GraniteGeek

GraniteGeek http://www.area603.com/index.php?blogId=6 DavidBrooks 2009-08-18T02:43:05Z AT&T will move 3G network into New Hampshire http://www.area603.com/index.php?op=ViewArticle&articleId=2295&blogId=6 <a type="image/jpeg" href="http://www.area603.com/resserver.php?blogId=6&resource=3G%20logo%20vodaphone.jpg" id="res_611" class="nodecoration"><img border="0" src="http://www.area603.com/resserver.php?blogId=6&resource=3G%20logo%20vodaphone.jpg&mode=medium" alt="vodafone 3G logo" style="margin: 5px; width: 96px; height: 74px;" class="res_image_medium" /></a> AT&T (<a href="http://www.att.com/gen/press-room?pid=4800&cdvn=news&newsarticleid=25964">press release here</a>) says it plans to expand its third-generation (3G) network to 90 additional cell sites, "bringing mobile broadband capability to customers in areas of Hillsborough, Merrimack, Rockingham and Strafford counties." New Hampshire has little or no 3G at the moment. 3G, of course, is the wireless broadband system of the near future (although it's old hat in Europe and East Asia - the logo is used by Britain's Vodafone) on which the latest iPhone depends. It sends enough data through the airwaves to make it easy to do such things as, say, watching Telegraph videos on your Blackberry Pearl. Its arrival in the Granite State is welcome, indeed.AT&T also says it is spending $25 million investment in New Hampshire this year to build 17 new cell sites, mostly in southern New Hampshire - along Route 202 in the Monadnock Region, Route 114 west of Manhcester, routes 128 and 111 from Londonderry down to the Mass. line, and in Manchester and Nashua. Telecommunications 2008-08-20T06:02:58Z DavidBrooks Vermont may get Iphone http://www.area603.com/index.php?op=ViewArticle&articleId=2269&blogId=6 (Note: I change the hedline, which originally ended with "but still no Wal-Mart", as a result of information from the first comment.)I didn't make this connection, but <a href="http://news.bostonherald.com/jobfind/news/technology/view/2008_08_06_iPhone_could_finally_reach_Vermont/srvc=home&position=also">the AP notes</a> that a small Verizon deal may result in the iPhone 3G service finally arriving in Vermont. From the short article: The Federal Communications Commission’s approval of Verizon Wireless’ $2.67 billion buyout of Unicel may make that possible. The deal includes a condition that Unicel’s assets in Vermont be sold to another company to ensure competition, opening the door for AT&T to come to the state and offer access to Apple’s iPhone.Green Mountain Staters with iPhones hacked to be open to non-AT&T services can already use them, of course. Telecommunications 2008-08-07T12:10:09Z DavidBrooks Cell Phone Miracles http://www.area603.com/index.php?op=ViewArticle&articleId=2256&blogId=6 Younger people take a lot for granted. When I grew up in rural Maine, telephones were the best technology going. We had two in our house, the conventional wooden box on the wall with it’s crank on the side that would be used to alert the operator that you wanted to talk to someone. Of course, you first had to listen to make sure that the other families on the party line weren’t using it. Our number was 4-11, pronounced ‘four-ring-eleven’. The other phone, installed later was a bright red phone that would only ring if there was a fire alarm calling my father, a volunteer fireman, to run out of the house and head out to the fire station.When dial phone came into our town, retiring the telephone operator in her little office over the drug store, we all thought we had finally entered the age of science and technology with the rest of the country. I can still see those heaps of junked telephones, crank generators and lantern batteries being hauled off to be recycled.I have a cell phone now. It doesn’t work that well at home here, but we take it with us on trips, mostly “just in case”. We’ve never acquired the need to be constantly in touch with friend and relatives. Even now, when I use the phone, it’s with a sense of awe. I can’t use it without thinking of all the switching, routing, communication between towers, layers of legal documents between different companies and the sheer power of these little devices.Dick Tracy was the first exposure most of us had to the benefits of truly portable communications. That wrist radio seemed to be so far in the future that our imaginations stopped at that point. The first portable telephones were a bit of a joke compared to that. Briefcase sized transmitters and big batteries worked, but were just an extension of what we already had. They kept getting smaller and all of a sudden, became more than just a telephone. Who could have imagined that a phone could also be a camera? Or even do video, or play games, or contain a full qwerty keyboard? How about internet access or calculators or organizers? I have a cell phone. It can do a lot of these things. What do I use it for? I use it as a phone. And occasionally I need to check the time. That’s it! Even someone who considers himself to be a technologist never switched to the mode of somehow needing to have all those extras. Do I need to carry this little box around whenever I’m awake? I was born too early to be properly programmed to need these extra distractions in my life.Still, I appreciate what we have now. That camera is there in case I leave my Nikon D300 behind. I have used the phone for internet access with a cable to the laptop. The other stuff I might use someday, and that’s sort of a comfort. Life is good. General 2008-07-25T17:36:34Z Earlerich Fiber to the home in rural Vermont http://www.area603.com/index.php?op=ViewArticle&articleId=2231&blogId=6 <a class="nodecoration" id="res_604" href="http://www.area603.com/resserver.php?blogId=6&resource=fiber%20optic%20cable%20inside.JPG" type="image/jpeg"><img width="163" height="112" border="0" class="res_image_medium" style="margin: 5px;" src="http://www.area603.com/resserver.php?blogId=6&resource=fiber%20optic%20cable%20inside.JPG&mode=medium" /></a>This ugly but informative cross view of a fiber-optic cable is from the <a href="http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://ops.