Reassuring, but I'm STILL not putting my clever phone close to my head during a call.
5G vs Visible Light
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5G vs Visible Light
Reassuring, but I'm STILL not putting my clever phone close to my head during a call.
Re: 5G vs Visible Light
That picture doesn't really give a true picture.
It is only showing the low band 5G range of 600 mHz to 6 gHz.
5G also uses 30 to 300 gHz. Usually within 24-86 gHz.
Microwaves are 300 gHz!
You wouldn't hold a microwave up to your head I hope!
It is only showing the low band 5G range of 600 mHz to 6 gHz.
5G also uses 30 to 300 gHz. Usually within 24-86 gHz.
Microwaves are 300 gHz!
You wouldn't hold a microwave up to your head I hope!
Re: 5G vs Visible Light
By far the majority of 5G is in the 2.5GHz to 4.2Ghz range.
Re: 5G vs Visible Light
True, but that is on the low-band side of 5G.
It's the high-band side they don't talk about that is on the 24-86 gHz band.
I really don't understand why they want to get up in such high band areas, because the distance is severely limited.
I know when we were playing with microwave frequencies, we had strictly line of site and even with the best reflector antenna it didn't work very well.
To use the upper band of 5G cell towers would have to be about a mile apart to have even decent coverage.
Besides my 2 meter, 220, and 440 radios, I also had a 1200 and it was basically useless until they put a repeater on top of the bank in front of my house, and then the 1200 signal was converted by the repeater to 440 to reach their other repeater which converted it back to 1200 for the guys in that area. So I really only had one area I could talk to where others had 1200 radios. I eventually sold it to one of those guys for a little less than I paid for it.
It's the high-band side they don't talk about that is on the 24-86 gHz band.
I really don't understand why they want to get up in such high band areas, because the distance is severely limited.
I know when we were playing with microwave frequencies, we had strictly line of site and even with the best reflector antenna it didn't work very well.
To use the upper band of 5G cell towers would have to be about a mile apart to have even decent coverage.
Besides my 2 meter, 220, and 440 radios, I also had a 1200 and it was basically useless until they put a repeater on top of the bank in front of my house, and then the 1200 signal was converted by the repeater to 440 to reach their other repeater which converted it back to 1200 for the guys in that area. So I really only had one area I could talk to where others had 1200 radios. I eventually sold it to one of those guys for a little less than I paid for it.
Re: 5G vs Visible Light
Not too many years ago the FCC reallocated and auctioned off a huge part of the broadcast spectrum. There aren't enough low frequencies for everybody who needs then so that they gobbled up the high end in hopes there would be a use for them. The bulk of the business is still in the non-harmful end of the spectrum. That's all that chart is telling you.
Re: 5G vs Visible Light
Just hit this, thought you would like to know.
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Yeppers, the FCC has not only sold off more space than they should have, they have also upped the prices so only the most profitable large broadcasters can afford a band now.
You can laugh, but the Ham Radio Club I belonged to back in St. Louis was experimenting with wireless packet radio using laser light beams between two buildings and eventually got it working up to 3 miles apart.
Ironically, it was not the way you think, it didn't work by how far the laser could shine, it worked by how good the receiver could see the light source. Sorta like looking at the stars through a telescope. The receiver had to see the high speed light pulses, the light did not have to hit the receiver.
I know, that sounded Odd to me too. But when you think about it, it does make sense.
Think of the ships at sea using handheld lights with the shutters on them.
The light did not have to be bright enough to reach the ship it was sending the message to.
But the ship receiving the message had to be able to see the light on the ship doing the sending.
A much simpler way of doing things, and cheaper too!
The problem the club had with getting their system working had to do with the amount of humidity and dust in the air that we cannot see with our eyes. Both moisture particles and dust particles block and scatter a light beam rendering it useless as far as reaching a destination. But in reverse, the eye (or receiver) can see the light, but due to particles in the air may not be able to determine the high speed pulses properly. I forget now what color they found to work the best for their tests, but it was not invisible light like infrared or UV, just plain old laser lights in a certain color frequency.
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Yeppers, the FCC has not only sold off more space than they should have, they have also upped the prices so only the most profitable large broadcasters can afford a band now.
You can laugh, but the Ham Radio Club I belonged to back in St. Louis was experimenting with wireless packet radio using laser light beams between two buildings and eventually got it working up to 3 miles apart.
Ironically, it was not the way you think, it didn't work by how far the laser could shine, it worked by how good the receiver could see the light source. Sorta like looking at the stars through a telescope. The receiver had to see the high speed light pulses, the light did not have to hit the receiver.
I know, that sounded Odd to me too. But when you think about it, it does make sense.
Think of the ships at sea using handheld lights with the shutters on them.
The light did not have to be bright enough to reach the ship it was sending the message to.
But the ship receiving the message had to be able to see the light on the ship doing the sending.
