Believe it or not but PC is coming back...

In article ,
says...

On Mon, 15 Dec 2014 11:49:20 -0400, pjp
wrote:

In article ,
says...

On Sun, 14 Dec 2014 12:47:18 -0500, Wolf K wrote:

On 2014-12-14 8:29 AM, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
[...]
Yes, but if it's not twisted pair, it's not usually referred to as
"landline". So in _my_ understanding, you have landline (PSTN), cable
(originally coax, now including fibre), wireless, or satellite. Yes, the
cable is a line running over (or under) land, and the PSTN could be
referred to as a cable, but in this particular context, the terms mean
what they do, not what their roots say they do. [...]

Usage here in Ontario, AFAIK in the RoC also:

Cable: coaxial, originally used to deliver analog TV signals, now used
to deliver digital signals, usually a combination of TV and internet,
with phone also available. Cable was originally set up by individuals
and small companies to serve communities in fringe areas, with the
receiving antenna somewhere high, and the cable distributing its signal
to the subscribers. When cable companies consolidated, they used a
combination of cable and microwave to link the network into a single system.

Landline (or land line): twisted pair, originally for analog telephone,
now for digital signals. Voice and internet carried at a different
frequencies, filter required at every phone plug. Voice has been digital
in Canada for at least 40 years. Good local distribution of broadband
signals, up to about 1.5km from a "node".

I suppose this discussion now belongs in alt.usage.english, rather than here.

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.

There used to be a firm called "Cable and wireless", and the "Cable" in their

Rural Nova Scotia Canada. Only choices I have are old modem/dial-up ,
sat system which is expensive and limited or a wireless system that has
nodes/towers thru-out the province from a gov incentive few years ago
now. My tower I can hit with a 22 so signal almost always good and can't
say I can really complain that much about it. If telco ever sends a
landline along road they can't avoid my 2km of road frontage and you can
be sure I'll switch from the wirless then. In my expeience, even in
house, go with a physical cable if you can.

P.S. No "landline? cable available, just sat.

On Mon, 15 Dec 2014 11:49:20 -0400, pjp wrote:

In article ,
says...

On Sun, 14 Dec 2014 12:47:18 -0500, Wolf K wrote:

On 2014-12-14 8:29 AM, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:

....


Physical line into house, you're on a landline. Attenna used instead,
you're wireless. Real simple.

Not really. My landline phone is serviced by my cell phone company, to
which it connects wirelessly via the same protocols (3G & 4G) as the
cell phones. It only does voice phone, however. No IM or whatever.

1. I really do refer to it that way.

2. I also said it just to see how Steve Hayes reacts :-)

The AT&T cellular landline setup looks like this:

https://www.att.com/cellphones/att/a...sku=sku7250257

or to save linewrap,

http://tinyurl.com/ou3gn6w

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

On 16.12.14 09:02, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , pjp
writes:
[]
Physical line into house, you're on a landline. Attenna used instead,
you're wireless. Real simple.

I think _within the context we are talking of here_, you're in a
minority. Twisted pair/POTS/PSTN (in UK, numbers beginning 01, 02, 03) -
landline. Cellular/mobile (in UK, numbers beginning 07). Communications
via IP (however that IP comes) - a third option, often without a number
at all.

I don't think "wireless" is used much _in the context of 'phone calls_.

Slightly complicated in that some companies now are providing a landline
number - i. e. a number you can give to people who can then call you on
it - for service they're providing to you via your internet connection
(however you get that); in most cases you pay them for that service, or
if they provide it free to you then the number they give you to give out
is one that is costly to call (in UK, 08 or even 09).

What I have in Australia (my "landline") sounds similar to your last
example. It's called TPG Home Phone and comes with TPG's ADSL Internet
service. It's provided over the old copper pair between your premises
and the exchange, where it's converted to a VOIP service. It appears to
you (and people who call the number) as a POTS, and it is charged as
such (i.e. it's the same price to call).

--
Lifelong resident of Adelaide, South Australia
"Talking to yourself is only a problem if you get a response you don't
understand".

In message , annily
writes:
[]
What I have in Australia (my "landline") sounds similar to your last
example. It's called TPG Home Phone and comes with TPG's ADSL Internet
service. It's provided over the old copper pair between your premises
and the exchange, where it's converted to a VOIP service. It appears to
you (and people who call the number) as a POTS, and it is charged as
such (i.e. it's the same price to call).

When you say it comes "with" the ADSL service, is that over the same
line? If so, then in UK, that would I think be normal 'phoneline plus
ADSL; all our analogue 'phones have been digital _from the exchange_ for
some years, but the customer wouldn't be able to tell that - they still
look like an analogue 'phone connection at the subscriber end. In the
last few years, they've been providing - optionally, at extra cost (and
"provided" by - i. e. billed by, at least - a different company) - ADSL
over the same line: you have to use a low and high pass filter at the
subscriber end, to keep the 'phone and ADSL signals from interfering
with each other. This would be a normal "landline".
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Advertising is legalized lying. - H.G. Wells

On 15/12/2014 2:54 pm, Steve Hayes wrote:

I suppose this discussion now belongs in alt.usage.english, rather than here.

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.

I take "landline" to mean a non-mobile phone service. Some people say
"fixed phone", but that confuses the issue as many, perhaps most people
with landlines use "cableless phones" that can be used all over the
house and whose handsets frequently get lost if their are teenagers around.

I know what "cable" means when people are talking television because
some of my family in the Midlands of England had it. I did a Google
search and apparently it is available here in Perth, but I don't know
anybody who has it.

Why expect sense? My wireless modem has four wires leading in or out of
it. Then we have the confusion with optic cable.
--
Robert Bannister - 1940-71 SE England
1972-now W Australia

On 16/12/2014 6:22 am, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Steve Hayes
writes:
On Mon, 15 Dec 2014 09:04:54 +0000, Andy Burns

wrote:
[]
But when talking about Internet access I'd distinguish broadband over
coaxial cable (DOCSIS) and broadband over twisted pair cable
(ADSL/VDSL).

So would I, but I'd refer to both as a "landline".

I think, _within this context_, you're in a minority there.
[]
Not in my experience. I don't know what else "landline" would mean.

--
Robert Bannister - 1940-71 SE England
1972-now W Australia

On 15/12/2014 7:34 pm, Peter Moylan wrote:

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.

I agree with all the stuff I've snipped, but I don't think Fox has a
monopoly. A friend of mine used to be with Galaxy and I think they're
still going. Fox certainly has the most ads. The thing about Pay TV here
as opposed to the US or UK, is that very few people actually have a
cable connection - most people, in my experience at least, have a dish.
I only recently discovered that cable TV exists in Perth, but I've never
met anyone who was connected that way.
--
Robert Bannister - 1940-71 SE England
1972-now W Australia

On Mon, 15 Dec 2014 22:08:55 -0500, Wolf K wrote:

On 2014-12-15 8:39 PM, Robert Bannister wrote:
On 16/12/2014 6:22 am, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Steve Hayes
writes:
On Mon, 15 Dec 2014 09:04:54 +0000, Andy Burns

wrote:
[]
But when talking about Internet access I'd distinguish broadband over
coaxial cable (DOCSIS) and broadband over twisted pair cable
(ADSL/VDSL).

So would I, but I'd refer to both as a "landline".

I think, _within this context_, you're in a minority there.
[]
Not in my experience. I don't know what else "landline" would mean.

You would if you lived in N. America. ;-)

But he doesn't, and nor do I.

Also, one still sometuimes sees telephone wires like this,

http://dev.colacreative.com/wp-conte...-bluegreen.png

and though they are in pairs, they certainly aren't twisted.


--
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

Just this Sunday, Steve Hayes puzzled about:

There used to be a firm called "Cable and wireless",

One of Nick Spalding's employers, no?

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.

Was there a _Public_ telegraph network? Or was it a private network
with offices where the public could pick up or drop off messages?

Or are you using 'P' for "Plain", as in the telephone usage?

What does the 'S' stand for?

/dps

--
The presence of this syntax results from the fact that SQLite is really
a Tcl extension that has escaped into the wild.
http://www.sqlite.org/lang_expr.html

Snidely presented the following explanation :
Just this Sunday, Steve Hayes puzzled about:

There used to be a firm called "Cable and wireless",

One of Nick Spalding's employers, no?

And I remember running into their booth (figuratively; the literal case
was "stroll") at an Interop in the early 2Ks, on the floor of the Las
Vegas Convention Center.

/dps

--
"This is all very fine, but let us not be carried away be excitement,
but ask calmly, how does this person feel about in in his cooler
moments next day, with six or seven thousand feet of snow and stuff on
top of him?"
_Roughing It_, Mark Twain.

On Mon, 15 Dec 2014 23:10:53 -0800, Snidely
wrote:

Just this Sunday, Steve Hayes puzzled about:

There used to be a firm called "Cable and wireless",

One of Nick Spalding's employers, no?

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.

Was there a _Public_ telegraph network? Or was it a private network
with offices where the public could pick up or drop off messages?

Or are you using 'P' for "Plain", as in the telephone usage?

What does the 'S' stand for?

Possibly "Switched".

--
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english)

On Mon, 15 Dec 2014 23:10:53 -0800, Snidely
wrote:

Just this Sunday, Steve Hayes puzzled about:

There used to be a firm called "Cable and wireless",

One of Nick Spalding's employers, no?

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.

Was there a _Public_ telegraph network? Or was it a private network
with offices where the public could pick up or drop off messages?

"Public" in the sense that it provided a service for members of the
public.

Or are you using 'P' for "Plain", as in the telephone usage?

What does the 'S' stand for?

/dps

--
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english)

On 2014-12-15, 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.

Couldn't the term "Public Switched Telephone Network" include all
telephone-like services accessible to the general public? An
alternative term I've encountered that attempts to define only what
Alexander Graham Bell might recognise, is "Plain Old Telephone System"
(POST). Another way of distinguishing different systems might be to
categorise them as "digital" or "analogue" - but even wired analogue
telephone handsets are likely to have their connections carried over
digital networks at some point these days. There are also "Voice over
Internet Protocol" (VoIP) users whose handsets are connected by wires or
by optical cables rather than using radio signals.

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.

In the UK, "cable TV" is often "optical cable"; many Plain Old Telephone
System users also have optical cable connecting them to the local
telephone exchange even if they still have copper wires from their
premises to the telco's 'cabinet'. Our telephone companies talk about
"fibre to the cabinet" (FTTC) and "fibre to the premises" (FTTP). Cable
TV (including telephone and internet options) is effectively monopolised
by Virgin Media.

--
-- ^^^^^^^^^^
-- Whiskers
-- ~~~~~~~~~~

On Tue, 16 Dec 2014 07:10:53 UTC, Snidely
wrote:

Just this Sunday, Steve Hayes puzzled about:

There used to be a firm called "Cable and wireless",

One of Nick Spalding's employers, no?

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.

Was there a _Public_ telegraph network? Or was it a private network
with offices where the public could pick up or drop off messages?

Or are you using 'P' for "Plain", as in the telephone usage?

What does the 'S' stand for?

PSTN = Public Switched Telephone Network

"Public" as opposed to private, meaning that anyone can for a fee
make use of it. "Switched" because it's not a direct point-to-point
line; every subscriber can reach many others by going through
switches. "Telephone" and "Network" shouldn't need explanation.

--
John Varela

* J. P. Gilliver (John):

In message , annily
writes:
[]
What I have in Australia (my "landline") sounds similar to your last
example. It's called TPG Home Phone and comes with TPG's ADSL Internet
service. It's provided over the old copper pair between your premises
and the exchange, where it's converted to a VOIP service. It appears to
you (and people who call the number) as a POTS, and it is charged as
such (i.e. it's the same price to call).

When you say it comes "with" the ADSL service, is that over the same
line? If so, then in UK, that would I think be normal 'phoneline plus
ADSL; all our analogue 'phones have been digital _from the exchange_ for
some years, but the customer wouldn't be able to tell that - they still
look like an analogue 'phone connection at the subscriber end. In the
last few years, they've been providing - optionally, at extra cost (and
"provided" by - i. e. billed by, at least - a different company) - ADSL
over the same line: you have to use a low and high pass filter at the
subscriber end, to keep the 'phone and ADSL signals from interfering
with each other. This would be a normal "landline".

Yes, but over the same line, VoIP phone service could be
alternatively provided. This should be cheaper than POTS, though.

I think I'll soon switch from the trad landline I have to VoIP
from my Internet Provider (which in my case is different from the
phone line owner). It should save me about 25% of the monthly
cost, which isn't as much as I'd expect, but in that price it
would include unlimited North America calling and several other
services I don't have now (like number display or conference
calls). I would be fine with a cheaper VoIP service, but then I'd
have to pay the dry loop fee (for having ADSL/Fiber service on a
line without POTS service), so it would be almost the same price
again.

--
XML combines all the inefficiency of text-based formats with most
of the unreadability of binary formats.
Oren Tirosh, comp.lang.python