> > How many will remember only being allowed to get a phone from The Phone > > Company? And having to have it professionally installed?
> When I was a kid we had a party line - we were out in a rural valley > leading back into the Santa Cruz Mountains - one phone line strung from > sparse house to sparse house. But that's not the phone/ancient days > point I wish to make.
> We had a spare phone - usual black, dial, etc - that we kids played > with, making fake calls and pretend answers. Once when we had the phone > company come out to repair the single connected instrument and/or > wiring, the service man noticed the our play phone. He immediately > stated the phone company never sold its phones so our play phone had to > be illegal and he just confiscated it on the spot, no 9 points of the > law, no recognition of any possible ownership rights, no nothing - the > phone company was above the law.
> You can still order a phone from the phone company, pay extra for > service and have them maintain the whole lot from switching station to > ear, if you're old fashioned enough.
> Has anybody yet pointed out that wired phones have their own power > source independent of the mains? A wired phone may still work for an > emergency in a catastrophic that takes down all the cell towers and > mains power.
Where does their power come from? I assume the mains in a nearby neighbourhood.
Canadian and US book prices being roughly at par, once currency conversion was taken into account. These days Canadians pay an extra 25% more than Americans do.
I reserve the right to harvest organs from anyone attempting to justify this on account of the low Canadian dollar, on two grounds:
1: See the term "once currency conversion was taken into account"?
2: And any, the Canadian and US dollar are pretty much on par.
In article <1287d27b-6bdc-486f-8093-00880da19...@f16g2000yqm.googlegroups.com>, Robert Carnegie <rja.carne...@excite.com> wrote:
> lal_truckee wrote: > > Has anybody yet pointed out that wired phones have their own power > > source independent of the mains? A wired phone may still work for an > > emergency in a catastrophic that takes down all the cell towers and > > mains power.
> Where does their power come from? I assume the mains in a nearby > neighbourhood.
Normally, yes, The Phone Company's electricity comes from the same place as anybody else's.
However, when the power goes out, TPC's backup capacity in the form of batteries and generators is better than what you'll find from most places.
-- Mike Ash Radio Free Earth Broadcasting from our climate-controlled studios deep inside the Moon
In article <mike-393949.19190007112...@news.eternal-september.org>, Mike Ash <m...@mikeash.com> wrote:
> Normally, yes, The Phone Company's electricity comes from the same place > as anybody else's.
> However, when the power goes out, TPC's backup capacity in the form of > batteries and generators is better than what you'll find from most > places.
You know, I never thought of that. My landline has always worked during power outages, and now that I think about it, my phone company HQ is less than 2 miles from here and sometimes these outages are bigger than other times. . .
-- Erilar, biblioholic
bib-li-o-hol-ism [<Gr biblion] n. [BIBLIO + HOLISM] books, of books: habitual longing to purchase, read, store, admire, and consume books in excess.
On Nov 7, 4:28 pm, Robert Carnegie <rja.carne...@excite.com> wrote:
> lal_truckee wrote: > > Has anybody yet pointed out that wired phones have their own power > > source independent of the mains? A wired phone may still work for an > > emergency in a catastrophic that takes down all the cell towers and > > mains power.
> Where does their power come from? I assume the mains in a nearby > neighbourhood.
The phone line provides power to telephones. Only if the phone line is cut do phones that aren't plugged in to the wall socket not have power.
But you are right that the power still comes, ultimately, from the power for the city - the telephone company doesn't (normally) generate its own power. So if there's a city-wide blackout, the phones might not work. However, they may well have emergency generators. Keeping telephone service working was taken very seriously back then - and still is, unless you're getting your phone service from your Cable TV provider.
On Nov 7, 4:45 pm, jdnic...@panix.com (James Nicoll) wrote:
> Canadian and US book prices being roughly at par, once currency > conversion was taken into account. These days Canadians pay an extra > 25% more than Americans do.
Depending on what you buy - on some items, it at least used to be as much as 50%.
Less competition in Canada, shipping costs, overhead of establishing an out-of-country office or an extra layer of middlemen.
Quadibloc <jsav...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote: > On Nov 7, 4:28 pm, Robert Carnegie <rja.carne...@excite.com> wrote: > > lal_truckee wrote:
> > > Has anybody yet pointed out that wired phones have their own power > > > source independent of the mains? A wired phone may still work for an > > > emergency in a catastrophic that takes down all the cell towers and > > > mains power.
> > Where does their power come from? I assume the mains in a nearby > > neighbourhood.
> The phone line provides power to telephones. Only if the phone line is > cut do phones that aren't plugged in to the wall socket not have > power.
> But you are right that the power still comes, ultimately, from the > power for the city - the telephone company doesn't (normally) generate > its own power. So if there's a city-wide blackout, the phones might > not work. However, they may well have emergency generators. Keeping > telephone service working was taken very seriously back then - and > still is, unless you're getting your phone service from your Cable TV > provider.
> John Savard
One of the signals on phone lines is called "battery" for a reason...
48 volt batteries, to be precise. And just as a side-note to nowhere, they can be used (with a stick of carbon out of a dry cell) to make decent welds on light metals.
It's gonna take a LOT more than just a power blackout to shut down the phone system. Unless phone cables are damaged along with the power being gone (a not-unlikely scenario, I'll grant) the phones (the ones that don't need a wall-wart to do their thing) will keep on chuggin' along.
Landlines are battery powered, and every cell site I've had a close enough look at to be able to recognize a gen-set, has had one sitting there waiting to kick in if the mains die, complete with fuel to run for days, perhaps weeks. You may only be able to get connected to someone on the same network as you, or within a single tower's reach, depending on how bad the landlines that connect the towers get hit, but unless they get knocked down or literally drowned, the towers will almost certainly have power and be functional for at least several days, if not weeks. Meanwhile, the undamaged sections of landline phones will be doing their best to cope, on battery power, and I'm sure for major switching hubs, generator backup as needed.
Kinda like the FAA radar processing installations - I used to work for a guy who worked in one of those. He gave me the nickel tour, and among other neat things, I found out that at his installation, they don't "switch to battery" or "switch to generator" when commercial power dies - They're *ALWAYS* on battery - actually, a huge bank of batteries, with a backup genny turning at idle in case mains goes down, and mains (or the genny, in the event mains dies) both go directly to keeping the batteries at peak charge. Which meant switchover time to backup power in the event of a mains outage was zero.
-- Email shown is deceased. If you would like to contact me by email, please post something that makes it obvious in this or another group you see me posting in with a "how to contact you" address, and I'll get back to you.
> > > > Has anybody yet pointed out that wired phones have their own power > > > > source independent of the mains? [snip] > It's gonna take a LOT more than just a power blackout to shut down the > phone system. [snip] > Landlines are battery powered
Only traditional landlines. With the move to fiber optics, this is no longer the case. They provide a battery for your house, but that will only last about 8 hours. After that, no phone service.
- W. Citoan -- Whatever you choose, do not seek to carry out easy tasks. -- Adolf Von Baeyer
In article <499595fb-3edc-43ac-b75a-df6ac1e44...@2g2000prl.googlegroups.com>,
Quadibloc <jsav...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote: > Keeping > telephone service working was taken very seriously back then - and > still is, unless you're getting your phone service from your Cable TV > provider.
Other way around: I'm getting my cable TV from my phone company. It's my ISP, too. But it was my phone company before both of those.
-- Erilar, biblioholic
bib-li-o-hol-ism [<Gr biblion] n. [BIBLIO + HOLISM] books, of books: habitual longing to purchase, read, store, admire, and consume books in excess.
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