A much simpler way of doing things, and cheaper too!
The problem the club had with getting their system working had to do with the amount of humidity and dust in the air that we cannot see with our eyes. Both moisture particles and dust particles block and scatter a light beam rendering it useless as far as reaching a destination. But in reverse, the eye (or receiver) can see the light, but due to particles in the air may not be able to determine the high speed pulses properly. I forget now what color they found to work the best for their tests, but it was not invisible light like infrared or UV, just plain old laser lights in a certain color frequency.
Re: 5G vs Visible Light
Seeing the light and receiving the light directly is all the same thing, unless we are talking about religion. It's only possible to "see" the light because the photons emitted from the source are reaching the detector. Be it fully in focus coordinated beams or the scattered light out of focus. If it's all coming from the same source it's all the same light. Some of what you were seeing indirectly was likely due to those airborne dust and moisture particles being deflected off the main beam.
Thank you for the error report. I too have seen that a time or two. It may be time to jiggle the chains of our helpdesk, assuming they are still working.
Thank you for the error report. I too have seen that a time or two. It may be time to jiggle the chains of our helpdesk, assuming they are still working.
Re: 5G vs Visible Light
With so many folks home, working from home, or playing games, I know Comcast is cycling through 1 hour shut down times.
But not if businesses are on that hub, node, or port, whatever it is.
Seems only residential lines are getting cut off for one hour, and only one or two, so it doesn't affect a whole lot of people I guess. It only hit us once from 11 to noon yesterday, or was that the day before? It could be more often, but I'm not on the Internet all the time, hi hi. I know when our connection is dropped because the phone box will change to red and Echo Screen on the one in the kitchen will turn orange, hi hi. The Echo dot up here don't do anything except say I have no connection if you ask it to do something, otherwise I don't know, unless I try getting on-line.
OK, you may be right about the photons.
But, since I live on top of the mountain, I can look over to those who live on top of the mountain to my north, and see all the porch lights on. But I know those little 40 watt porch lights are not illuminating the side of my house from 3 miles away. I can still see them though! So I agree they do have to be reaching me in order for me to see them. But as far as having enough power to be seen by a solar cell, nada.
I have a Spotting Scope and with it, I can even see a few illuminated doorbell buttons that only use a little neon light.
I can hold my camera up to the lens of the spotting scope and get a picture of that doorbell light.
So, I would say it is possible to capture the light from something you know can't possibly shine that far away.
OK, so the light does have to reach me, I'll grant you that!
Since we won't know a star burned out for possibly years until the light it emitted reaches us.
Still, I don't know why their first transmission set-up didn't work, until they decided to use a hi-gain receiver and power down the light source to a lower level. Interesting, very interesting!
But not if businesses are on that hub, node, or port, whatever it is.
Seems only residential lines are getting cut off for one hour, and only one or two, so it doesn't affect a whole lot of people I guess. It only hit us once from 11 to noon yesterday, or was that the day before? It could be more often, but I'm not on the Internet all the time, hi hi. I know when our connection is dropped because the phone box will change to red and Echo Screen on the one in the kitchen will turn orange, hi hi. The Echo dot up here don't do anything except say I have no connection if you ask it to do something, otherwise I don't know, unless I try getting on-line.
OK, you may be right about the photons.
But, since I live on top of the mountain, I can look over to those who live on top of the mountain to my north, and see all the porch lights on. But I know those little 40 watt porch lights are not illuminating the side of my house from 3 miles away. I can still see them though! So I agree they do have to be reaching me in order for me to see them. But as far as having enough power to be seen by a solar cell, nada.
I have a Spotting Scope and with it, I can even see a few illuminated doorbell buttons that only use a little neon light.
I can hold my camera up to the lens of the spotting scope and get a picture of that doorbell light.
So, I would say it is possible to capture the light from something you know can't possibly shine that far away.
OK, so the light does have to reach me, I'll grant you that!
Since we won't know a star burned out for possibly years until the light it emitted reaches us.
Still, I don't know why their first transmission set-up didn't work, until they decided to use a hi-gain receiver and power down the light source to a lower level. Interesting, very interesting!
Re: 5G vs Visible Light
Stars are an excellent example of how light works. Astronomers have photographed objects in the sky that are known to be 13 billion light years away. That's damned near when the entire universe started. How is it possible to capture light from that distance? Well, in space there is a lot of ... space. In other words the successful sighting of something billions of light years distant is only possible because nothing between here and there absorbed the photons emitted by the object. So, if stars of that magnitude can be viewed, and photographed, why not a LASER beam only a few miles away?
Comcast is infamously known for the quality of it's service. I don't know what their problem is, but I've seldom heard an encouraging word when people talk about that company's service. The blackouts you tell about are attempts to level the loading on their servers. Obviously the increase in traffic is too much for their network and they have to do something. Emergency services should have priority and zero downtime. Everybody else should have equal access, but as you point out there seems to be throttling for some and not for others. The alternative to blackouts would be slower speeds. Well, you say the speed is slower anyway so making the speed the same for everybody would not likely affect your connection noticeably. My ISP has been throttling for a long time but I've not been affected much because I don't do much on the network.
