So, I like my regional landline company, but they just started sending out email notices a month or two ago and I think they are a little too excited about this new feature. Our landline is out. Considering cell service is unreliable, it is a minor issue, unless you need 911, I suppose. So as part of the effort to inform they are sending email updates, which is O.K., but latest is The OC192 is affecting DWDM and RODAM and they are doing an OTDR. YEAH, that keeps me informed. Ah well, they are trying to keep us in the loop at least.
An 'ex' is a has-been, and a 'spurt' is a drip under pressure. SO....there's a broken fiber between you and your provider. It's also possible that there is an equipment problem with the DWDM - (dense wavelength division multiplexer) which is merely the system that bundles all of the traffic of various types and transmits them over one eeensy-weensy little piece of glass. 40 optical 'channels' each hauling gigabits (up to 100 or more) worth of signals is typical. Probably 95 times out of 100 it the glass, but the various systems are not getting any younger and so card problems are not entirely uncommon. Somebody broke the glass somewhere and either a human or Robbie the Robot isolated the failure and dispatched a live human with an Optical Time Domain Reflectometer to see if they can verify and isolate the precise cause and location of the failure. Robbie, like the Skynet's other products were pretty comical at first but he can talk to all of the equipment and he's getting pretty good at displacing people like me....and sending the few remaining technicians to the right place to start looking for the cause of the failure. He will even rate MY performance and dime me out if I become 'inefficient' or 'non-productive' according to HIS metrics. I say "He" not because I'm a sexist or because I'm an Azimov fan but rather because one normally presumes that AI is malevolent and so I'm playing the odds. Anyway, Robbie dispatches a tech - usually awakening them at oh-frack-thirty, and tells them (me) where to start looking for the leak. The OTDR is a handheld meter that transmits laser light down the fiber and reads the reflections to try and determine IF the light should be making it to the next piece of equipment or if not, where or even what the problem might be.
Dumped my landline more than a decade ago, so I could pay for broadband access. Seemed silly to pay for both, when VOIP was available. That's "voice over internet protocol", I didn't pay AT&T for that.
WOW! Thanks to ETC(SS)! Why the phone company did not say that the way you did?? Apparently stretches over three county area. While I was first informed by email a couple of hours ago, the regional emergency management group sent a text a few minutes ago which somehow made it through and said if we needed 911 we had to call a seven digit number. That makes no sense to me, but not going to test it.
I guess they're paying by the character. Seriously, make sure your 911 data is accurate. They're suppose to dispatch to your phone's location, but you never know.
Yeah, well, I was going to cut some firewood, but: A) Yellowjackets always seem to be attracted to woodcutting. B) If I had a saw mishap or yellowjacket sting reaction, I may be out of luck.
911 or E911 is one of the many many things that ride on one little fiber cable. You need a backup method of getting EMS information! I do not say this because Ma Bell(*) is particularly bad but rather because many times people get their internet, entertainment, and telephone from the same source. After the flooding in Texas they announced that they needed more flood sirens in that area, but anybody who has spent more than 15 minutes in places where there are tornado sirens knows what they know. (*) There I go 'gendering' people again! Advice: Get a RADIO that can warn you, by geographic area, if there is fire, flooding, famine, pestilence, or civil unrest. They use an EMS system called SAME (sometimes S.A.M.E.) You can program the better of these to ignore 'watches' but I LITERALLY know people whose lives have been LITERALLY saved by these types of radios. These are not just for people that live where people are more likely to vote Republican. Bad "S" happens in blue states too, and these types of radios will warn you of anything that will make your radio emit that all too familiar tone every now and then when "this is only a test."
Just informed 911 calls are now going through long distance trunks which requires dialing seven digits, plus one. Since I barely remember 911, not going to happen Also, wAiting for Lumen to enlighten the techs as to the problem...whatever Lumen is. As mentioned guess it is good to prepare for this sort of stuff. Guess I will try to memorize the one plus 911 long distance number.
There is, in fact, a 'this is only a test' for those radios, broadcast on some regular period. The burst of modem-y noise at the front includes various information the radio should display on its front panel, including whether or not the broadcast is a test. So many of the radios recognize that signal and won't actually honk if it's only a test, which is nice. But you still want the radio to keep a dated history you can look at of tests it received, so you can be sure it's receiving your local NOAA Weather Radio station strongly enough to decode the alerts. I had one once that just ignored the tests—didn't honk and didn't log 'em—which is kind of a useless design. A couple paragraphs ago I used the initials of a US government agency whose future may have become somewhat uncertain.
Let's stick a pin in this and wait a year....... I'll betcha not only that the government entity will still be kicking but might actually have MORE EMPLOYEES next year than this year. Moreover I'm pretty sure that the number of employees that have been RIF'd will be less than the number that were asked to leave during the Clinton administration all those many years ago.......
Well, Lumen is a contractor. Lumen has narrowed down to a fiber issue. Waiting for Lumen to identify specific fiber and start repair. It is now a five county problem.
If the land-line means copper wire line that we still have inside our home, then our area got rid of that years ago. Maybe over 10 years or longer? Only "land-line" we have had last decades or so are VOIP via coax, but now our area also have fiber. We could ditch the VOIP "land line" number, but it is cheap enough bundled with internet, and more convenient to keep the same number we had for the last 20+ years. So, I still use it. OTOH, I hardly ever use my cell phone for voice call, because of poor cell signal at home. Only when I am out of home, but that is becoming increasingly rare.
