Comment back on cell phone questions

Milligan’s cell phone update
 250 8046500 this is Lesley’s phone
780 7196844 Carol’s phone
780 9958343 Dave’s Phone
403 8190014 Tim’s Phone
780 2974100 Sandra’s phone

After a lot of screwing around we have a digital system that is really working well for us now. Due to the fact the phone system has to be fixed in one position to get a proper signal creates a number of concerns.  I should explain that Lesley’s house is further back from the lake and she can not receive a signal from that location with a Yagi antenna

What we wanted in a system was as follows 

1. Visitor’s could connect to our system  to receive and make calls on there own phone to avoid cost to Lesley’s account
2. I wanted to be able to make calls and receive calls and emails on my blackberry.
3. Lesley can receive and make calls up 2 miles away from the cabin.
4. Intercom system up to 2 miles away.

My first surprise was to discover that the old Yagi antenna works fine for both digital and email. TELUS is still broadcasting on 800 MHz only not the 1900 MHz as I thought was the case. It is not necessary to purchase a dual band antenna

A wireless 3 watt booster: This puts out a wireless signal that’s only good for about 2 feet from the booster. As long as your cell phone is within a couple of feet you can send and receive calls on any handheld. The wireless booster is about $100 more than the regular 3 watt booster 

Lesley’s phone is different to most; it picks up the wireless signal that has a plug in for a regular phone or a cordless phone. Cordless phones works well on this system but you need a phone with a regular jack. Cost is about $450. http://www.telucomllc.com/files/TeluCom%20Verizon%20SX5T%20535C%20FCT%20Data%20Sheet.doc

Store bought Cordless phones work well but distance is limited to a couple hundred feet. 

Commercial cordless phones have a much longer distance. I purchase an EnGenius system a couple of years ago. This has an antenna that is mounted on the roof of the house. We can use the system like a booster up to 1 to 2 miles.

If you have any question email
 

Dave Milligan

Telephones - where we have been and where we currently are.

 

The type of cell phones used in Seymour Arm (ie. our bag phones) are called analog cellular

systems because the voice is delivered using FM signals usually in the 800 MHz range but

also extends into the 1200 MHz range. Deployment of the analog cell phones started around 1981.

Those of us who are older will remember this system replaced the old JP and XP Channel radio

phones which operated in the VHF band. Also in the VHF band was the Denbil system which in

effect was as system of repeater towers that  basically connected our end of the lake with the old

BCTel telephone system at Salmon Arm. The analog cell system supports voice communications

only and one of the problems I am sure we have all encountered in our travels is the many  different standards of various telephone companies which are incompatible with each other. Hence, no roaming across different systems is possible. Our bag phones worked differently in B.C. in Alberta, Ontario  etc. and would not work at all in many parts of the U.S. Also another problem with analog system is voice capacity or (number of voice channels in the system).  This is the system that Telus is getting out of (the letter some of us received from Telus) informing us that their analog system was being shut down starting

in the Fall of 2007.

 

Our little hand held cell phones are second generation cellular systems and are called digital cell phones

because the voice transmission is based on digital communication technologies. The speech signal

is first digitalized and compressed into digital bit streams by speech vocoder.  The net result of this

is that  the speech channel is less bulky compared with analog systems. That means for the same

channel bandwidth, digital systems can support more speech users compared to the bag phone

systems.  Hence, the total number of voice channels that can be partitioned from the allocated spectrum

 is increased and this contributes to the capacity gain in digital cell phone systems. This means more

channels available to us at the “Narrows”  repeater.  Moreover, maybe more important to us is the fact

that the digitized speech is error protected and transmitted over the air using digital modulation

techniques (no more scratchy channels that we of course have all encountered).   Unlike analog

phone service digital cell phone systems can support not only the voice service but also the digital data

service which includes email, text messages, video streaming services and to some extent

web browsing.  This technology is currently merging with many other services and is in

a great deal of flux at this moment in time as we move to a newer type of wideband technology

to accommodate this merging.  Right now at Seymour Arm we are attempting to cope with

this change by boosting up the power of our digital cell phones using “Wilson Amplifier”

technology which in effect makes our small phones have the power equivalency of our older

3 watt bag phone systems.  This means that we can hook up our little flip phones to the amplifier,

plug it in to our lighter outlets in our cars and use these phones down at the lake.  Some people

living close to the lake can hook the amplifier up to their yagi antennas and use the digital

phones in their own homes.  The bottom line is the signal is still very weak very unreliable and

bouncing all over the place at our end of the Arm.