Comcast is infamously known for the quality of it's service. I don't know what their problem is, but I've seldom heard an encouraging word when people talk about that company's service. The blackouts you tell about are attempts to level the loading on their servers. Obviously the increase in traffic is too much for their network and they have to do something. Emergency services should have priority and zero downtime. Everybody else should have equal access, but as you point out there seems to be throttling for some and not for others. The alternative to blackouts would be slower speeds. Well, you say the speed is slower anyway so making the speed the same for everybody would not likely affect your connection noticeably. My ISP has been throttling for a long time but I've not been affected much because I don't do much on the network.
Re: 5G vs Visible Light
I wasn't involved with the laser transmitter/receiver project the radio club was working on, so only had hearsay regarding it.
Part of our town is handled by Charter, and our side of town by Comcast. No matter how bad Comcast is, they are better than what I hear about Charter, as far as up-time goes. But the big difference between the two is Charter does not throttle anyone while Comcast throttles everyone, probably because of the way they bill.
When I first signed up with Comcast (I have the service card right here in my hand), their bottom tier service was 6 Mbps down/1 Mbps up. Compared to my 56k dialup, it was lighting fast, hi hi.
Then they came along with a new contract and said Twice the Speed, Same Price, but you had to upgrade your contract.
OK, no price change, so we did it, we then had 12 Mbps down/1 Mbps up.
Then we could opt to pay 5 bucks more and get Power Boost, which made it 15 down/3 up.
We had some trouble with our line for some reason. TV signal was horrible. But at no cost to us, they switched us from our Performance Package up to the Performance Plus package, which later was renamed Blast.
At first it was a slower connection for us 8 down/2 up, but they fixed that real quick to 16 down/2 up.
When we cancelled their TV Cable and had Internet Only, they jumped the price from 55 bucks a month to 79 bucks a month, and we could only get their Ultra Package for Internet Only. On the bright side, that was 22 down/5 up.
For a buck a month more we could get Power Boost added back on again, this changed us to 30 down/5 up.
After we caught them charging us for our own equipment to the tune of about 1000 bucks, they only refunded 120 dollars no matter how much we argued with them. We complained enough about it, some of that was public complaints filed with city hall who handles cable service. They finally agreed to reduce our rate to 50 bucks a month for 1 year, which they did. And ironically when they went back to charging us 80 bucks a month, our speed jumped up so that we now usually get 45 down/5 up and sometimes a little higher, I've seen 60 down a few times. But then it depends on which server I connect to for the Speedtest. If it is from Comcast to Comcast it always shows super high, but if I pick someone else like Spectrum in Denver, I get around 40 to 45 Mbps.
I was really surprised when I did a check to London, England and was getting 60 Mbps once. Usually it is around 25 Mbps is all. Which is still lightning fast!
No matter how fast the Internet itself is, when you are downloading from a website, it is how fast that website can dish up the packets they send to you, and not many, especially if they are a busy hosting service, can send very fast. Have to wait for their tape drive and Commodore 64 to put the data on-line, hi hi.
Part of our town is handled by Charter, and our side of town by Comcast. No matter how bad Comcast is, they are better than what I hear about Charter, as far as up-time goes. But the big difference between the two is Charter does not throttle anyone while Comcast throttles everyone, probably because of the way they bill.
When I first signed up with Comcast (I have the service card right here in my hand), their bottom tier service was 6 Mbps down/1 Mbps up. Compared to my 56k dialup, it was lighting fast, hi hi.
Then they came along with a new contract and said Twice the Speed, Same Price, but you had to upgrade your contract.
OK, no price change, so we did it, we then had 12 Mbps down/1 Mbps up.
Then we could opt to pay 5 bucks more and get Power Boost, which made it 15 down/3 up.
We had some trouble with our line for some reason. TV signal was horrible. But at no cost to us, they switched us from our Performance Package up to the Performance Plus package, which later was renamed Blast.
At first it was a slower connection for us 8 down/2 up, but they fixed that real quick to 16 down/2 up.
When we cancelled their TV Cable and had Internet Only, they jumped the price from 55 bucks a month to 79 bucks a month, and we could only get their Ultra Package for Internet Only. On the bright side, that was 22 down/5 up.
For a buck a month more we could get Power Boost added back on again, this changed us to 30 down/5 up.
After we caught them charging us for our own equipment to the tune of about 1000 bucks, they only refunded 120 dollars no matter how much we argued with them. We complained enough about it, some of that was public complaints filed with city hall who handles cable service. They finally agreed to reduce our rate to 50 bucks a month for 1 year, which they did. And ironically when they went back to charging us 80 bucks a month, our speed jumped up so that we now usually get 45 down/5 up and sometimes a little higher, I've seen 60 down a few times. But then it depends on which server I connect to for the Speedtest. If it is from Comcast to Comcast it always shows super high, but if I pick someone else like Spectrum in Denver, I get around 40 to 45 Mbps.
