I think many ISPs see their own provided voice services as a way of making
it harder for you to swap ISP.
In message <u8rkvp$1n5q$1@dont-email.me> at Fri, 14 Jul 2023 14:10:01,
Tweed <usenet.tweed@gmail.com> writes
[]
I think many ISPs see their own provided voice services as a way of making >> it harder for you to swap ISP.Certainly by arranging contracts with different ending dates, and hefty charges for ending one of them early; I don't know if that was banned by
the line-rental-separate-banning legislation someone told us about, but PlusNet certainly used it a few years ago. It worked like this:
theoretical high prices for each service, but in practice provided at a discount if you took both from them (like gas and electric "duel fuel discounts" for energy providers - but in this case the discount was many times, not just a bit off). So if you stopped whichever contract ended
early (by switching it to another supplier), what was left on the other service contract was now at the full (and previously only theoretical) charge. And you couldn't terminate _that_ one early on the grounds the
cost had gone up, because it hadn't: you'd agreed that you'd accept the
"duel fuel" discount and that you'd lose it. (Terminating early
_without_ "good reason" involved you in an early termination penalty of
more or less the remaining fee anyway.)
Presumably VoIP transfers, at least to the same provider, will _not_
involve changing number. (Is it possible to change VoIP _provider_ and
retain number, as it is for fobile ones?)
[I just about know my number, after being here about 16 years - and
there are times I'm not entirely sure still!]
Is "short dialling" - where you only have to dial the digits after the
code, if calling someone on the same exchange - still available on VoIP?
Number portability exists for voip. I’ve moved a number that was originally >BT to Sipgate (voip) and then to Andrews and Arnold (voip). The latter
charge me £1.44 per month excluding any call charges, which gives you an >indication of the true economic cost of providing such a service.
Mobile networks do have a cost to keep your number active - a lot of their >software is licensed on a per user basis. It’s one reason why they have >various methods for getting some money out of you. 1p mobile is a good >example. They started off with no ongoing charge but found it to be >uneconomic. Now you have to top up £10 every 4 months.[]
In message <u8roc0$23qk$1@dont-email.me> at Fri, 14 Jul 2023 15:07:44,
Tweed <usenet.tweed@gmail.com> writes
[]
Number portability exists for voip. I’ve moved a number that was originallyInteresting; presumably that 1.44 - if as you say it's _ex_cluding call charges - is the "cost" of maintaining the accounting processes that
BT to Sipgate (voip) and then to Andrews and Arnold (voip). The latter
charge me £1.44 per month excluding any call charges, which gives you an
indication of the true economic cost of providing such a service.
keep your number active.
Given some mobile networks (admittedly, fewer and fewer) provide PAYG contracts for nothing (well, you have to make a call every month or
quarter), it seems a tad high. (OK, those could be a loss leader, but
back in the day when mobile started, PAYG was more or less the default,
and I can't see why the economics should have changed in that respect.
Unless OfCom - or some similar body - are now charging to limit the use
of numbers, but if they are, I'd have thought the PAYG mobiles would
also have a no-use monthly charge.)
A&A aren't known for cheapness, of course - quite the opposite (bit like Rolls Royce: if you have to ask the price, you can't afford them).
In message <u8te6l$au9t$1@dont-email.me> at Sat, 15 Jul 2023 06:26:29,
Tweed <usenet.tweed@gmail.com> writes
[]
Mobile networks do have a cost to keep your number active - a lot of their >> software is licensed on a per user basis. It’s one reason why they have[]
various methods for getting some money out of you. 1p mobile is a good
example. They started off with no ongoing charge but found it to be
uneconomic. Now you have to top up £10 every 4 months.
There are still no-ongoing-charge SIMs - they have very high per-minute charges, which is fair enough. (ASDA do one, for example - 15p a minute.
I have one.) I think you have to make a call every month or quarter on
them, but that's more to keep the number active (they reserve the right
to discontinue service if you don't use it, though I think they don't
always do so), rather than cost recovery.
On 13/07/2023 22:34, J. P. Gilliver wrote:
(_Will_ it support pulse dialling? I'll be surprised. Though presumablyThis claims to support using pulse and tone dial phones over VOIP
it _does_ supply the same sort of power the exchange currently does, for
corded 'phones with some electronics in. Though maybe not enough to ring
a mechanical bell.)
circuits. It might even work with OpenReach's version.
