Comments on: PROTEST FCC Chair in Bay Area This Thursday 4/14

By: Redi Kw from Marin

Redi Kw from Marin — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 00:17:26 +0000

Another very important thing about landlines is when a person calls 911, the number and physical address is displayed on the dispatchers screen, and with radio (cell) phones that is not the case. If you call 911 on a cell phone, you may not get a local 911 dispatcher, but instead a call center operated by the CHP in the east bay.
If you call from a landline in Marin County, you will get Com Center in Marin, where most of the dispatchers know quite a bit about the county and can save valuable minutes in dispatching the proper first responders.
If you have a VOIP (voice over internet protocall) phone that runs only when your computer is on (like Vonage or MagicJack), then you can register your address to be shown to 911 dispatchers. But if you don’t update it when you go somewhere else, then it will not show the address where you are. Most importantly, if you have a Comcast digital phone or VOIP phone, if the power goes out, you will have no phone during disasters or outages.
The landline phones have back up batteries at the exchanges (switches) and are very reliable during power or cable outages. Just more reasons that we need to keep the landlines here in the USA. They are especially important in rural areas, since we all pay the universal surcharge to subsidize rural landline telephone service.
Only the most remote areas do not have landlines. As far as I know, the old RMTS (Rural Mobile Telephone Service) is gone now, but I might be wrong about that.
RMTS radio phones used to operate at around 155 MHz and with full duplex circuitry transmitting at around 30 watts of RF.
Originally, there were only 2 cell phone carriers in the USA, Cellular One (now AT&T) and GTE Mobilenet (now Verizon).
The original cell phones used to operate in the 800 MHZ band using TDMA multiplexing and transmit at 3 watts. Then they started building more repeaters and lowered the output to 600 miliwatts (6/10ths) of a watt.
Now, in the last 7 years, the market for cell phones has been promoted and the number of customers has increased exponentially. The early TDMA cell phones used more power and required much more bandwidth, the corporations needed more space on the radio spectrum to be able to handle millions more users.
So they switched over to lower powered (200 Mw) higher frequency 1200 to 1800 MHz CDMA networks that use much less bandwidth.
It is the higher microwave frequencies that are of concern because they are more dangerous, and due to the low power (think about dropped calls), there is a need to pepper the country with cell repeaters everywhere. That is the problem, we are now much more saturated than ever before, and the FCC is promoting even more.
Something else to consider, originally PG&E was going to use their own proprietary radio network for their new radio electric meters, but now has decided to use the existing cell phone networks to transmit data to the central office. That is far less expensive and is one of the main reasons that the FCC is so adamant about expanding the cell phone networks in this country.

By: Friend

Friend — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 22:32:02 +0000

If you would like to keep landlines as a telecommunications option, you should comment to F.C.C. by April 18, the deadline for commenting on the proposed changes constituting the first step toward elimination of landlines.

Landlines are an extremely important network for emergency communication, so eliminating landlines would severely undermine communications after earthquakes, during extended power outages, and so forth. It is essential we maintain our landlines.

You can comment online by going to
http://www.regulations.gov/#!submitComment;D=FCC-2011-0078-0001

This gets you to a form with spaces to fill in your name and contact info, as well as comments of up to 2,000 characters (including spaces). You can also attach additional documents with your comments.

By: bluplanet

bluplanet — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 12:07:09 +0000

When I first was injured by the radiation from a smart meter, I called the FCC. After I explained to the man on the phone what had happened to me. He said ” We don’t deal with humans, only frequncies” and he hung up on me. What idiots these people are.

By: Abner Malady

Abner Malady — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 16:35:12 +0000

THis is pure BS. If the an emergency happens, the landlines have proven to be failsafe!
How about protesting on Health and Safety Concerns!

By: MjP

MjP — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 18:20:40 +0000

http://i55.tinypic.com/334oz8k.jpg

By: MjP

MjP — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 18:20:05 +0000

Please hang this on your old meter!

[IMG]http://i55.tinypic.com/334oz8k.jpg[/IMG]

By: SmarterMeters

SmarterMeters — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 17:38:27 +0000

It’s hard to take the FCC seriously when their emblem is hung crookedly.

“FCC Chairman Genachowski address Broadband Census National Town Hall”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-mbtBrSwMg&

By: Redi Kw from Marin

Redi Kw from Marin — Sat, 09 Apr 2011 19:24:16 +0000

Land line telephones in this country are extremely important, in fact they were invented here. The system has created many technological breakthroughs and is well run, everything is in top shape right now. It would be a shame to throw it all away because that would be a huge waste of resources, just like throwing away all the analog electric meters is.
In other less developed countries, there was never such an extensive telephone network, sometime none at all, so now they are selling millions of people cell phones who never had telephones before. And all cell phones are made in foreign countries.
In the old days here, the telephones were made by Western Electric here in the United States, and the instruments were very well made and could last 100 years, and can operate on any new system.
Now with these cheaply made, expensive to buy foreign cell phones, it is expected that the devices will need to be replaced every few years. It’s planned obsolescence.
I am not anti technology, and have been doing voice and data work for years. I think cell phones are great for some people, but I have always treated them with caution and minimize use.
The recent news about AT&T buying T-Mobile will create only 2 carriers controlling 80 percent of the cell phone market in this country. More of a monopoly and less competition.
I think that the FCC is getting too strong, they are completely controlled by the corporations, like the rest of the government is.
We are going to continue to see our privacy rights eroded and utility rates rise to pay for all this corporate/government control if some of us don’t stand up and protest against what is being shoved down our throats.

By: Redi Kw from Marin

Redi Kw from Marin — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 21:06:44 +0000

This is very disturbing news about the FCC preparing to dismantle land line telephone service.
I heard Obama speak today about how he wants to see that 98% of all Americans have broadband service if they want it, but not a word about wanting to dismantle the existing telephone plant.
There are many reasons that I think that this is a very bad idea.
The first one is that my mother who is now retired, got rid of her computer and broadband service a few years ago. She got tired of using the computer, paying a high broadband bill each month, computer viruses and crashes and expensive software upgrades. So she got rid of it all. But she must have a land line to keep in touch with family, friends, order prescriptions and call her doctor.
Myself, I have broadband for the internet and cable TV, but not for telephone service.
I have a land line phone that has had the same number for 40 years , and there is no way that I will ever give it up.
I do have a radio (cell) phone that works at and in my house that I use for business and personal because it has free long distance. Not all cell phone carriers work inside my house, only Nextel’s iDEN network. It is the last of the old 900 Mhz higher powered networks. It transmits at 6/10ths. of a watt and has an antenna and quality speaker phone. All the other cell phone carriers use CDMA, PCS, 3G and 4G networks that only transmit at 2/ 10ths of a watt, have no external antenna and the speakerphone is garbage, plus they don’t work at my house.
There are many houses in Marin where there is no cell phone coverage, and some with no broadband cable either, like Muir Beach.
People who want internet that live in rural areas around the state where there is no broadband cable must use either a satellite system like DirectWay or Hughes , a telephone line dial up modem or for faster speeds, a Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) if available.
When the electricity goes out, so does my Comcast Broadband service because I am at the end of the line, with amplifiers boosting the signal. So even if I use a standby generator for power, I still have no internet or cable TV. But the land line telephone has never once gone out at this address where I have lived for 31 years.
When the power goes out here , I am on the horn to PG&E immediately to report the outage, with PG&E, it’s the people who reported first that are put on the top of the list.
I still have an analog electric meter and plan on keeping it, so I have to have a way to report power outages quickly.
Also much more importantly, there are the economic factors for many people, seniors who live on a fixed income, new age low wage earners and the disabled who can’t afford computers, modems and broadband fees.
Is the government going to tax us even more to subsidize broadband service , computers, build more nuke plants and pay us for the energy to power all these new devices ?
Then , there are the lost jobs in the telephone industry and the demolishing of the old telephone cable plant and switches.
I sure hope that this plan to eliminate land line telephones fails.