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/telecomm_handbook/images/fig2-5.gif&imgrefurl=http://ops.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/telecomm_handbook/chapter2_01.htm&h=290&w=420&sz=7&hl=en&start=7&um=1&tbnid=rNy0OExjMjBntM:&tbnh=86&tbnw=125&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dfiber%2Boptic%2Bcable%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26sa%3DN">Federal Highway Administration</a>, of all places.FairPoint says it can use an IP-based (rather than switch-based) phone network to devlier much improved DSL over copper lines, because it's too expensive to create fiber-optic broadband to the home in rural areas (a la Verizon's FiOS, which never got very far into N.H.). But the clumsily-named <a href="http://www.ecfiber.net/index.php?sectionID=327&pageID=328">East Central Vermon Community Fiber Network</a> says otherwise; it wants to string fiber to all residences in 23 small Vermont towns, and <a href="http://www.boston.com/news/local/vermont/articles/2008/07/12/internet_consortium_say_its_got_financing/">it says </a>investment bank Oppenheimer & Co. has committed to $85 million in financing.There have been lots of unsuccessful plans to string fiber to rural areas in NH, including the one in Hanover which is still hung up in the courts because of a battle over whether the town can use space on utility poles. There were also earlier vague plans in the Monadnock region and Souhegan Valley that foundered on money - getting enough extra bucks from broadband/TV subscribers to pay for rolling those <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bucket_truck">bucket trucks</a> is very difficult outside a dense urban area. Telecommunications 2008-07-14T09:01:31Z DavidBrooks FairPoint delays handoff from Verizon http://www.area603.com/index.php?op=ViewArticle&articleId=2164&blogId=6 UPDATE: The date after the announcement, some Maine legislators are nervous,<a href="http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=194841&ac=PHnws"> reports the Portland Press-Herald</a>: The transition from Verizon to FairPoint "is going downhill - it's not going uphill," said Rep. Stan Gerzofsky, D-Brunswick. <a type="image/jpeg" href="http://www.area603.com/resserver.php?blogId=6&resource=Fairpoint%20Logo.JPG" id="res_344" class="nodecoration"><img border="0" src="http://www.area603.com/resserver.php?blogId=6&resource=Fairpoint%20Logo.JPG&mode=medium" style="margin: 5px;" class="res_image_medium" /></a> Unspecified technical problems mean the "cutoff" from Verizon to FairPoint has been pushed back from September to November. Here's <a href="http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080618/BUSINESS/877842153/-1/news0121">the bare-bones AP story</a>. <a href="http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=194707&ac=PHnws">Assorted 911 problems in Maine</a> might be part of the issue. From<a href="http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=194706&ac=PHnws"> a Portland Press-Herald story by Tux Turkel</a>, who not only has a terrific byline but has covered the whole issue well: "The decision reflects concerns expressed by a consulting firm working for utility regulators in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, and its assessment that FairPoint hasn't gotten all the bugs out of operating and software systems, or hired enough staff to assume control." As long as we avoid the horror story of Verizon's sale of landlines in Hawaii (which <a href="http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070701/BUSINESS/207010392/-1/news20">I wrote about last year</a>). Telecommunications 2008-06-18T08:06:36Z DavidBrooks Do you have broadband? http://www.area603.com/index.php?op=ViewArticle&articleId=2163&blogId=6 BroadbandCensus.com wants the FCC to release data about broadband availability by region. As part of its push, the site has an online census to gather Net speed data; I tried it, but the Java applet to test my speeds didn't work. <a href="http://broadbandcensus.com/">Give it a shot yourself. </a> It says that the FCC has upped its definition of broadband, both in speeds and in the fact that it takes more than a single customer in a given Zip code for them to say that area "has" broadband. But it also says that the FCC won't release this Zip code breakdown, which is too bad.The site has some issues: I plugged in my Zip code and it said I had two broadband options: Comcast, which is correct, and Time Warner cable, which isn't in this part of New Hampshire. And how many places have two