I was really surprised when I did a check to London, England and was getting 60 Mbps once. Usually it is around 25 Mbps is all. Which is still lightning fast!
No matter how fast the Internet itself is, when you are downloading from a website, it is how fast that website can dish up the packets they send to you, and not many, especially if they are a busy hosting service, can send very fast. Have to wait for their tape drive and Commodore 64 to put the data on-line, hi hi.
Re: 5G vs Visible Light
Back in the old country where I had Earthlink's version of DSL, I was giving them $40 a month for 6MB d/l and 1 MB up. I read where DSL could actually handle about twice that but it would require an upgrade on the host server. Earthlink is available here in O'Fallon and I was tempted to keep them until I looked up some ISP reviews for this area. Three or four companies are available and none of them rated better than 54% (I believe) customer satisfaction. Earthlink was down in the single digits but Charter/Spectrum had the highest ratings. So, Spectrum got my business.
The original contract was for 100MB d/l and ... I don't recall the upload but it was slightly more than 1 MB. It cost me the same $40 for that, but the catch was that I had to have their cable service and phone service as well. I never was a fan of VOIP but I decided to go that way because it eliminate one bill from the local telco that way. Recently Spectrum came up with a deal where I can get 300MB d/l for an additional $20/month. Sounds good and I might have fallen for it. I was consistently getting that 100MB d/l the first year we had it, but now it sits around 40MB. Occasionally I'll see that 100MB, but it's rare. The contract reads, "up to 100MB" download, and as you point out much of that is server dependent. There was an effort on Charter's part to buy out Sprint recently. It was an on-again off-again kind of deal and the feds were playing games with it. I don't know the outcome because of the general slowdown due to this virus thing, but I can say this. Charter/Spectrum apparently have a superior network infrastructure. The uptime here is near 99%, but the speed varies all day long.
Speaking of uptime, I've not seen any 508 server errors today from our host. I have experienced significant delays in connect time but at least we are staying connected. They must have read my threats to open a trouble ticket. I always give them a hard time. LOL
The original contract was for 100MB d/l and ... I don't recall the upload but it was slightly more than 1 MB. It cost me the same $40 for that, but the catch was that I had to have their cable service and phone service as well. I never was a fan of VOIP but I decided to go that way because it eliminate one bill from the local telco that way. Recently Spectrum came up with a deal where I can get 300MB d/l for an additional $20/month. Sounds good and I might have fallen for it. I was consistently getting that 100MB d/l the first year we had it, but now it sits around 40MB. Occasionally I'll see that 100MB, but it's rare. The contract reads, "up to 100MB" download, and as you point out much of that is server dependent. There was an effort on Charter's part to buy out Sprint recently. It was an on-again off-again kind of deal and the feds were playing games with it. I don't know the outcome because of the general slowdown due to this virus thing, but I can say this. Charter/Spectrum apparently have a superior network infrastructure. The uptime here is near 99%, but the speed varies all day long.
Speaking of uptime, I've not seen any 508 server errors today from our host. I have experienced significant delays in connect time but at least we are staying connected. They must have read my threats to open a trouble ticket. I always give them a hard time. LOL
Re: 5G vs Visible Light
Although we did have Cable TV, we never had Cable Internet with it until Debi's son stayed with us for a few months.
I still used my 56k modem and kept all of my accounts in St. Louis. I could connect to them using our local bank.
Since most of what I did only required sending a text file, and I worked on it off-line anyhow, 56k was plenty good.
It may have taken a little while to upload a remake of my websites, but that was only about once a month back then.
After Jason moved out, Debi just kept the Cable Internet and I linked to it also.
However, getting it changed over to my name after he moved out became a royal PITA to get handled.
The Cable TV was in Debi's mom's name and phone number, which we no longer had after she passed away.
The Cable Internet was part of an add-on package under his name, password, and phone number.
And none of us were authorized to make changes to the contracts.
I was already well spoiled using Cable Internet so going back to 56k for a few months while we waited for the contracts to expire didn't help a whole lot at first. They said we are already wired for cable to this house.
I waited another month or so, and ordered it under my name as a new resident. Took their package of TV and Internet, but not their phone since I had two landlines at the time and didn't think VOIP worked all that well back then.
When the contract ran out, Debi dropped the TV and went with DirecTV satellite. Comcast upped my Internet price from 55 to 79 bucks, and it has kept going up from there.
We didn't have many outages, unless they were from something physical, like a downed power pole.
But their speed kept going down and down and down, until they added more whatevers in their office to lighten the load on each whatever, hi hi.