 

Finally, as we move to this newer wideband technology mentioned above this will allow users at

Seymour Arm access to services such as high speed wireless internet access in addition to the

conventional voice service we currently enjoy. Cell phones will be capable of supporting a peak bit

rate of 2Mbps and may even climb higher as our computers move towards higher wireless speeds. 

As the business of Telus evolves, and as population density increases this will mean that  more

and more subscribers may join Telus Mobility and thus increase the trufic loading of their

cellular network which in turn will force them to move towards cell splitting which in effect

is an engineering approach which does not involve technology change or upgrade. By cell

splitting, the cell at the Narrows  is split into smaller cells. Each cell has a smaller coverage area compared to the original larger cell. With a smaller coverage area, the total number of subscribers

served will be smaller and hence, the traffic loading  with respect to the smaller size cell is alleviated. What this in effect means to us at the North end of the lake is that with the same number of channels per cell, the increase in population and demands on the cell at the Narrows can be resolved. High quality and high speed internet access will become available via our cell phones.  For those of you on the “techy” side they have allocated a new frequency spectrum to internet access cell phones in the 1.9 GHz range and this will allow internet access.  We see already happening big time in the U. S. along with many new and evolving wireless services.  Remember our cell phones are basically a wireless device.

 

What does this mean for us and what can we do.

 

In the early spring (Feb. or March) we can try and force/cajole Telus into giving us a repeater

tower down at the lake by the “water purification shed”.  This would in effect, if successful,

 give us all better cell phone access.  Most likely from our own homes.  If this not successful we

could then write to our MP’s and the CRTC and try and move in that direction.  This would be

slow and painful probably.  For us to move towards the more modern/recent wireless technology

(in effect a packet switching technology rather than a circuit switching technology) I feel that we

will need the support of the developers as this would probably be where they would want to end

up with the services they would need to advertize and support in their “high end” development.

Simply stated I don’t think we have the political clout to introduce this technology to the North

end of the lake.  I don’t even know if they would have the clout but it would certainly be more

than SACA could manage.  Remember to reach for the stars you don’t necessarily need satellite

dishes and antennas you need your own imagination, desires and wills.

 

The latest information that telus is sending to customers is that as of September 15, 2008, analog bag phones will no longer be supported. They have sent me a letter offering me a new digital phone that could be hooked up to the three watt booster if I renew my contract for 3 years. When I dug a little deeper, it appears that what will really happen is that when analog switches fail in their towers they will replace them with digital switches. This means that analog could actually be around for several more years or atleast until the switches all fail.. I am going to continue to use by 3 watt analog bag phone as long as possible. From what I have heard, they still work better than a digital phone with a 3 watt booster.

 

Fraser

I have bought a Yaggi antenna and three watt booster for my LG cell phone. I am approx 3 kil. from the wharf and at time get not service but for the most part am able to get from 1 to 3 bars reception, which is most often in analog. I had it up when the snow was here and did get up to 4 bars, with the reception in digital mode about 70 to 80 percent of the time. I helped put up a Yaggi for my neighbour, who has a bag phone and he normal gets 1 to 3 bars, I believe though that the bag phone is strictly analog.It must be pointed out to Telus and the BC government that this is our only communication out in case of an emergency, and must be either upgraded make digital more possible or at least left with the analog to gain required emergency services.
I also have to point out that the Yaggi is not pointing at the transmitter but more to the west so must actually be receiving a bounce signal. It is a lot of expense to get initially set up, (approx $600.00) but the security and ability to contact family and friends for us has been well worth

I was using the 3-watt booster for my digital phone last year and I had a good signal 90% of the time, mind you I was calling from the gov wharf. I talked to a telus rep about the times that were'nt good and apparently I was'nt giving the booster enough time to find the best signal. I don't know how it will do from your side of the lake. Hope this helps.