Reading the fine print it seems to only convert pulse dialling to tone >dialling, though.
https://www.vintagetelephony.co.uk/product/pulse-to-tone-converter-dial- >a-tone-dialatone
For those _wanting_ to use a pulse-dialling 'phone on VoIP, I was
surprised to find that some of the commonly-available adapters - the
common squarish one, for example - _do_ support pulse dialling. I
suppose they have to detect the off-hook situation, so adding that
support doesn't need extra hardware, but I was still surprised.
On 12/05/2024 10:09, J. P. Gilliver wrote:
For those _wanting_ to use a pulse-dialling 'phone on VoIP, I was >>surprised to find that some of the commonly-available adapters - the
common squarish one, for example - _do_ support pulse dialling. I
suppose they have to detect the off-hook situation, so adding that
support doesn't need extra hardware, but I was still surprised.
When I was on holiday, I used the phone that was provided (free of
charge!) in the holiday cottage for visitors' use. It was a modern
replica of a bakelite GPO phone (the one that preceded the GPO 706) and
it had a dial but it started generated pulse dialling when the dial had >*finished* rotating back to the rest point, rather then starting it as
the dial was released, as with the mechanical dials. It took me a
moment to work out what sounded wrong! And yes I *did* try dialling a
second digit before the first had finished pulsing - it handled that >gracefully by queuing up the pulses so the ones for the second digit
happened as soon as the first ones had finished (allowing for the guard >interval between one digit and the next).
In message <MxOdnTKtnISNNd37nZ2dnZfqn_adnZ2d@brightview.co.uk> at Sun,
12 May 2024 12:29:20, NY <me@privacy.net> writes
On 12/05/2024 10:09, J. P. Gilliver wrote:
For those _wanting_ to use a pulse-dialling 'phone on VoIP, I was
surprised to find that some of the commonly-available adapters - the
common squarish one, for example - _do_ support pulse dialling. I
suppose they have to detect the off-hook situation, so adding that
support doesn't need extra hardware, but I was still surprised.
When I was on holiday, I used the phone that was provided (free of
In Britain?
charge!) in the holiday cottage for visitors' use. It was a modern
replica of a bakelite GPO phone (the one that preceded the GPO 706)
and it had a dial but it started generated pulse dialling when the
dial had *finished* rotating back to the rest point, rather then
starting it as the dial was released, as with the mechanical dials. It
took me a
So it had a mechanical dial, that you actually turned (rather than one
of these with just pushbuttons arranged in a circle), but it _didn't_ generate the pulses as the dial returned, but waited until after it had before generating them (presumably electronically). One wonders why they
went to all that extra complication; if they had a dial-return
mechanism, why not use it!
Yes it seemed to be over-complicated. I think the dial returned much
more quickly that a real dial that was governed with a little fan so it >generated pulses at the correct rate, which meant that with this
replica phone you could dial numbers much faster than a proper dial
would allow - unless you forced an old-fashioned dial to return more
quickly - we've all tried that ;-)
This phone also had a pulse/DTMF switch that generated DTMF as the dial >returned to its rest position - that really *was* a culture shock.
In message <jx6cnQ6zaeSJit_7nZ2dnZfqnPWdnZ2d@brightview.co.uk> at Mon, 13
May 2024 14:35:14, NY <me@privacy.net> writes
[]
Yes it seemed to be over-complicated. I think the dial returned much more >>quickly that a real dial that was governed with a little fan so it >>generated pulses at the correct rate, which meant that with this
Oh, did they have a fly fan? I thought only the Great Clock (alias "Big
Ben" - yes, I know) had those! (And the failure of one of which caused the mechanism to run away and do a lot of damage.)
replica phone you could dial numbers much faster than a proper dial would >>allow - unless you forced an old-fashioned dial to return more quickly - >>we've all tried that ;-)
This phone also had a pulse/DTMF switch that generated DTMF as the dial >>returned to its rest position - that really *was* a culture shock.
But I suppose _would_ let you use it with a menuing system, none of which
in my experience [for reasons I can see] work with pulse dialling. (Which
the power companies haven't really thought through: if you dial 105,
you're met with a menuing system, and I suspect at least some people in a power cut might have had to go back to an old pulse 'phone. [If you just wait, it eventually connects you to a person.])
In message <jx6cnQ6zaeSJit_7nZ2dnZfqnPWdnZ2d@brightview.co.uk> at Mon,
13 May 2024 14:35:14, NY <me@privacy.net> writes
[]
Yes it seemed to be over-complicated. I think the dial returned much
more quickly that a real dial that was governed with a little fan so it
generated pulses at the correct rate, which meant that with this
Oh, did they have a fly fan? I thought only the Great Clock (alias "Big
Ben" - yes, I know) had those! (And the failure of one of which caused
the mechanism to run away and do a lot of damage.)