I know I mentioned AT&Ts attempt to get me on DSL. They kept hounding me so I had the guy come out a few times. The sales department lies big time, and even the installer guy had to laugh as we sat their and had a soda before he sent in his no can do ticket, DSL not functioning in this area, hi hi.
I still used my 56k modem and kept all of my accounts in St. Louis. I could connect to them using our local bank.
Since most of what I did only required sending a text file, and I worked on it off-line anyhow, 56k was plenty good.
It may have taken a little while to upload a remake of my websites, but that was only about once a month back then.
After Jason moved out, Debi just kept the Cable Internet and I linked to it also.
However, getting it changed over to my name after he moved out became a royal PITA to get handled.
The Cable TV was in Debi's mom's name and phone number, which we no longer had after she passed away.
The Cable Internet was part of an add-on package under his name, password, and phone number.
And none of us were authorized to make changes to the contracts.
I was already well spoiled using Cable Internet so going back to 56k for a few months while we waited for the contracts to expire didn't help a whole lot at first. They said we are already wired for cable to this house.
I waited another month or so, and ordered it under my name as a new resident. Took their package of TV and Internet, but not their phone since I had two landlines at the time and didn't think VOIP worked all that well back then.
When the contract ran out, Debi dropped the TV and went with DirecTV satellite. Comcast upped my Internet price from 55 to 79 bucks, and it has kept going up from there.
We didn't have many outages, unless they were from something physical, like a downed power pole.
But their speed kept going down and down and down, until they added more whatevers in their office to lighten the load on each whatever, hi hi.
I know I mentioned AT&Ts attempt to get me on DSL. They kept hounding me so I had the guy come out a few times. The sales department lies big time, and even the installer guy had to laugh as we sat their and had a soda before he sent in his no can do ticket, DSL not functioning in this area, hi hi.
Re: 5G vs Visible Light
You are right about DSL having a short range. They claim it is about 5 miles, but I'd hate to be the last guy in that chain. The telco office was about two miles from my house as the cable lays, and the distribution box was 500-600 feet from my doorway. The service guy showed me how the signal pegged his meter. So, when the DSL went out, it was because the whole phone line went out and not just the carrier on top of that. AT&T sent sales people to our neighborhood on a regular basis. I was happy with my 6MB from Earthlink but they were offering 40MB for less; at least it would be less for the first year. They were very enthusiastic about it and could not understand why I would not convert. First of all I was obligated to Earthlink for several more months because they gave me a "free" modem, and secondly I could have got 100MB from somebody other than AT&T. Truth was I only needed 6MB to do what I was doing. Now that I've seen what "up to 100MB" can do, I'd never go back. LOL
The only reason I went off my 56k dial-up was because YouTube kept lagging. A lot of the web sites I visited had streaming content and it just was too erratic on dial-up. Otherwise Windows 98 and dial-up suit me just fine.
Looks like our hosting service is back to it's normal speed today. I don't know what the original problem was, but apparently they fixed it. For today.
The only reason I went off my 56k dial-up was because YouTube kept lagging. A lot of the web sites I visited had streaming content and it just was too erratic on dial-up. Otherwise Windows 98 and dial-up suit me just fine.
Looks like our hosting service is back to it's normal speed today. I don't know what the original problem was, but apparently they fixed it. For today.
Re: 5G vs Visible Light
I don't remember how it worked anymore, not that I really understood anyhow.
But before Jason got Cable, his computer used a dual-modem set-up, and I think he had two telephone lines also.
Yes he did, I remember he said one of them had to be a dedicated line, and did not take inbound phone calls.
He needed it for one of the multi-player games he was playing.
My old computer that keeps overheating so I don't use it, still has the 56k modem port in it.
Useless since none of the access points I did have still have dial-up available, except for credit card machines.
I doubt trying to use it over VOIP would work either, even if I had access somewhere.
I gave my win95 and both win98 machines to a local ham group, along with a box of cards for all kinds of things.
Have no idea what they did with them, but all were working. Also gave the CGA monitor along with the win95 machine.
Those machines ran so slow, you would grow whiskers waiting for them to even bring up a game of solitaire, hi hi.
But before Jason got Cable, his computer used a dual-modem set-up, and I think he had two telephone lines also.
Yes he did, I remember he said one of them had to be a dedicated line, and did not take inbound phone calls.
He needed it for one of the multi-player games he was playing.
My old computer that keeps overheating so I don't use it, still has the 56k modem port in it.
Useless since none of the access points I did have still have dial-up available, except for credit card machines.
I doubt trying to use it over VOIP would work either, even if I had access somewhere.
I gave my win95 and both win98 machines to a local ham group, along with a box of cards for all kinds of things.
Have no idea what they did with them, but all were working. Also gave the CGA monitor along with the win95 machine.
Those machines ran so slow, you would grow whiskers waiting for them to even bring up a game of solitaire, hi hi.
