"...our phones will work during a power blackout..."
http://www.rotarydialphones.com/Black%20500%20New.htm (http://www.rotarydialphones.com/Black%20500%20New.htm)
As I understand the old Bell System, it wasn't the phone, it was because Bell had backup generators to power the phone system in the event of a blackout. When I had my cable company phone line, it didn't even take a power outage, all it took was for the internet to go down to kill my phone line. But Ma Bell is dead. Cable, Voip, MagicJack and the like will NOT power a phone just because it's a vintage one. Am I wrong on this?
Briny:
They mean the phone itself doesn't need a power adapter to work such as most cordless phones. Many people only have a cordless phone and no matter where it gets its dial tone from, in a power outage it is OOS.
Terry
Correct, as I understand it with POTS the power comes from the Phone co it is usually in a different location than the local power or has thier own generators. During the last hurricane here in South Florida when power was out my 500 was the only working phone in the neighborhood. Even cell service was out as cell towers were damaged.
A little bit of both it sounds like. The claim is addressed to people who never had the Bell System or knew old rotary phones, only the type that needed to be plugged into a power source to function. OTOH, it's still misleading in that if it's not plugged into a POTS, it doesn't hold true.
Harry;
You could really cash in on a situation like that.
$5.00 a call to your worried love ones...of course that would be for the first 3 minutes, and long distance charges would apply.
D/P
A typical Bell System Central Office has a DC power plant that supplies power to the switch network elements and provides dial tone.
Upon a commercial AC power failure, the DC power plant typically can support normal functions for 4-8 hours before the batteries drain.
When commercial AC power is interrupted, the emergency generators kick in to supply AC power for the DC power plant rectifiers and inverters. Typically there is enough fuel on site to keep the generators running for 8 hours or more. It is not uncommon to have enough fuel for 24 hours.
There may be contracts in place with fuel suppliers to re-fuel with 4 hours notice.
So, the CO should last a long time unless it was destroyed or flooded; like what happened in Katrina.
Russ.....
Quote from: Brinybay on July 17, 2010, 02:11:26 PM
A little bit of both it sounds like. OTOH, it's still misleading in that if it's not plugged into a POTS, it doesn't hold true.
Yes and No. The phone still functions but the dial tone supply packed up and died in that example. Bottom line is no dial tone but technically the phone is still able to work if connected to a dial tone source. They could put a disclaimer in there but the seller can't contol who or what you use for a dial tone provider.
Terry
all true, russ. but i do want to explain about pair gain systems. this is analog dial tone that leaves the CO on a fiber to a remote terminal, where the digital signal is converted back to analog to the customer. these remote terminals require commercial power also. in the event of a power outage the telco employees set up generators at these locations. if the outage is widespread, there won't be enough generators to go around. sooo, there are cases when a power outage would cause the loss of POTS.
we just had this situation the last couple days here in SE Mich. my first trouble today was due to the generator at a remote running out of fuel. the whole neighborhood was out of service. Edison service had restored, tho, so we were able to switch back to commercial power.
btw, briny, "ma bell" is not dead, she just goes by a different name...POTS is still readily available. even tho many many folks are opting for the VoIP & cell service, i still make my living servicing those copper pairs. ;)
Well Donna, I'm not so sure I agree about Ma Bell still being alive and well while going by a lower-case alias.
AT&T as we knew it before November 2006 (IIRC) is no longer. It's nothing more than the old Texas-based SBC in Ma Bell drag. For those who weren't directly impacted, SBC bought AT&T and assumed Ma Bell's identity. Southwestern Bell was the most lame of all the "Baby Bells" that were formed after the break up of the original Bell System in 1984. They had a swaggering chairman by the name of Ed Whitacre (he's "fixing" GM now) with a penchant for mergers and acquisitions, and proceeded to swallow up most of the Baby Bell telcos one by one over a period of just a few years and at enormous cost. What AT&T amounts to now is a mishmash of formerly autonomous telcos with systems that don't talk to each other (although I'm sure their sloth-like attempts at standardization are ongoing) that is trying to present itself as a cohesive company. It has also become a classic case of the tail wagging the dog. The final purchase was Bell South, the home of the former Cingular Wireless. Bell South was the most oddball of the amalgamation of telcos that SBC had assembled, but since wireless was king, their poorly designed systems and lack of a testing environment for system upgrades were the bane of anyone who had to deal with them. Wireless being the new cash cow, Bell South's sub-par systems and employees won out. Not much longer after that, I was laid off. California workers cost too much, don't you know? I doubt highly that things have improved.
