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#1
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call boxes on I-5 California
What exactly did the call boxes do? What was their purpose?
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#2
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"The Office Jet" > wrote
> What exactly did the call boxes do? What was their purpose? In the days before there were cell-phone towers marching down every interstate and covering most urban/suburban towns, they were phones that directly connected you to the state patrol or other emergency agency. In the Seattle area, there are call boxes in the tunnels, because cell phones don't always work so great in them. Floyd |
#3
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>> What exactly did the call boxes do? What was their purpose?
> In the days before there were cell-phone towers marching down > every interstate and covering most urban/suburban towns, they > were phones that directly connected you to the state patrol or > other emergency agency. You've got it backwards. Before cellular, only metro LA had call boxes because they had to be hard wired. Now the call boxes ARE cellular phones, usually with solar panels at the top of the pole to power them so they don't have to be wired to anything. (Several years ago when the cellular boxes were new, cellular service thieves cloned some of them; this was discussed at the time on comp.dcom.telecom. Since then, the call-box numbers were flagged so that each one will only operate in its own cell.) From this it should be obvious that the boxes aren't going away because of the spread of cellular phones. They are for people who don't have them. This thread started because there is a stretch of I-5 between roughly I-580 and CA-152 which has no cellular coverage. There aren't any call boxes there because they couldn't function for lack of a cellular tower to talk to. |
#4
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I guess I'd never really taken notice of the call boxes. I have
definitely seen them, but I really didn't think twice b/c I've always had a cell phone with me. |
#5
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"The Office Jet" > wrote
>I guess I'd never really taken notice of the call boxes. I have > definitely seen them, but I really didn't think twice b/c I've always > had a cell phone with me. Obviously a gen-xer ;-> Floyd |
#6
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> What exactly did the call boxes do? What was
> their purpose? I had to use one once. It connected me to, I think, a California Highway Patrol-operated dispatch center. They asked various questions to get a mental picture of the situation and ascertain the type and urgency of response that would be needed. When they figured out that it was just a more or less routine breakdown, and that I'd horsed it completely over to the side of the road before running out of momentum -- i.e., not an emergency and not likely to cause one -- they called the auto club for me. They probably get some level of priority on the tow truck. I'm pretty sure they could tell which box I was calling from. This information is also posted on the box, and obviously is good for the caller to know, both for subsequent communications and for morale, in case he's three miles from the middle of nowhere and it's an unfamiliar corner of nowhere at that. I wonder how many people keep track of more or less where they are, especially when in unfamiliar territory. (On a longer trip, it's also good to note the size and facilities of towns as you pass them, which added to distance and terrain and the nature of the problem, helps you decide whether it'd be better to double back to the last one or press on to the next one, or what.) It'll be a while before the ability to localize cell calls becomes ubiquitous, and even then I'd expect the function to be fallible, in all the ways that both technology and tech users are. Observing useful things as you go along is always going to be a good idea. It might only be plan B, but we have plan B for a reason... Cheers, --Joe |
#7
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Steven M. Scharf wrote:
> The bottom line is that you should not buy a phone that doesn't support > AMPS, if you care about ubiquitous coverage. Is there a website or some other way to get info about which cell carriers and phones support AMPS? I know that with my previous cell phone if I couldn't reach a local site, it could call up to about 20 miles away and reach a site. The call sounded like Radio Moscow circa 1938, but it worked. I literally was in SF and connected with Novato on several occasions. But I don't know if my new cell phone works with AMPS or not. And nobody at Verizon so far seems to be able to tell me much about what kinds of service my phone gets. |
#8
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"David Kaye" > wrote:
>Steven M. Scharf wrote: > >> The bottom line is that you should not buy a phone that doesn't >support >> AMPS, if you care about ubiquitous coverage. > >Is there a website or some other way to get info about which cell >carriers and phones support AMPS? I know that with my previous cell >phone if I couldn't reach a local site, it could call up to about 20 >miles away and reach a site. The call sounded like Radio Moscow circa >1938, but it worked. I literally was in SF and connected with Novato >on several occasions. > >But I don't know if my new cell phone works with AMPS or not. And >nobody at Verizon so far seems to be able to tell me much about what >kinds of service my phone gets. PhoneScoop will usually tell you which phones have AMP. Verizon Wireless supports AMP in some of its calling plans. Cingular, Verizon Wireless, and Sprint do, I think T-Mobile does not. Which phone do you have, and did you purchase it from the carrier or elsewhere? If you went for a small fashionable phone it probably doesn't handle AMP. The owners manual will tell you. -- Jack Hamilton Sacramento, California -- <> Qui vit sans folie n'est pas si sage qu'il croit. <> François VI, duc de La Rochefoucauld |
#9
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"David Kaye" > wrote in message > But I don't know if my new cell phone works with AMPS or not. And > nobody at Verizon so far seems to be able to tell me much about what > kinds of service my phone gets. The Verizon web site for handsets will tell you if it is tri-band or dual band. The third band is AMPS. |
#10
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"Jack Hamilton" > wrote in message
... > PhoneScoop will usually tell you which phones have AMP. Verizon > Wireless supports AMP in some of its calling plans. Cingular, Verizon > Wireless, and Sprint do, I think T-Mobile does not. AT&T supported AMPS with its TDMA system, but there were only two phones on their GSM network that also supported AMPS, the Nokia 6340, and the Sony-Ericsson t62u. AT&T would sell you one of these handsets (GSM/TDMA/AMPS). Cingular, in California, would not, because they didn't have a TDMA or an AMPS network (AT&T had GSM, TDMA, and AMPS, while Cingular in the west was GSM only (the old Pacific Bell wireless). These phones, called GAIT phones, were intended to bridge the gap as the conversion to GSM took place. What is really needed, is a GSM/AMPS phone, without the TDMA. At one time Nokia had an "Analog Sleeve" that you could attach to your GSM phone to get AMPS, but this is no longer made. It actually was a good solution, since most of the time you don't need AMPS, but when traveling outside the urban area, it is useful. Even out in the Marin headlands, the Santa Cruz mountains, and stretches of the coast, you only get AMPS. |
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