Re: 5G vs Visible Light
Windows 95 was buggy and I never got into it. I avoided Windows 8 for the same reasons. You are right about that generation of OS being slow. It was all of 16 bits if I recall correctly and couldn't go fast even if it had fiber connected to it. I had a lot of games on that computer and they were all reasonable. None of the purchased games were networked so that they could run at full speed. That Win 98 box was also the last time I ran Windows Office Suite. Went to open source after that and never looked back.
I had two phone lines in my last house. One was dedicated to the computer and I never gave out that number. I wanted to make that a dedicated DSL line and drop the landline when I got cell phone capability. For some reason Earthlink would not do it. They had no problem with the dedicated line, but I also had to have a regular voice line because DSL could not be standalone. I'm thinking the cable companies had something to do with that rule because AT&T wasn't in the cable business yet.
I had two phone lines in my last house. One was dedicated to the computer and I never gave out that number. I wanted to make that a dedicated DSL line and drop the landline when I got cell phone capability. For some reason Earthlink would not do it. They had no problem with the dedicated line, but I also had to have a regular voice line because DSL could not be standalone. I'm thinking the cable companies had something to do with that rule because AT&T wasn't in the cable business yet.
Re: 5G vs Visible Light
Before I forget, Happy Easter Yogi!
I didn't buy msOffice until I got Windows XP. Did almost everything on Windows WRITE back then.
Didn't know about Open Office until after I moved over to Linux the first time, but I liked it a whole lot better than msWord. I think my last copy of Office is the 2000 version, which is like 6 years before I made a full switch to Linux.
After I moved to Creve Coeur I got an Inward Watts, which later became the 800 number system. Kept it for many years too. My reason for getting it was because the kids rarely had enough change in their pocket to make a phone call, and pay phones were everywhere back then. This way they did not have an excuse not to call.
When I had Inward Watts, I knew the call was coming in on my Watts line, so kept the calls as short as possible, because I paid by the second for that lines usage. When they converted it to 800 service, I no longer could tell if the call was coming in on the 800 number or not, but then too they only charged by the full minute and a lot less than Inward Watts. Even so, I harped at them enough about it, they suggested I get a second phone. They offered me a deal I couldn't pass up, and that number was unlisted too, which they used to charge extra for, but didn't charge me extra since I had the 800 number sent to it. But like everything else, the cost kept going up a little more each year until I finally dropped the 800 number. Ironically, when I went to do so, they offered it for me to keep it for only something like 4 or 5 bucks a month, so I did for the term of that contract, then dropped it, and had the second phone line changed to digital only, which was something new they tried for awhile. I could not use it for voice calls.
After I moved south, every time my landline cost more than 30 bucks a month, I called to cancel it, and they would make sure it dropped back down to 29 bucks again for like 6 months, hi hi. Then when they wouldn't do that, I had them turn it off. I was using a very faulty VOIP plug-in for a short while, I think it was called MagicJack, and we also had our cell phones. I was so pleased when I got Ooma, crystal clear all the time, and it is Free except for taxes. I do pay 9 bucks a month to get the blacklist and other features I never use, but I love all the blacklisting services they added. For me it is well worth it not to be disturbed so much. I still get calls from illegal callers using real peoples and business phone numbers they are not supposed to do, but I just add them to my blacklist. Rarely get more than 1 or 2 calls a day now!
One of my friends I made on-line said his city has changed their Internet Policy for Cable providers.
As their contracts expire, they can no longer have two streets side by side anymore, or a whole zone to themselves.
However, they can run individual residential cables from one street to another if a customer requests them instead of the one now on their street. But the customer has to pay for the lateral cable run. He thinks a lateral run is allowed to service four houses though, if those folks want their original service back.
I actually wish they would do something like that here. Charter on one street Comcast on the next, and perhaps AT&T on another. AT&T is who has all the fiber optic cable here, but each cable company leases time on them, and they only run along or under the shoulder of the major highways.
I didn't buy msOffice until I got Windows XP. Did almost everything on Windows WRITE back then.
Didn't know about Open Office until after I moved over to Linux the first time, but I liked it a whole lot better than msWord. I think my last copy of Office is the 2000 version, which is like 6 years before I made a full switch to Linux.
After I moved to Creve Coeur I got an Inward Watts, which later became the 800 number system. Kept it for many years too. My reason for getting it was because the kids rarely had enough change in their pocket to make a phone call, and pay phones were everywhere back then. This way they did not have an excuse not to call.
When I had Inward Watts, I knew the call was coming in on my Watts line, so kept the calls as short as possible, because I paid by the second for that lines usage. When they converted it to 800 service, I no longer could tell if the call was coming in on the 800 number or not, but then too they only charged by the full minute and a lot less than Inward Watts. Even so, I harped at them enough about it, they suggested I get a second phone. They offered me a deal I couldn't pass up, and that number was unlisted too, which they used to charge extra for, but didn't charge me extra since I had the 800 number sent to it. But like everything else, the cost kept going up a little more each year until I finally dropped the 800 number. Ironically, when I went to do so, they offered it for me to keep it for only something like 4 or 5 bucks a month, so I did for the term of that contract, then dropped it, and had the second phone line changed to digital only, which was something new they tried for awhile. I could not use it for voice calls.
