On Tuesday, September 2, 2003, at 09:11 PM, Michael Richardson wrote:
Last IETF in Minneapolis, I couldn't call my home.
Why? new exchange in Ottawa. 715. Minneapolis thinks that is an area
code... Wisconsin. No operator could understand this concept or
problem, and
even 1800 calling card access seemed screwed. I SMS'ed or IRC'ed my
wife
to say I was going to my room, and she called me.
Five "9"s indeed :-)
wandering a little off topic...
My experience is the phone system in USA is far inferior to in Canada.
In Silicon Valley of all places, I would get max 28.8 on a noisy line
with a 56K modem, and get DSL? joking... There's a huge debate about
cell phones failing in the states in the powerout but my cell phone in
Toronto worked A-OK.
"All four Canadian cellphone service providers reported sporadic
connections during the power outage, but defended the overall wireless
performance."
http://www.canada.com/technology/story.html?id=6B2CB9DE-F15C-46A1-BCF2-
04888F2098AC
"All four large mobile players, a group that includes Bell Canada and
Microcell Telecommunications Inc., suffered problems during the power
outage. AT THE WORST [emphasis mine], it is estimated that between
one-fifth and one-quarter of mobile networks did not work."
http://www.globetechnology.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20030821.ucell0821/
BNStory/Technology/
compare: NY City...
"cell phone service got worse, not better, as the blackout continued,
when thousands of cell phone towers and transmitters lost power because
their battery backups only lasted from two to six hours. Cell phone
companies didn't have enough generators to recharge the batteries and
found that recharging was an hours-long process for each of the
thousands of cell phone transmitters in New York."
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/9590.shtml
simon
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