On Mon, 15 Dec 2014 22:34:51 +1100, Peter Moylan wrote:

On 15/12/14 17:54, Steve Hayes wrote:

I've now realised that some people have been using "landline" to mean
something different from I mean by it, so having cleared up that confusion it
becomes a matter of English usage rather than one of communications
technology.

In my English "landline" means signals carried overland by electrical wires,
or cables, or optical fibre cables that are on the ground, under the ground,
or carried above the ground on poles. As opposed to "wireless", which to me
also means "cableless".

To me "cable" means a multistrand wire, or miltistand optical fibres, whether
coaxial, or used to support the weight of a cable car.

I almost agree with you, but not quite. I use "landline" to include the
entire PSTN. (Which means, approximately, that part of the telephone
system that does not include mobile (cell) phones.) Now (in my country,
but probably also in yours) that PSTN has a variety of intercity links,
including microwave links. The difference is that these are highly
directional station-to-station links, as distinct from "wireless" which
usually implies omnidirectional broadcasting.

For international connections, the PSTN uses undersea cables in some
cases, and satellite links in others. The latter are radio links, but
conventionally we do not describe them as "wireless" because they are
part of the PSTN. Informally, we consider them to be part of the
landline network, even if they don't travel over land.

Agreed, but when I talk of "my landline", I'm referring to a phone that is
connected by wire to the exchange, whether that wire be twisted pair or co-ax.
How the exchange connects to other exchanges, whether by copper wire, optic
fibre, microwave, or satellite, doesn't matter very much. It's a landline if
it has a wire attached to it (or to a base if it's wireless within the house).

If it's not a landline, it's a mobile/cell/satellite phone.

There used to be a firm called "Cable and wireless", and the "Cable" in their
name referred to messages sent via the PSTN. In my youth "cable" was quite
often used as a synonym for "telegram", again sent over the PSTN, especially
if it was longer than a single page, as in a press report.

Agreed, but I think that's obsolete terminology.

So I would be interested in knowing how widespread is the idea that "landline"
excludes "cable", because to me "cable" is included in the more general term
"landline", and the opposite of "landline" is not "cable", but "wireless" (and
"wireless" includes "satellite").

In Australia "a cable" is the twisted pair or the coaxial cable or
whatever that forms a wired link, and it's used that way by electrical
engineers. In the context of television, however, "cable" has a much
more specialised use. "Cable TV" is synonymous with "Pay TV", a set of
TV stations that you don't get unless you have a paid subscription. This
is in contrast with "Free-to-air TV", which is accessible to anyone who
has a TV set. "Cable TV" is also called "Fox TV", because a single
company has a monopoly.

Well we have Pay-TV, but there are no cables, except between the satellite
dish and the decoder, and between the decoder and the receiver.


--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Web: http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm
Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk