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Re: Redundancy/Survival

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Rich <rich@example.invalid> wrote:
> c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> wrote:
>>   Kind of agree with the sentiment that copper should always be at 
>>   hand for 'emergency' communications at a minimum.  Towers die, cell 
>>   contracts expire, copper keeps on going.
> 
> The legacy copper phones only "kept on going" because POTS (copper) 
> phone service was a highly regulated utility with requirements for 
> upkeep and maintence so that it /would/ just keep on going.
> 
> Without that upkeep, it eventually falls into disrepair and stops 
> working just like the rest.

You bet, that's my POTS line here in Australia described exactly.
Even though I just learnt our government is paying $270 million a
year to maintain it (on top of the fees paid by customers) in
places not connected to fibre or "fixed wireless" internet. Money
straight into the telco's profits, no doubt. The exchanges even
look abandoned now with peeling paint etc. 

> It's only real difference from towers is fewer possibilities to go 
> wrong when the 'system' is just a long pair of copper wires vs. complex 
> electronics systems for a radio tower (i.e., no capicators to dry out 
> and fail in a long pair of copper wires).  Most failures were 
> mechanical (something physically tearing down the wires) or chemical 
> (water infiltration corroding the connection points).

Well here it's almost always the exchange that keeps going
wrong. Then they take between a few days to a few weeks to fix it,
which I think just means how long until someone gets around to
visiting it. Someone said they're required to fix it within 24
hours, but if that's true then they're completely ignoring that.

> But fail it did.  If the lines were above ground then tree branches (or 
> automobiles) would take out the lines.  If the lines were underground 
> then water infiltration into the conduits would result in noise or 
> nothing working.  I had this one myself on my pair once.  Line that had 
> been nice and quiet (and worked well for DSL) suddenly sounded like 
> someone was scraping a turntable needle over a vinyl record constantly.  
> Reported it to Verizon, they took some time to fix, but I eventually 
> learned the cause was an underground wiring vault a couple miles away 
> had flooded.

Yeah my old line rotted away completely after it was noisy for
years and they switched me to a spare which also gets noisy when
the ground's wet, but since we haven't had decent rainfall for
years that hasn't been a problem lately. Since that line switch
~5+ years ago I only had one other line fault late last year when
the council slashing grass on the roadsides cut the line. Amazingly
that _was_ fixed within about 24 hours, though when the exchange
died yet again later that week affecting everyone using it rather
than just people down my road, it took them 4-5 days to fix it. And
the exchange breaks far more frequently, in fact it was breaking
every time there was a power failure for a year or so, but it does
seem to be surviving those these days (except the obviously-dead
battery there means you still can't make calls while the power's
off anymore).

> But your individual experience dependend upon what happened with your 
> specific pair.  If you were lucky and no falling trees, drunk drivers, 
> or ice storms happened to pull down your copper pair, and no leaky 
> underground conduits soaked it, then to you it appeared to be 
> impervious to failure.  Reality from the other size (the phone company) 
> viewpoint is that something, somewhere, was always failing and needing 
> repair.

So apparantly our largest telco decided to just send the government
the bill, then it eventually realised the government didn't
notice/care anymore if they didn't fix things quickly or properly
in return for that money anyway. Then they stopped mobile phones
working properly here as well when they turned off 3G...

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Redundancy/Survival c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2026-05-26 02:21 -0400
  Re: Redundancy/Survival "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2026-05-26 08:46 +0200
    Re: Redundancy/Survival Marco Moock <mm@dorfdsl.de> - 2026-05-26 09:49 +0200
      Re: Redundancy/Survival c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2026-05-26 04:47 -0400
      Re: Redundancy/Survival "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2026-05-26 11:25 +0200
      Re: Redundancy/Survival Rich <rich@example.invalid> - 2026-05-26 09:53 +0000
    Re: Redundancy/Survival c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2026-05-26 04:38 -0400
      Re: Redundancy/Survival "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2026-05-26 11:35 +0200
      Re: Redundancy/Survival Rich <rich@example.invalid> - 2026-05-26 22:09 +0000
        Re: Redundancy/Survival John Ames <commodorejohn@gmail.com> - 2026-05-26 16:17 -0700
          Re: Redundancy/Survival Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2026-05-27 00:02 +0000
            Re: Redundancy/Survival c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2026-05-27 00:11 -0400
              Re: Redundancy/Survival Marco Moock <mm@dorfdsl.de> - 2026-05-28 10:32 +0200
            Re: Redundancy/Survival Nuno Silva <nunojsilva@invalid.invalid> - 2026-05-27 08:41 +0100
              Re: Redundancy/Survival "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2026-05-27 11:04 +0200
                Re: Redundancy/Survival c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2026-05-28 03:31 -0400
                Re: Redundancy/Survival The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2026-05-28 09:18 +0100
                Re: Redundancy/Survival "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2026-05-28 13:42 +0200
                Re: Redundancy/Survival The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2026-05-28 15:01 +0100
                Re: Redundancy/Survival c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2026-05-28 21:34 -0400
                Re: Redundancy/Survival The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2026-05-29 11:07 +0100
                Re: Redundancy/Survival "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2026-05-29 12:55 +0200
                Re: Redundancy/Survival The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2026-05-29 12:14 +0100
                Re: Redundancy/Survival "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2026-05-29 13:36 +0200
                Re: Redundancy/Survival The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2026-05-29 13:26 +0100
                Re: Redundancy/Survival "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2026-05-29 19:36 +0200
                Re: Redundancy/Survival Richard Kettlewell <invalid@invalid.invalid> - 2026-05-29 17:24 +0100
                Re: Redundancy/Survival "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2026-05-29 19:37 +0200
                Re: Redundancy/Survival The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2026-05-29 19:36 +0100
                Re: Redundancy/Survival Richard Kettlewell <invalid@invalid.invalid> - 2026-05-29 22:34 +0100
                Re: Redundancy/Survival c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2026-05-30 04:29 -0400
                Re: Redundancy/Survival "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2026-05-30 13:09 +0200
                Re: Redundancy/Survival c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2026-05-30 23:29 -0400
                Re: Redundancy/Survival Rich <rich@example.invalid> - 2026-05-29 04:30 +0000
                Re: Redundancy/Survival c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2026-05-29 01:34 -0400
                Re: Redundancy/Survival rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2026-05-29 06:36 +0000
                Re: Redundancy/Survival c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2026-05-31 00:38 -0400
                Re: Redundancy/Survival TheLastSysop <thelastsysop@dev.null> - 2026-05-31 05:09 +0000
                Re: Redundancy/Survival c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2026-05-31 03:10 -0400
                Re: Redundancy/Survival TheLastSysop <thelastsysop@dev.null> - 2026-05-31 07:14 +0000
                Re: Redundancy/Survival c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2026-05-29 02:17 -0400
                Re: Redundancy/Survival not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) - 2026-05-30 09:09 +1000
                Re: Redundancy/Survival "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2026-05-30 13:17 +0200
                Re: Redundancy/Survival not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) - 2026-05-31 07:33 +1000
                Re: Redundancy/Survival c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2026-05-31 00:14 -0400
                Re: Redundancy/Survival The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2026-05-31 12:09 +0100
                Re: Redundancy/Survival "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2026-05-31 12:58 +0200
              Re: Redundancy/Survival Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2026-05-27 20:51 +0000
                Re: Redundancy/Survival John Ames <commodorejohn@gmail.com> - 2026-05-27 14:02 -0700
                Re: Redundancy/Survival not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) - 2026-05-28 08:54 +1000
                Re: Redundancy/Survival Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2026-05-28 05:04 +0000
                Re: Redundancy/Survival c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2026-05-28 03:54 -0400
                Re: Redundancy/Survival Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> - 2026-05-28 09:15 +0100
                Re: Redundancy/Survival "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2026-05-28 13:45 +0200
                Re: Redundancy/Survival Robert Riches <spamtrap42@jacob21819.net> - 2026-05-29 02:50 +0000
                Re: Redundancy/Survival c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2026-05-29 01:17 -0400
                Re: Redundancy/Survival rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2026-05-29 06:48 +0000
                Re: Redundancy/Survival c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2026-05-30 04:25 -0400
                Re: Redundancy/Survival "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2026-05-30 13:20 +0200
                Re: Redundancy/Survival Robert Riches <spamtrap42@jacob21819.net> - 2026-05-30 14:16 +0000
                Re: Redundancy/Survival Robert Riches <spamtrap42@jacob21819.net> - 2026-05-30 04:00 +0000
          Re: Redundancy/Survival c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2026-05-26 23:41 -0400
            Re: Redundancy/Survival The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2026-05-27 14:09 +0100
              Re: Redundancy/Survival c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2026-05-28 03:51 -0400
                Re: Redundancy/Survival rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2026-05-28 17:08 +0000
                Re: Redundancy/Survival c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2026-05-28 22:14 -0400
                Re: Redundancy/Survival rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2026-05-29 04:41 +0000
                Re: Redundancy/Survival c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2026-05-29 01:53 -0400
                Re: Redundancy/Survival rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2026-05-29 06:32 +0000
        Re: Redundancy/Survival c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2026-05-26 22:39 -0400
          Re: Redundancy/Survival The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2026-05-27 14:10 +0100
            Re: Redundancy/Survival not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) - 2026-05-28 09:05 +1000
              Re: Redundancy/Survival The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2026-05-28 08:19 +0100
            Re: Redundancy/Survival c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2026-05-28 03:52 -0400
              Re: Redundancy/Survival The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2026-05-28 09:20 +0100
                Re: Redundancy/Survival c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2026-05-28 20:34 -0400
                Re: Redundancy/Survival InterLinked <usenet@phreaknet.org> - 2026-05-28 21:07 -0400
                Re: Redundancy/Survival rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2026-05-29 01:21 +0000
                Re: Redundancy/Survival c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2026-05-29 02:08 -0400
                Re: Redundancy/Survival rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2026-05-29 06:41 +0000
  Re: Redundancy/Survival Marco Moock <mm@dorfdsl.de> - 2026-05-26 09:44 +0200
    Re: Redundancy/Survival c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2026-05-26 04:45 -0400
    Re: Redundancy/Survival "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2026-05-26 11:38 +0200
  Re: Redundancy/Survival "Worst Case" <fritz@spamexpire-202605.rodent.frell.theremailer.net> - 2026-05-26 17:21 +0200

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