After I moved south, every time my landline cost more than 30 bucks a month, I called to cancel it, and they would make sure it dropped back down to 29 bucks again for like 6 months, hi hi. Then when they wouldn't do that, I had them turn it off. I was using a very faulty VOIP plug-in for a short while, I think it was called MagicJack, and we also had our cell phones. I was so pleased when I got Ooma, crystal clear all the time, and it is Free except for taxes. I do pay 9 bucks a month to get the blacklist and other features I never use, but I love all the blacklisting services they added. For me it is well worth it not to be disturbed so much. I still get calls from illegal callers using real peoples and business phone numbers they are not supposed to do, but I just add them to my blacklist. Rarely get more than 1 or 2 calls a day now!
One of my friends I made on-line said his city has changed their Internet Policy for Cable providers.
As their contracts expire, they can no longer have two streets side by side anymore, or a whole zone to themselves.
However, they can run individual residential cables from one street to another if a customer requests them instead of the one now on their street. But the customer has to pay for the lateral cable run. He thinks a lateral run is allowed to service four houses though, if those folks want their original service back.
I actually wish they would do something like that here. Charter on one street Comcast on the next, and perhaps AT&T on another. AT&T is who has all the fiber optic cable here, but each cable company leases time on them, and they only run along or under the shoulder of the major highways.
Re: 5G vs Visible Light
Hindsight is always better than foresight. The cable service providers should be run like the electricity grid: One set of infrastructure wires and many providers. The problem in the cable industry now is that the FCC removed the common carrier classification from the ISP's and they no longer qualify as an essential utility. This removed a lot of regulations for which the companies are happy, but it makes sharing resources very expensive. We know about that when we buy service from an ISP. Because those cable people are not common carriers de facto monopolies are allowed to be created. Municipalities are the enablers because they get astronomical fees to let it all happen.
5G might be the straw that breaks the back of landlines. It has the capacity to handle the load, but, unfortunately, it won't change the FCC ruling about common carriers. Thus the option for multiple providers in a given area will remain pretty much what it is today. It boils down to the fiber cables and the cell towers and who will pay for all that infrastructure. The feds have the resources to do it, but they don't have the incentive.
5G might be the straw that breaks the back of landlines. It has the capacity to handle the load, but, unfortunately, it won't change the FCC ruling about common carriers. Thus the option for multiple providers in a given area will remain pretty much what it is today. It boils down to the fiber cables and the cell towers and who will pay for all that infrastructure. The feds have the resources to do it, but they don't have the incentive.
Re: 5G vs Visible Light
The church my bro-in-law goes to leased a 3/4 acre scare of land to a cell tower company who built the tower.
In exchange, besides money, they maintain the whole side parking lot from the road back to their chain link fence.
The attorney who drew up the contract was smart enough to add an additional charge for each service installed on the tower. Including provisions for new types of services which include upgrades to existing services.
One interesting thing though is the leasing of this land, and the fees collected, must be handled as a business apart from church business. The business then donates all profits to the church, and yes they pay taxes on the income first.
It's not a lot of money, started out at 500 bucks a year for the land and perhaps another 12 dollars per month for all the services. The land stayed the same, but the services are now up to like 25 or 30 bucks per month.
Quite a contrast to what another church inside a heavily populated city area is getting. They get over 500 bucks a month, not 500 bucks a year. Location, Location, Location, dictates how much they pay. I've heard of some property owners getting over 50 grand a year.
I would love to have one on the top of my hill, but somebody down the road beat me to it, hi hi.
In exchange, besides money, they maintain the whole side parking lot from the road back to their chain link fence.
The attorney who drew up the contract was smart enough to add an additional charge for each service installed on the tower. Including provisions for new types of services which include upgrades to existing services.
One interesting thing though is the leasing of this land, and the fees collected, must be handled as a business apart from church business. The business then donates all profits to the church, and yes they pay taxes on the income first.
It's not a lot of money, started out at 500 bucks a year for the land and perhaps another 12 dollars per month for all the services. The land stayed the same, but the services are now up to like 25 or 30 bucks per month.
Quite a contrast to what another church inside a heavily populated city area is getting. They get over 500 bucks a month, not 500 bucks a year. Location, Location, Location, dictates how much they pay. I've heard of some property owners getting over 50 grand a year.
I would love to have one on the top of my hill, but somebody down the road beat me to it, hi hi.
