YEARS before the cable companies even began offering dialtone.

Well, sort of. They've certainly used digital trunks for years, but the
digital portion didn't get anywhere near the residential users. Big
businesses may have had digital trunks to their buildings however since
it made for more efficient use of the outside plant, getting some 24
voice channels on a single pair vs 1 voice chan per pair for residences.


The difference is that your analog phone service is carried on a dedicated
copper pair for a greater distance than just the back of your house: Often
several miles to the Central Office. There, it is converted to a digital
signal and connected to the public, switched network. Sometimes, the copper
pair runs to a nearby, neighborhood remote terminal or pair gain system.
There, then, is where the analog-to-digital conversion takes place.

You need to re-evaluate your concept of "dedicated" as it applies to a
broadband medium. The cable companies digital phone services may share
the same physical plant with other signals, but this does not meant that
the phone service does not have dedicated bandwidth. Think of even your
basic voice T1 where some 24 voice channels are sharing the same copper
pair, but each has it's own dedicated bandwidth.


Don't be too impressed by the concept of Digital Phone Service. With the
possible exception those whose hearing is through the use of a cochlear
implant, we all have analog ears. Thenk-kew.

Yep, humans are rather analog. The same applies to TV and the new
digital ATSC / HDTV, it may be all digital right to the display device,
but it's still analog to the eyeball.

On Fri, 7 Dec 2007 19:28:23 -0500, "Sanity"
wrote:


"Terry" wrote in message
...
Maybe someone with some influence might be listening.

There are so many 10 digit areas now, I would like to see a change in
the way the phone service works. I think it would be pretty easy to
implement if the right person listening.

You should be able to dial any 10 digit number. If it is a local call
then the call would just be automatically connected.

The change would be if you dial a long distance number. You should
get a recording saying.......the number you have dialed is a long
distance number. If you are willing to pay for the call press 1, if
not please hang up.

This replaces the recording.....It is not necessary to dial a 1 before
making this call.
It also replaces the recording......I am sorry you must first dial a 1
before making this call.
It also makes it unnecessary to dial the number again.

But then they'd have to insert:

Press 1 if you want English
2 for Spanish
47 for Bangledesh

etc......


"Then AFTER dialing, add:

"BEEP-BOOP-BEEP Are you sure you want to place this call?

Please press 0 if no
Please press * for help
Please press 1 if yes"

Note that you have to listen to a long, slow message before finding
out what to press to continue.
--
17 days until the winter solstice celebration

Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.laughingsquid.com

"I have found Christian dogma unintelligable. Early
in life I absented myself from Christian assemblies."
-- Benjamin Franklin

On Fri, 7 Dec 2007 16:26:13 -0800 (PST), Terry
wrote:

Maybe someone with some influence might be listening.

There are so many 10 digit areas now, I would like to see a change in
the way the phone service works. I think it would be pretty easy to
implement if the right person listening.

You should be able to dial any 10 digit number. If it is a local call
then the call would just be automatically connected.

The change would be if you dial a long distance number. You should
get a recording saying.......the number you have dialed is a long
distance number. If you are willing to pay for the call press 1, if
not please hang up.

This replaces the recording.....It is not necessary to dial a 1 before
making this call.
It also replaces the recording......I am sorry you must first dial a 1
before making this call.
It also makes it unnecessary to dial the number again.

But ALLOW 11-digit (1+) dialing, which saves you the time and trouble
of dealing with a recording.
--
17 days until the winter solstice celebration

Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.laughingsquid.com

"I have found Christian dogma unintelligable. Early
in life I absented myself from Christian assemblies."
-- Benjamin Franklin

On Dec 8, 9:19 am, "Pete C." wrote:
Jim Redelfs wrote:

In article , Homer
wrote:

With Digital Phone

I wish someone could point to a "digital phone". They don't exist.

They definitely do exist. Cisco has a whole commercial grade line of
VOIP phones. One the consumer level there are a substantial number of
digital VOIP phones available, particularly integrated cordless units.