separate cable TV companies, anyway? (I'm too far from any Verizon - er, FairPoint - office for DSL.) Internet / online 2008-06-17T19:04:36Z DavidBrooks Better cell phones through little "femtocell" systems http://www.area603.com/index.php?op=ViewArticle&articleId=2150&blogId=6 If you have trouble getting mobile calls in your home because the nearest cell tower isn't in the right spot, why not install a tower inside your home?That's the idea of "femtocells" which are sort of wireless routers for cell phones. <a href="http://www.masshightech.com/stories/2008/06/02/focus3-Femtocells-poised-to-boost-cell-phone-performance-at-the-home-level.html">Mass High Tech has a roundup</a> of several Boston-area firms involved in or around this business, in hardware or software. It notes that the field has lots of hurdles, however, including a lack of industry standards and FCC licensing issues. Telecommunications 2008-06-12T09:38:33Z DavidBrooks Better broadband for FairPoint could bring in $125 million http://www.area603.com/index.php?op=ViewArticle&articleId=2067&blogId=6 <a type="image/jpeg" href="http://www.area603.com/resserver.php?blogId=6&resource=Fairpoint%20Logo.JPG" id="res_344" class="nodecoration"><img width="128" height="47" border="0" src="http://www.area603.com/resserver.php?blogId=6&resource=Fairpoint%20Logo.JPG&mode=medium" style="margin: 5px;" class="res_image_medium" /></a>That's what <a href="http://telephonyonline.com/independent/news/occam-fairpoint-deal-0507/">this Telephony Online story</a> says, anyway. From the story: "In the first stage of its deployment, Fairpoint is building 10-Gb/s Ethernet rings connecting 200 central offices throughout the three states."This is part of FairPoint's plans to establish ADSL, a faster version of DSL, on an IP network, to bring what it says will be much better broadband without having to replace copper lines with fiber-to-the-home.That promise was key in getting regulatory permission to buy Verizon's landlines in New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine - but it's also central to the concern of skeptics, who say any flavor of DSL is too slow for the 21st century. Telecommunications 2008-05-08T10:13:54Z DavidBrooks The coolest cell tower in New Hampshire http://www.area603.com/index.php?op=ViewArticle&articleId=2025&blogId=6 <a type="image/jpeg" href="http://www.area603.com/resserver.php?blogId=6&resource=pulpit%20rock%20tower%20portsmouth.jpg" id="res_574" class="nodecoration"><img border="0" src="http://www.area603.com/resserver.php?blogId=6&resource=pulpit%20rock%20tower%20portsmouth.jpg&mode=medium" style="margin: 5px; width: 247px; height: 170px;" class="res_image_medium" /></a>Photo by <a href="http://www.ryereflections.org/servlet/pluto?state=3030347061676530303757656250616765303032696430303431333436">Rye Reflections</a>That's what we'd have if Verizon Wireless has its way with the <a href="http://www.geocities.com/nhfortress/Towers/Pulpit_Rock.html">Pulpit Rock Tower</a>, an abandoned tower built during World War II. It's just south of Odiorne Point, a seacoast park near Portsmouth, and according to the <a href="http://www.theunionleader.com/article.aspx?headline=Pulpit+Rock+Tower+may+be+used+as+a+cellular+tower&articleId=ad853cc2-84ba-4647-8574-ed320377fa77">Union-Leader story</a> today, " was first used to triangulate locations of surface ships so they could be bombed during World War II. It was not, as some believe, a place to locate U-boats." (There's more information on N.H. seacoast towers <a href="http://www.geocities.com/nhfortress/Towers/towers.html">here</a>.)That would certainly be a better way to hide cell-phone antennas than those goofy fake trees. Speaking of which, <a href="http://www.necellularsites.net/Nashua.htm">this site </a>details the "evolution" of one such tree along Route 111 in Hollis. It's true: you can find anything on the Web. Telecommunications 2008-04-22T07:49:47Z DavidBrooks Cell phones in airplanes: Europe says yes http://www.area603.com/index.php?op=ViewArticle&articleId=1989&blogId=6 Civilization continues its descent into chaos, <a href="http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2008/04/08/eu_ends_airplane_cellphone_ban/">reports the Associated Press</a>: The European Union has set new rules in which cellphone calls will be "connected through an onboard base station - think of a miniature cellphone tower - linked to a satellite and then to ground networks. A flight's captain will have the power to turn off service at any time. Phone service will be blocked during takeoff and landing. ... This means using your cellphone will fall under roughly the same restrictions as using your laptop or iPod."Happily, the U.S. seems unlikely to go along soon, largely because crippled airlines don't want the expense of installing all those in-plane base stations. (New Hampshire's Skybus, <a href="http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080408/FRONTPAGE/804080352">which went belly up this week</a>, won't have to worry about this at all.)I'd say this puts the nail in the coffin of the argument that you couldn't use cell phones because they'd screw up airplane electronics. The problems is that they'd screw up the ground-based antennas, which would be baffled by such fast-moving phones casting such a wide signal. Telecommunications 2008-04-08T07:05:42Z DavidBrooks