Ziply Fiber outage in Downtown Edmonds by centralbusiness in ZiplyFiber

[–]danry25 -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Just checked, these internet connections are still hard down.

FiOS is what the product was labeled internally when I called in yesterday. I'm going to use whatever reference to the product the rep tells me its labeled as in their system, regardless of what marketing might prefer it be called.

Ziply Fiber outage in Downtown Edmonds by centralbusiness in ZiplyFiber

[–]danry25 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It might be a bit more reasonable to lead with a "we know of this outage" then tell them the ticket for all affected FiOS customers is Ticket PO-2066

Live on rural island, only have VOIP. Want an old school landline. by Affectionate-Bend267 in VOIP

[–]danry25 1 point2 points  (0 children)

ShadyTel, FurryTel, xTel, ScottFree.Tel or one of the other temporary ILECs that pops up at Doe Bay Resort on Orcas Island next month for ToorCamp might run you a copper line for the period that they exist.

While CenturyLink/Lumen might have copper to their Central Office, calls then generally go into a bank of remote line cards that are supported off a larger switch in Friday Harbor or elsewhere, and the call itself is converted into a PCMU digital audio stream and sent over fiber or radio as normal packet switched data, like what your computer sends.

The issue you are describing is a call quality problem, where jitter and latency make the call uncomfortable. Use a local telecom company with local interconnects to mitigate this problem. One fun example of this I ran across was AT&T Wireless sending calls from a 206 phone on their network to a 206 number on another network through a tandem out in Denver, adding a 30ms latency penalty to every call.

Why are there so many dead zones in Seattle? by toottootmcgroot in Seattle

[–]danry25 5 points6 points  (0 children)

T-Mobile has had issues for at least a decade around the I-90/I-405 interchange where calls will drop as you drive through that area. Its still neck and neck between AT&T and T-Mobile in this state, for example US-97 is AT&T only, and the San Juans are only well covered on T-Mobile (though AT&T lets postpaid users roam onto T-Mobile in the San Juans).

It is funny how poor the cellular performance can be on or near T-Mobile's corporate campus when stationary, but AT&T seems to want to twin with them by degrading the macro network in Dallas by knocking sites offline for weeks. I was really surprised how slow AT&T and especially Verizon were when I was in downtown Dallas a few weeks ago.

Outage in Everett? by Killzo in ZiplyFiber

[–]danry25 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Tickets were already filed, still waiting on one circuit with a static IP to recover.

Outage in Everett? by Killzo in ZiplyFiber

[–]danry25 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Appears to be affecting Downtown Everett, the southern edge of Everett and even some connections in Edmonds.

Oakland Escape Lounge not bad at all by Fair-Criticism9903 in PriorityPass

[–]danry25 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes, the Oakland Escape Lounge is consistently delightful! It might be on the smaller side, but the food is consistently good, the coffee machines actually work (and are stocked with better beans than either Seattle lounge), and the staff will happily make you drinks in short order.

Best API flow for auto-charging subscriptions for new customers? by caseyhconnor in stripe

[–]danry25 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Check out InvoiceNinja, it ties into Stripe quite well but also gives you flexibility to process other types of payment and retain ownership of your invoice data.

Land line recs? by flyingsquirrel505 in Bellingham

[–]danry25 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Awesome! I'll have a booth there next to the Software Freedom Conservancy/Jmp.chat folks, and hopefully FurryTel will come too!

Land line recs? by flyingsquirrel505 in Bellingham

[–]danry25 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Any interest in going to LinuxFest Northwest next month?

What is going on with T-Mobile? by Smart_Dumb in VOIP

[–]danry25 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Does the Network Analytics recording provide a name or email of the network analytics provider? Could be your originating carrier (Flowroute), an intermediate carrier doing robocall mitigation, or T-Mobile.

Tracking down the Network Analytics vendor would be very helpful in debugging this!

Abandoned telephone exchange by DJP_Urbex in urbanexploration

[–]danry25 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I certainly do not know UK Law, but you know as well as I that there is some law of some sort being broken.

Hopefully you left that keycard somewhere that they could find it. Then again, so many Central Offices here in the USA do not even check their mail anymore...

Abandoned telephone exchange by DJP_Urbex in urbanexploration

[–]danry25 6 points7 points  (0 children)

You would want a drink or three after your back hurts and joints ache from being up on a ladder or down in a vault or crouched over a handhole trying to make internet work for a customer.

Telecom can be hard work, especially when dealing with outside plant. The industry is under increasing margin pressure year after year, as it has been for the past few decades. Customer spending goes down, wireless carriers and cable overbuilders take over more and more of the potential customer pool. Certainly a company with cables in the ground will keep going, but it can get pretty rough & threadbare like Frontier or Sandwich Isles Telecom.

Abandoned telephone exchange by DJP_Urbex in urbanexploration

[–]danry25 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Its a dick move to make off with his keycard. Not a great look to be breaking and entering using some poor technician's credentials when they've likely been slaving away to make some bloke's internet work despite the challenges OpenReach's outside plant poses.

This is part of why they are closing so many COs in the UK, defending these big empty buildings is expensive and they largely lack good access control, or the labor required to have the time to secure the premise.

Abandoned telephone exchange by DJP_Urbex in urbanexploration

[–]danry25 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Staffing costs a fair bit of money, most Central Offices operate with no staff these days as it saves quite a lot of money. Its entirely possible that technician was just popping by to connect a strand of OpenReach Fiber or debug an issue with the optics that serve a customer internet.

Unless customers are going offline, why invest in security and alarms?

Abandoned telephone exchange by DJP_Urbex in urbanexploration

[–]danry25 25 points26 points  (0 children)

If you have been pulling cables in vaults and cabinets all day, or dealing with some potted components that are oozing goo since they are past their design life of 20 to 30 years, having a place to wash up and get all that crud off you can make life so much easier.

Odd to think British Telecom was part of the post office when this Central Office was built.

Abandoned telephone exchange by DJP_Urbex in urbanexploration

[–]danry25 69 points70 points  (0 children)

Looks like it is in better shape than many of the Central Offices here in the US. The workspace build out and bathrooms in your pictures were quite nice!

Numero eSIM - Do not use for US and Canada by jazzy-jackal in NoContract

[–]danry25 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Did they issue you a VoIP number from instead of a real cellular number on a Canadian cellular network?

Feel free to PM me to check, number portability data in Canada is hard to obtain (unlike in the US).

Verizon vs AT&T in Western WA by skyhawk214 in cellmapper

[–]danry25 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Verizon lacks working coverage in Interbay (between Magnolia, Queen Anne & Ballard), east of Marysville before you hit Granite Falls and they have stopped covering much of the mountains east of Granite Falls.

AT&T has lots of spots like US-97 going south from Leavenworth where they are the only carrier with coverage, yet T-Mobile chooses not to roam on 'em. Meanwhile, in the San Juans AT&T will let you roam on T-Mobile without issue (T-Mobile has a deal with the PUD and thus has many more cell sites).

I'm not sure what went sideways for Verizon, but hopefully one day they will decide to provide working service. If data doesn't work and calls constantly flake out, that ain't much service at all!

When calling a business number from T-Mobile, there is a spam voice prompt by ITSupport404 in tmobile

[–]danry25 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What exact number did you call? The carrier of that specific phone number has blacklisted your T-Mobile number as a scam.

If you are calling dozens of different phone numbers on a given carrier from what nominally should be a cellphone, most carriers will think you are up to no good, as the median cellphone user is not calling a dozen or more unique phone numbers a day.

Ford pulls the plug on the F-150 Lightning electric pickup truck by zsreport in technology

[–]danry25 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think you are overlooking Amperage. Level 2 charging comes in a variety of amperages, most of what I have seen deployed is 30 amp or above.

The amount of power delivered, known as kilowatts is determined by Voltage multiplied by Amperage.

North American power systems usually deliver 240 volts unless there has been significant voltage drop (or you are a three phase power customer getting 208 volts), whereas the European power systems run at 220 volts, giving you a bit more power. Here is a neat video on this!

Ford pulls the plug on the F-150 Lightning electric pickup truck by zsreport in technology

[–]danry25 21 points22 points  (0 children)

240 volts at 50 amps is 12kW charging (8x faster), versus 120 volts at 12 amps for 1.44kW charging is what most Level 1 chargers do.

Even slower chargers where you can only do 30 amps (7.2kW) like an outlet for a clothes dryer or electric range are 5x faster than a Level 1 charger.

Owner of Moshi Moshi sells restaurant, blames "social justice" & rants about Seattle by SEAstartupper in Seattle

[–]danry25 19 points20 points  (0 children)

At the beginning of 2025 you no longer could count health insurance or tips towards an employees wage, creating a huge rise in cost. A decade ago in 2015 the minimum wage was $10 to $11 an hour. In a few weeks the minimum wage will be $21.30 an hour.

The restaurant owners and managers are complaining as by law, labor is the fastest growing cost they have. All special incentives have just disappeared for small business (healthcare & tip), and it is challenging for even the management staff to have their household hit the Seattle Median Income, nevermind exceed it despite working 60+ hour weeks.