OT - Man angry at Verizon hurls phones

[George]

[Charlie Self]

Mike Marlow goes on...and on:

Actually, a couple of these people still don't use cell phone technology, home or business, which, anyway, is irrelevant to the point I was making.

Horseshit, to be polite. I flatly stated that for ME, cell phones are a waste of money, and further stated that cell phone technology had nothing to do with people in top business positions answering their own phones. You've taken that and chosen to run it into areas that are not part of my original statement, but something you read into what I actually wrote.

What else I said, the need to be "reach out and touch someone" each moment is equal in illness, or stupidity (you choose), to having to have constant noise (call it music if you like) in the background and foreground 24 hours a day.

Charlie Self "Bore, n.: A person who talks when you wish him to listen." Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

[CW]

All the power in the world doesn't matter when the circuits and/or frequencies are overloaded. Happens every time something big happens. Those places that do take this into account do so by shutting down service to all except emergency personnel during times of need.

[Kevin Singleton]

That's what it comes down to, ain't it?

Kevin

[Kevin Singleton]

When I was in Texas, I spent over 4,000 minutes per month on my Sprint phone, talkin' to my honey in PA. It dropped the signal, now and then, and I had to plug into the charger, most nights, but it beat the heck outta paying long distance charges, and I was able to keep a relationship alive from 1,200 miles away for nine months.

It's worth every penny, and suffering through every frustrating technological anomaly, if you ask me.

Kevin

[Kevin Singleton]

Communicate with who? Get in the damn bathtub, and cower before Mother Nature's wrath, like you're supposed to!

Kevin

[Greg O]

I know what you mean! The last job I had I was on call 24/7/365! The last year I was there I had a total of 11 days that I was not strpped to a cell phone. It finaly got old and I moved on. The job I have now I am on call every third week, much better!! I still sneak off to the lakes in the summer. Only one time last year did I have to haul anchor and get back to civilization. If it were not for a cell phone I would not be able to sneak off! Greg

[Greg O]

I don't have caller ID. I just don't answer the phone if I don't want to, and hang up if it is someone I don't wan to talk to. Simple and free! I have a answering machine, if I don't answer, you better leave a messege! Greg

[Mike Marlow]

Actually no - I made a comment about the vocal opinions of some who can't resist throwing their opinions out on others around them. Fine that some may not care to own or use a cell phone - funny that they denigrate a technology or the users of technologies simply because of what they chose for themselves. You are the one who read into it and ran off. And...horseshit is only used politely when talking about garden fertilizers.

See above. One should not express their opinions in a public forum if they are not comfortable with those opinions being challenged. Doesn't mean I consider you to be an a**hole, just means I disagree with you.

[CW]

It's all analog when it's in the air.

[bridger]

well, around here tornados haven't been a significan't problem, and I'm above the flood plain. besides, any disaster that takes down the cel system is likely also to take out the phone lines.

[CW]

Not the case. On 9/11, cell phones were virtually useless in parts of NY. A few years ago, we had an earthquake here in Seattle. Again, cell phones were next to useless though the landlines were fine. The problem is limited capacity. Cell systems are designed to handle a certain load. They become overloaded easily. Landlines have the same problem to a certain degree but not nearly so much so. Unfortunaly, emergency services are, more and more, going to trunked radio systems and are finding out, the hard way, that they suffer the same capacity problems as cell phones.

[George]

You make a statement easily disproven. The most common and destructive natural calamities are weather-related, and the cell systems (with their encoded priorities) outlast the copper wires and wooden poles. This information is too easily available to be disputed. The cellular operators normally bury, so survive.

Trunked radio, which uses telephone trunking technology, can also be used as isolated towers, like the old repeaters. BTDT.

With multiplexing there's little danger of exceeding the capacity of either system.

[jo4hn]

If God had meant anything to be analog, we would be born with webs between our fingers. j4

[Nova]

I guess then that in my 35 years with AT&T there was never a need.

-- Jack Novak Buffalo, NY - USA (Remove "SPAM" from email address to reply)

[CW]

[B a r r y]

Actually, wires and poles DO affect cells, and most cellular companies are not regulated as phone companies, as far as emergency planning goes.

Very few cell sites have truly diverse feeds, as we do with stuff like

911 feeds, back to the phone network. The ones that do are usually huge, multi-company urban sites fed by major fibers. Losing a pole, or a dug up cable or fiber usually means no site with typical cells. With luck, you'll be in an area that sees multiple signals, so you can still make and receive calls.

A typical non-urban cell site is battery equipped, but does not include a generator. The batteries are there to provide enough power to allow a trailer genset to be moved to the site. The same sites that have diverse fiber feeds also usually have decent size generators.

Many companies have been known to bounce trailer mounted gensets around during large power outages, leaving them at each site long enough to charge the batteries and then moving them elesewhere.

Barry

[B a r r y]

The only time I ever saw line load control invoked was accidentally.

Barry

[B a r r y]

George,

Cellular networks often get temporarily overloaded when there's a sudden traffic jam.

Multiplexing provides more capacity over less physical copper or fiber. That's it. It doesn't provide extra emergency capacity or growth on demand, and it doesn't increase penis size, either.

Barry

[Charlie Self]

Barry responds:

Damn. They lied to me again.

Charlie Self "Bore, n.: A person who talks when you wish him to listen." Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary