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User: satguy

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  1. Insider corrections on British Telecom Plans to Ditch POTS Network · · Score: 2, Insightful
    BT, like Telus in Canada (and many other tier 1 PSTN carriers), are simply converting their internal circuit-switched (DS1-DS3, T1-T4) fat pipes (microwave/fibre links) to a more bandwidth-efficient packet-switched transport and routing methodology.

    The links in question are completely internal within the PSTN, and the change will be invisible to ordinary home or business subscribers - the same provision for the last mile to subscribers (POTS, Centrex, CAS or ISDN T1/E1, whatever) will remain in service for the foreseeable future.

    Those services are provided by the CO ("Central Office") switch, and it takes a while to depreciate a PSTN CO's DMS-1000 or similar switch (up to 17 years in Canada, I believe), and that switch is viewed by the beancounters as "the multi-million-dollar machine that prints money", so you can probably guess their opinion of forklift upgrades ;).

    The change to a packet-switched PSTN network backbone will improve bandwidth usage on long-haul and other fat pipes between Central Offices (cities/states/countries), reducing the need for further infrastructure builds (saving more trees, for those so inclined), and should sooner, rather than later, help make the provision of "gee-whiz" new services more economical and available for end users.

  2. Re:Can someone explain? on Stretch Announces Chip That Rewires Itself On The Fly · · Score: 1

    FPGA is the name of the physical packaging of the IC ("floating pin grid array"), while this item is an IC that can effectively burn new neural pathways and deploy new instructions in whatever packaging it's put.

  3. Re:Not the point! on Learning Computer Science via Assembly Language · · Score: 1

    NAND is the cheapest to make in silicon, but AND and OR preceded it in the initial vacuum tube-based developments in binary (Boolean) switching. Assembler is just a GUI to make CPU opcodes easier for the programmer - and old phartes like me get a chuckle watching modern programmers' reaction to that statement ;)

  4. Best ballpoint on When Word Processors Are Out: What's The Best Pen? · · Score: 1

    The Cross product line is your best source for a ballpoint, imho - their slimmer models give me effortless usage, and the pen itself has a lifetime warranty...