Call screening/answering machine

On Thu, 23 Oct 2014 22:45:08 +0200, Stefan Enzinger declaimed the following:

Don't know about current practice, but back in the 70s (when I "studied" the feature), WATS lines (Wide Area Telecomm Service or somesuch) came in two forms...

Out-WATS and In-WATS

The numbers associated with advertisements were In-WATS -- free to the caller, and some cheap block minutes charge to the called; could NOT be used for outgoing messages.

Out-WATS was the opposite -- it was a cheap block minutes type charge to the number owner for long-distance calling; but calls to the number were not free.

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	Wulfraed                 Dennis Lee Bieber         AF6VN 
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Dennis Lee Bieber
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calling snipped-for-privacy@sip.voipfone.co.uk connects you to this:

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but it's not a much fun as mine.

I am mindful that this is all a bit OT, but at least the recording was captured by my Pi phone system.

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Graham. 

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Reply to
Graham.

I opened the Nettalk unit and it has a Coldfire processor and just a few other chips in it. They seem to use a Microsemi chipset for the FXS interface, Le89116 and Le89810. A very few other parts seems to make a circuit capable of generating the loop and ring voltages. They have the technical docs behind a wall, so I'll have to contact them to get access. I hope they don't require a PO for a million units to get me a data sheet. lol

I see Silicon Devices sells similar products.

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Rick
Reply to
rickman

Personally I really dislike people who call from a mobile when they are sat next to a "proper" phone. The delay, codec artifacts and if they aren't in a 100% rock solid coverage area the Donald Duck noises just make it a painful experience.

Our VOIP (Gigaset and ADSL in interleaved mode) has a delay but it's nowhere near as bad as mobiles. The quality is excellent, not sure what audio bandwidth it uses but it's higher than "Speech" or "3.1 kHz Audio" on ISDN.

Not beacuse you will still have a working phone when the local cell has have lost power? Not many cells have backup power beyound orderly shutdown, if that...

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Cheers 
Dave.
Reply to
Dave Liquorice

The land line is also useful for contacting _anybody_ who may be at your home at the time.

It is also useful for someone who is at home when nobody at home can actually find their mobile (assuming that either a mobile is set to ring, or that it is set to vibrate and someone is wearing it).

It is also useful for reporting a power cut if all the mobiles that can be found (maybe in the dark) have flat batteries.

There's probably a Web page about the special uses of POTS.

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   Web   - FAQish topics, acronyms, & links.
Reply to
Dr J R Stockton

You're thinking of Lenny. It was a SIP URI that went out of service about a year ago when the guy behind it decided to stop. Work is proceeding to get it going again. See

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It also seems that you can now roll your own Lenny bot.
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David Griffith 
davidmylastname@acm.org
Reply to
David Griffith

So, I'm (finally) about to get FTTC here in rural Bucks.

As I understand it, there'll be a VSDL modem on the incoming line, which will provide the POTS service, as well as a PPPoE dervice for the broadband.

If that modem loses power, I assume that the POTS dies with it. So much for BT always insisting that one keeps POTS for emergencies.

Am I correct in my assumptions?

Reply to
Tony van der Hoff

A bit off-toppice for here ;-)

However..

Not quite. The incoming copper won't change although BT may fit a new improved filtered master socket. You'll still have POTS service if your own power dies.

There will be a modem with Ethernet socket - you then connect your own router to that which handles the PPPoE connection.

Some ISPs provide this for you.

BT are trialling self-installs though.

Good luck - envious here, won't get FTTC/P here until end 2016 )-:

Gordon

Reply to
Gordon Henderson

Perfect. Thanks.

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martin@   | Martin Gregorie 
gregorie. | Essex, UK 
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Reply to
Martin Gregorie

No, the POTS service remains as is and will work under local power fail conditions, so long as the batteries/genset at the local exchnage hold out.

The VDSL signal is applied to your line at the local cabinet, presumably with a filter on the upstream side to prevent the x km of line from cabinet to exchange fupping up the VDSL. If the cabinet loses power the VDSL disappears, I think the cabinets have battery backup but that might only be for bridging short outages/safe shutdown rather than "maintaining service".