So the AT&T/Ma Bell that used to be one big family and where anyone hired had a job for life, where systems and equipment were tested and trialed to death before they were launched, that was all vaporized. The company now is all about shareholder greed and sell, sell, sell, with crisp clear POTS transmission being replaced by staticky, choppy, marginal wireless service where calls are simply cut off mid-sentence. They've regressed about 100 years in that regard. The higher standard Ma Bell was always known for has received the "Rear Window" treatment by SBC. Picture Ed Whitacre sitting in the dark with only his cigar glowing and you'll have a good idea of what happened to Ma Bell.
we have a South western Bell office in jackson is that a part of the bell system
Kenny, that's part of the old Bell System, but it's owned by the "new" AT&T now, formerly Southwestern Bell, if that makes any sense.
I get it.
What I don't get is why they made Bell shut down because they had a monopoly going and it is the exact same with Verizon and mostly AT&T
Kenny, this is an excellent example of history repeating itself, and a strong lobby presence in Washington, D.C.
Quote from: Kennyc1955 on July 20, 2010, 02:31:15 PM
I get it.
What I don't get is why they made Bell shut down because they had a monopoly going and it is the exact same with Verizon and mostly AT&T
It was a
regulated monopoly, there's a difference. Read "The Rape of Ma Bell" and you'll get a good understanding of what it was and what we lost.
ralph, i did not say "alive & well". not by a long shot. i just wanted briny to know that POTS is still available. perhaps i should have said....her place has been taken by her sister...the wicked witch of the west.
i am sure you & i could trade shop stories that would curl the hair of alexander himself.
even tho SBC (aka AT$T) has bought up all the former BELL infrastructure (COs & lines) it is not a monoply. the telecom act of 1996 opened the door for combined local exchange carriers (CLEC).
http://tinyurl.com/fq5vq
part of this act says the major player in the area has to lease lines & CO space to their competitors.
briny in response to your original comment.....in the case of VoIP...it is not the phone, that will not work in a power outage....it is the dial tone :o
???
What's "POTS?"
As a lad growing up through several notorious hurricanes that swept over western CT in the '60s, I seem to recall that our phone would still "reach out and touch someone" even though we were wandering around the farmhouse with candles and hurricane lamps and flashlights...
Its why to this day I insist my Frau not discard the one hard-wire, non-cordless phone I have plugged into the wall. :o And NOW, now that I have several working D1s with 4H dials... :D
:D
Plain Old Telephone Service ;D
I grew up in Ct also :) I remember "camping" in the dining room for a few weeks after an ice storm :)
The phone worked before the power came back on :D
I was too young to "remember" the actual "occurrence" of Hurricanes Connie and Diane, but I do remember the "effect," which was the extensive flooding, but only because my Mama had to explain to me and my pea-brain why we couldn't visit her parents on their farm for several weeks. We had to wait until at least one bridge over the Farmington River was repaired; a bridge close enough to where we then lived in Granby to be worth the time/effort to make the drive to it to then get to their farm. So many bridges "near" us having been washed out or so severely damaged as to be unsafe, according to my Mama.
In fact, photo evidence shows the bridge on our direct route, down CT-177, was not lost, but the approaches to it, the south bank, had been washed away, rendering the bridge unusable. I've also read subsequent "history" of the Aug. flood, suggesting that Unionville was "completely cut off from surface communication" during the flood. Seems to me, that begs the question, "really?" Even assuming the river flooded the "low ground" below Farmington HS (and so cut US-4 to the east -- toward Farmington center), and also that the bridge (US-4?) north-westbound up the river road toward Collinsville, was also damged or lost, why wasn't CT-177 north out of the center of Unionville past the old firehouse (going up the hill into Avon) not still available? Inquiring minds want to know? ;D
Then there was the follow-on Flood of October 16, which must have only hampered recovery ...and make it longer until I could see my grand parents...
I WAS old enough to remember "camping out" in the living room during Hurry-cane Donna, and as it was "hurry-cane" season, and so still fairly warm, so blankets were all we needed for warmth. I can't recall if we had electric heat, but I seem to recall we had a gas stove, so we didn't "starve!" Also, as it hit CT on a Monday -- September 12th -- no skewel!!! :D
Now to re-focus this divergence on "classic phones," does anyone ave any data on how SNET-Co came through Hurricanes Connie and Diane, the "Floods of 1955," and/or Hurricane Donna, and how phone service held up? The two floods of '55 must have taken down phone lines, not just bridges!?? ;D
SNET (Southern New England Telephone) was also consumed by SBC about 10 years ago and is now a part of the "new at&t."
Some independent telcos provide(d) top-notch service, while others do/did not. Around here, Roseville Telephone became more cutting edge than Pacific Bell. I think they've changed their name, but wouldn't be surprised if their service is still a cut above what at&t offers in adjacent areas.
I supported systems that SBC adopted from SNET (because SBC didn't even have such systems in place -- see my reference to Southwestern Bell above -- and dealt with SNET people a lot. They were all top-notch and dedicated. I think that says something about SNET's quality of service, and I'll bet they had a very high customer satisfaction rate. I suspect they did OK with maintaining and restoring service during and after major weather events.
At SBC, we were told early on after they were acquired not to call it "SNET." It was "S-N-E-T" or "Southern New England." Well, we all still called it SNET except when we were on conference calls. You can't take the acronym out of a telco employee once they see one :-/
:D
It was either "Southern New England Telephone," in polite conversation, or "snetco" -- pronounced like "snot" only with a short "e" sound instead of an "ah" sound, and ending in "koh," or "coe," all as one word in "vulgar" (as in Latin Vulgar), or "vernacular" conversation. SNETCo was not really a term of derision as I remember it either. You might have the odd "disagreement" about service or billing, but on the whole, my parents and grandparents and near-relations never seemed to complain too much about them. And if you knew my relations, if there WAS something wrong, they'd have been complaining!!!! :D
But to be sure, I'll ask my brother. He still lives in CT, and would know if their reputation was deserved or inflated. ;D
Quote from: Brinybay on July 17, 2010, 04:27:35 AMBut Ma Bell is dead. Cable, Voip, MagicJack and the like will NOT power a phone just because it's a vintage one. Am I wrong on this?
'Ma Bell' may be dead, but they never had any kind of monopoly over the delivery of telephone service over a pair of copper wires.
QuoteWhat I don't get is why they made Bell shut down because they had a monopoly going and it is the exact same with Verizon and mostly AT&T
The difference between then and now Kenny has to be with goofy sounding things like vertical and horizontal integration. Simply put, in the old days The Bell System owned it all, wires, phones, factories making phones, service people, and you had to do business with them if you wanted to use a phone. (unless you lived in an area with an independent telco) Ma Bell even owned the wires in your house that carried the phone transmission. Up to 1968 you could not even plug in your own phone to their wires, you had to rent their phone from them to use their system.
Today if you hate at&t you can pull the plug on them and go with someone else for your telephone needs.
Here in my part of California we still have one government sanctioned and regulated monopoly with vertical and horizontal integration that we must use, the power company Pacific Gas and Electric. PG&E is your sole choice for power here, you may not buy it from anyone else, and if you don't like that then you can buy a generator or solar panels and make your own. Sadly, PG&E is not The Bell System, due to a combination of the political climate of California that regulates them and their corporate culture. Their field service techs are top notch however, no complaints about them.