Re: 5G vs Visible Light
My cousin married a guy who did site acquisitions for cell phone towers. He worked basically in and around the Chicago area and got to know just about everybody who was anybody. He should have been a politician but he was too honest. We talked about his work a few times but that was many years ago while I still was being paid to play with computers. About the only outstanding thing I recall is that they would not let him retire. Well, he could have retired at any time, but they kept offering him incentives he could not refuse. The thing is that there was more work than they had people to do it and he was very good at acquisitions. He might have told me what it costs to lease a site but I have long forgotten if he did. To my way of thinking that 3/4 acre serves the same purpose whether there is one antenna on the tower or 100. I don't see why location would matter for anything other than signal propagation. But real estate is real estate, I suppose.
Re: 5G vs Visible Light
The companies who own the towers themselves charge each service placed on the tower a healthy sum of money.
But you are correct, the tower company usually tries to negotiate only the amount of land they are using, and don't say anything about the services on the tower itself.
Nevertheless, I've heard some locations for a tower fetch over 100k per year, although that is like the highest cost.
Some locations on farm land are only like 100 bucks a year, if easily accessed.
Although I know the tower on one of Debi's cousins parents property gets them 550 dollars a year, and they maintain the access drive back to it. The drive runs from the road, down the edge of the field, then turns inward to get to the tower.
There is a fence around the tower, and a second fence 15 feet away from the first fence, but with rounded corners so they can drive a truck all the way around the tower. They maintain this drive, but it is of no use to the family. I think I heard they blacktopped the drive after Cindy's husband Robert passed away.
I know my neighbor across the street has a lease page for each utility pole his fiber optics are connected to, and a service contract with yet another company in case he needs maintenance. I think he may have bought the cable itself though, rather than lease it. Hard to tell much of anything, he is so hush-hush about everything.
My property extends to the top of Rodgers Ridge, a foothill to the Smoky Mountains. I left a wooded buffer zone near the top due to the activity on the other side of the hill. Odd things over there too. They built like four new houses about ten years ago. Saw them when I was able to walk up to the top. I was over that way on their private drive to take their dog back to the guy who owns most of the property there, and all of the houses are now gone except his. I thought that was rather strange. He is a working farm though, and there are tractor sheds where the houses used to be. So they were probably just slab houses to start with.
But as I said, a neighbor about 1/4 mile east of me, in the same subdivision, managed to land a contract and a tower was installed on top of the hill behind him. Probably has a better view up and down Chapman Highway than I have, also probably more accessible as well.
Comcast just mounts their WiFi boxes on utility poles to connect to their cable. But if you get down along Martin Mill Pike you will see both Charter and Comcast have poles about like a light standard with a WiFi box and an antenna or two or three at the top of the pole. A few have a cable and power line running to a utility pole, but I've never seen electric meters. Perhaps because the power consumption is a fixed rate? I know sign companies don't always have an electric meter on them, but still have lights on them, so maybe they pay a fixed rate also?
But you are correct, the tower company usually tries to negotiate only the amount of land they are using, and don't say anything about the services on the tower itself.
Nevertheless, I've heard some locations for a tower fetch over 100k per year, although that is like the highest cost.
Some locations on farm land are only like 100 bucks a year, if easily accessed.
Although I know the tower on one of Debi's cousins parents property gets them 550 dollars a year, and they maintain the access drive back to it. The drive runs from the road, down the edge of the field, then turns inward to get to the tower.
There is a fence around the tower, and a second fence 15 feet away from the first fence, but with rounded corners so they can drive a truck all the way around the tower. They maintain this drive, but it is of no use to the family. I think I heard they blacktopped the drive after Cindy's husband Robert passed away.
I know my neighbor across the street has a lease page for each utility pole his fiber optics are connected to, and a service contract with yet another company in case he needs maintenance. I think he may have bought the cable itself though, rather than lease it. Hard to tell much of anything, he is so hush-hush about everything.
My property extends to the top of Rodgers Ridge, a foothill to the Smoky Mountains. I left a wooded buffer zone near the top due to the activity on the other side of the hill. Odd things over there too. They built like four new houses about ten years ago. Saw them when I was able to walk up to the top. I was over that way on their private drive to take their dog back to the guy who owns most of the property there, and all of the houses are now gone except his. I thought that was rather strange. He is a working farm though, and there are tractor sheds where the houses used to be. So they were probably just slab houses to start with.
But as I said, a neighbor about 1/4 mile east of me, in the same subdivision, managed to land a contract and a tower was installed on top of the hill behind him. Probably has a better view up and down Chapman Highway than I have, also probably more accessible as well.
Comcast just mounts their WiFi boxes on utility poles to connect to their cable. But if you get down along Martin Mill Pike you will see both Charter and Comcast have poles about like a light standard with a WiFi box and an antenna or two or three at the top of the pole. A few have a cable and power line running to a utility pole, but I've never seen electric meters. Perhaps because the power consumption is a fixed rate? I know sign companies don't always have an electric meter on them, but still have lights on them, so maybe they pay a fixed rate also?