Also note that the other end of the fibre feeding "your" cabinet may not terminate at the same exchnage as your POTS line, it may pass through it but the termination kit may well be located at a larger exchange some distance away and house the equipment for FTTC across many exchnage areas.

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Cheers 
Dave.
Reply to
Dave Liquorice

On Tue, 28 Oct 2014 11:46:04 +0000 (GMT), "Dave Liquorice" declaimed the following:

That presumes one has a plain old line-powered telephone... But something with answering machine, caller ID, and wireless handsets will typically be dead if the power goes out. My current landline phone actually has a mode where it will draw power from a charged handset if the wall power goes down -- does mean one has to leave the handset in the cradle and either use one of the other handsets (it came with four) or use the base in speakerphone mode.

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	Wulfraed                 Dennis Lee Bieber         AF6VN 
    wlfraed@ix.netcom.com    HTTP://wlfraed.home.netcom.com/
Reply to
Dennis Lee Bieber

Thanks, everyone for clearing up my misconceptions.

Reply to
Tony van der Hoff

The topology of the network also depends on the country and the common practices. Here in the Netherlands, VDSL was first installed in the local exchanges, so one could only get VDSL when the cable length to the local exchange is within a certain limit. Currently VDSL street cabinets are installed in areas that are outside of that range and not equipped with FTTH.

In principle the situation w.r.t. analog voice (POTS) is the same as described above, however a VDSL provider will usually try to convince the customer to get a 2-in-1 or 3-in-1 package, and the phone service will be VoIP over the VDSL signal (either as a separate virtual circuit or within the normal internet connection, depending on the provider).

In that case, a modem will be supplied that has a POTS connection for the existing analog phone, and of course all the concerns about the availability of phone service during power outages do apply. (both your VDSL modem and the street cabinet have to remain powered for your phone to function)

Reply to
Rob

In the UK, it's currently a requirement that your POTS line continues to work when the mains electricity fails. That means that it usually isn't folded into a VoIP connection (as there's no such guarantee for the IP service), but continues to be carried as a passive pair right to the exchange. BT have trialed other ways, such as folding it into VoIP and having a 3 hour backup battery on the VoIP modem, but I don't think any of these are currently offered as standard. They asked the industry regulator if the backup could be reduced to 1 hour, and were told no.

Back in the days of ISDN, there was a similar issue and BT supplied an ISDN terminal adaptor with 2 integrated POTS lines, but it was all powered from the exchange by having 100V across the ISDN pair. (This was their Home Highway/Business Highway product.)

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Andrew Gabriel 
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Reply to
Andrew Gabriel

We don't have such a requirement here. Customers are expected to make their own evaluation of quality and guarantees when they select a telephony provider, and a provider can provide effectively anything.

It also is not considered an issue anymore, landline usage is dropping all the time anyway. Everyone is switching to mobile.

There are some exceptions, like usage of the line for a modem connection by a burglar alarm or panic button for the elderly. Those companies normally specify that a POTS line is to be used. There are some cases where other phone providers can be certified for especially the alarm for the elderly, but I guess that only checks uptime percentages, not dependency on local power.

Usually the utility power is quite reliable. It is not uncommon for UPS installations to have more failures because of failure of the UPS than from utility power failure.

Reply to
Rob

Lenny is alive and well, courtesy of Ward Mundy. SIP/ snipped-for-privacy@rentpbx.mundy.org

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Graham. 

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Reply to
Graham.

The trouble is, many families are 100% DECT and don't possess a wired phone, so most of the above still applies.

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Graham. 

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Reply to
Graham.

More fool them if they don't read the instructions for their DECT phone. If it doesn't work without power the instructions will say that alternative provision for power fail conditions is provided. Also try reporting a line fault without having a couple corded phones and trying them plugged directly into the master socket.

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Cheers 
Dave.
Reply to
Dave Liquorice

On Fri, 31 Oct 2014 23:16:58 +0000 (GMT), "Dave Liquorice" declaimed the following:

I have a pair of lineman's test sets for that (there were many times I had to go to the apartment complex distribution panel to verify the line was dead on the outside of the building).

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	Wulfraed                 Dennis Lee Bieber         AF6VN 
    wlfraed@ix.netcom.com    HTTP://wlfraed.home.netcom.com/
Reply to
Dennis Lee Bieber

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