The only time I've used pulse dialling in the last few decades was when
the phone line or exchange at our old house developed a fault that
prevented certain digits from being dialled - presumably it affected
one of the dual-tones. So I switched my standby corded phone to pulse,
so I could dial BT faults to report the problem. This was before I knew
that there is a way of reporting it online.
I wonder how long pulse dialling will be supported. Do analogue-to-VOIP >interfaces understand pulse dialling as well as DTMF - the devices that
allow a DECT phone to be used with VOIP.
"J. P. Gilliver" <G6JPG@255soft.uk> wrote in message news:eGPe2fOdAsQmFwhG@255soft.uk...
In message <jx6cnQ6zaeSJit_7nZ2dnZfqnPWdnZ2d@brightview.co.uk> at Mon, 13 May 2024 14:35:14, NY <me@privacy.net> writes
[]
Yes it seemed to be over-complicated. I think the dial returned much more >>quickly that a real dial that was governed with a little fan so it >>generated pulses at the correct rate, which meant that with this
Oh, did they have a fly fan? I thought only the Great Clock (alias "Big Ben" - yes, I know) had those! (And the failure of one of which caused the mechanism to run away and do a lot of damage.)
I think from memory (when I looked at the dial on an old phone that my dad somehow acquired when I was a boy) there was a little hollow brass cylinder with a fan on a shaft inside it. The tube was presumably to create extra air resistance.
On 14/05/2024 02:36, J. P. Gilliver wrote:
In message <jx6cnQ6zaeSJit_7nZ2dnZfqnPWdnZ2d@brightview.co.uk> at Mon,
13 May 2024 14:35:14, NY <me@privacy.net> writes
[]
Yes it seemed to be over-complicated. I think the dial returned much
more quickly that a real dial that was governed with a little fan so it
generated pulses at the correct rate, which meant that with this
Oh, did they have a fly fan? I thought only the Great Clock (alias "Big Ben" - yes, I know) had those! (And the failure of one of which caused
the mechanism to run away and do a lot of damage.)
I think all clocks with chiming and/or striking mechanisms [1] have one
(or more) to ensure there is a reasonable space between the notes.
NY <me@privacy.invalid> wrote:
"J. P. Gilliver" <G6JPG@255soft.uk> wrote in message
news:eGPe2fOdAsQmFwhG@255soft.uk...
In message <jx6cnQ6zaeSJit_7nZ2dnZfqnPWdnZ2d@brightview.co.uk> at
Mon, 13 May 2024 14:35:14, NY <me@privacy.net> writes []
Yes it seemed to be over-complicated. I think the dial returned much
more quickly that a real dial that was governed with a little fan so
it generated pulses at the correct rate, which meant that with this
Oh, did they have a fly fan? I thought only the Great Clock (alias
"Big Ben" - yes, I know) had those! (And the failure of one of which
caused the mechanism to run away and do a lot of damage.)
I think from memory (when I looked at the dial on an old phone that my
dad somehow acquired when I was a boy) there was a little hollow brass
cylinder with a fan on a shaft inside it. The tube was presumably to
create extra air resistance.
Inside the cylinder were two rotating weights on leaf springs; as the
shaft rotated, the weights flew outwards and rubbed on the inside of the cylinder, acting as a friction brake. This was the speed governor, but
the drive train was even cleverer than that:
The dial return spring drove a gear and unidirectional clutch mechanism.
The clutch then drove the governor through a 'reversed' worm gear, which acted as a friction amplifier. By choosing a suitable helix angle, the friction of a worm and wheel can be arranged to increase with torque in
a controllable way, so a small amount of frictional load on the output
is multiplied many times by the losses in the worm drive (a form of mechanical positive feedback). This is what drove the shaft with the weights, so the friction generated by the weights inside the cylinder
did not need to be very great, yet was capable of resisting large
variations in the torque of the driving spring and any attempt by
'helpful' users to speed up the dial return.
A similar reversed-worm arrangment is used in clockwork gramophone governors.
I took one apart in 1958 and was surprised at the ingenuity of
construction.
| Sysop: | Keyop |
|---|---|
| Location: | Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, UK |
| Users: | 307 |
| Nodes: | 16 (2 / 14) |
| Uptime: | 92:43:35 |
| Calls: | 6,849 |
| Files: | 12,352 |
| Messages: | 5,414,682 |