They are all analog. Pick-up an old rotary phone from the 30s at a garage
sale and they (usually) will work if properly connected to a common dial tone.
Talk about backward compatibility!

The above noted units definitely will not operate on a traditional telco
loop.



purchased through Comcast, Time-Warner, Cox, etc... you
get a dedicated line from your home to the cable head end, where your
call is connected there

I respectfully disagree. (Wait! This is usenet.) Your muther wears combat
boots! HA! grin

Not dedicated line, dedicated bandwidth, not subject to impact from
cable modem service. And unlike Vonage et al, once you reach the head
end, you connect to a "real" telco type switch and dedicated
interconnects to the traditional PSTN, while the Vonage users just get
aggregated with the cable modem traffic from the other nodes in the
cable system and dumped out on trunks to the Internet backbone. Very
different data paths.



Cable telephone service is "dedicated" until it reaches the voice
port/RT/conversion box/whatever, usually mounted on the outside of your house.
Some have the converter box inside the house.

Yes, they typically place their equivalent of a SLIC at the house demarc
point and support traditional analog POTS devices inside the house.



There it is converted to digital. It then "rides" the common, coaxial cable.
The digital signal is then processed elsewhere and connected to the common,
public switched network.

Yes and no. There isn't a lot of coax left in the cable company's plants
these days, most are "fiber to feeder" with fiber optics from the head
end out to many local nodes, each serving a relatively small number of
homes ~25-250 depending on the system. Rather similar to the telco's RT
setup with a remote terminal unit of SLICs serving a housing development
with fiber back to the CO.



The incumbent telco provides [drum roll] Digital Phone Service, too. They did
for YEARS before the cable companies even began offering dialtone.

Well, sort of. They've certainly used digital trunks for years, but the
digital portion didn't get anywhere near the residential users. Big
businesses may have had digital trunks to their buildings however since
it made for more efficient use of the outside plant, getting some 24
voice channels on a single pair vs 1 voice chan per pair for residences.



The difference is that your analog phone service is carried on a dedicated
copper pair for a greater distance than just the back of your house: Often
several miles to the Central Office. There, it is converted to a digital
signal and connected to the public, switched network. Sometimes, the copper
pair runs to a nearby, neighborhood remote terminal or pair gain system.
There, then, is where the analog-to-digital conversion takes place.

You need to re-evaluate your concept of "dedicated" as it applies to a
broadband medium. The cable companies digital phone services may share
the same physical plant with other signals, but this does not meant that
the phone service does not have dedicated bandwidth. Think of even your
basic voice T1 where some 24 voice channels are sharing the same copper
pair, but each has it's own dedicated bandwidth.



Don't be too impressed by the concept of Digital Phone Service. With the
possible exception those whose hearing is through the use of a cochlear
implant, we all have analog ears. Thenk-kew.

Yep, humans are rather analog. The same applies to TV and the new
digital ATSC / HDTV, it may be all digital right to the display device,
but it's still analog to the eyeball.



When I hear "digital phone" used in the context of home use, I think
of the digital cordless phones, which are indeed digitally encoded
between the handset and base station. And a big improvement over
the analog cordless phones in terms of reliability and security.
Most are spread spectrum today, which is a digital technique that
offers a reasonable level of security, especially compared to the old
analog cordless.

Regarding the OP's suggestion, this is an issue that is particular to
his local phone carrier. Here in NJ with Verizon, I just dial 10
digits all the time and the calls go through whether in state or long
distance, without dialing 1 first.

Also, it's worth noting that all calls have been digital, in most
cases for a major part of their journey for many decades. The
traditional phone line is analog back to the central office or SLC,
where it gets digitized for switching and routing. If it's going
from NJ to CA, it's been digital long before the internet, using the
existing phone system. That's how they can handle millions of calls,
by doing it digitally on fiber, even before the internet.

Jim Redelfs posted for all of us...

I wish someone could point to a "digital phone". They don't exist.

Toshiba Stratus systems
--
Tekkie Don't bother to thank me, I do this as a public service.