Telephone Talk - 09/15/03 12:26 PM
Topic for continuation of telephone talk started in Secondhand Appliances thread.
Re: Telephone Talk - 09/15/03 02:07 PM
More on the SxS switching:
On the old exchanges it wasn't at all unusual to hear a little crosstalk from other lines, and the step-pulsing sounds of other calls being set up could often be heard in the background. Here's a recording of Step-pulse crosstalk on an otherwise quiet line.
The pre-digital exchanges here didn't let the caller hear the signaling, but there was no "call progressing" tone applied. However, the AC9 signaling system -- which was very widely used for many years in the U.K. -- used 2280Hz for supervision, and you would often hear the chirp of 2280 on a trunk call when the distant party answered.
One thing that was done on British crossbar exchanges was the application of a long first burst of ring-tone when a call switched through before dropping into the normal ring cycle.
Here's an example: TXK Ring .
The idea was to prevent extra delay if the call happened to switch through during the silent period between rings, although considering that the break between rings on the British/Irish cadence is only 2 seconds, it probably wasn't that big a deal. SxS switches never adopted this approach.
Digital switching has resulted in a vastly different network compared to the older switching systems.
In SxS without directors, the dial pulses control the selectors directly, so the only way to ensure an instant dial-tone to all subsscribers without fail would have been to provide one first selector per line.
In director areas (which in Britain were just the big cities: London, Birmingham, Edinburgh, etc.) it was the director which provided dial tone and accepted the dialed digits, storing them until enough were received to pulse out the correct routing codes into the selectors. Directors were complex and expensive pieces of equipment, so optimizing their use was essential, and providing one per line was totally out of the question.
In TXK (crossbar) exchanges, a similar situation existed with the register-translator. As with the director, this stayed on the line just long enough to accept the dialed digits and set up the call path before dropping out to be used by another caller.
On some small SxS offices you could sit listening to dial-tone all day, but on director SxS or crossbar if you hadn't dialed after at most 30 to 60 seconds, you'd be dumped off the director or register-translator to free it for other calls.
Where circuits were all busy at the moment a call was dialed, there was no question of waiting for a line to become free. The equipment just connected Equipment Engaged Tone to tell the caller to try again.
If the congestion was on routes out of one of the big tandem centers, then the caller would be given the luxury of a recorded message, such as this .
The recordings I've linked to here are on Rob Grant's Telephone Website . Lots more interesting stuff there.
[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 09-15-2003).]
On the old exchanges it wasn't at all unusual to hear a little crosstalk from other lines, and the step-pulsing sounds of other calls being set up could often be heard in the background. Here's a recording of Step-pulse crosstalk on an otherwise quiet line.
Quote
When you were calling "digital - digital" the number usually just rang out immediately but when calling digital to ARF / ARK crossbar or to a mobile or abroad (e.g. to the UK to an old switch) the bebebebe tone was played down the line rather than letting you hear the actual signaling.
One thing that was done on British crossbar exchanges was the application of a long first burst of ring-tone when a call switched through before dropping into the normal ring cycle.
Here's an example: TXK Ring .
The idea was to prevent extra delay if the call happened to switch through during the silent period between rings, although considering that the break between rings on the British/Irish cadence is only 2 seconds, it probably wasn't that big a deal. SxS switches never adopted this approach.
Quote
In other countries if a switch is swamped it just won't give a dial tone at all. Here the switch will take the call, let you dial and then make you wait until it's ready to process the call.
In SxS without directors, the dial pulses control the selectors directly, so the only way to ensure an instant dial-tone to all subsscribers without fail would have been to provide one first selector per line.
In director areas (which in Britain were just the big cities: London, Birmingham, Edinburgh, etc.) it was the director which provided dial tone and accepted the dialed digits, storing them until enough were received to pulse out the correct routing codes into the selectors. Directors were complex and expensive pieces of equipment, so optimizing their use was essential, and providing one per line was totally out of the question.
In TXK (crossbar) exchanges, a similar situation existed with the register-translator. As with the director, this stayed on the line just long enough to accept the dialed digits and set up the call path before dropping out to be used by another caller.
On some small SxS offices you could sit listening to dial-tone all day, but on director SxS or crossbar if you hadn't dialed after at most 30 to 60 seconds, you'd be dumped off the director or register-translator to free it for other calls.
Where circuits were all busy at the moment a call was dialed, there was no question of waiting for a line to become free. The equipment just connected Equipment Engaged Tone to tell the caller to try again.
If the congestion was on routes out of one of the big tandem centers, then the caller would be given the luxury of a recorded message, such as this .
The recordings I've linked to here are on Rob Grant's Telephone Website . Lots more interesting stuff there.
[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 09-15-2003).]
Re: Telephone Talk - 09/15/03 03:06 PM
Speaking of recorded messages, the US recently lost one of its most famous voices:
http://www.nypost.com/news/nationalnews/1679.htm
http:/
Re: Telephone Talk - 09/15/03 04:03 PM
The electromechanical switches here were pretty different. SxS disappeared very early on when the network began to be digatlised in about 1979-80. The priority was to remove the SxS switches as they were becoming old and extremely unreliable. P&T (the predecessor to Telecom Eireann, now Eircom) operated a horrendously bad network at the time. Parts were also becoming difficult to come by and it was generally a maintenence nightmare.
However, P&T had installed a signifigant number of large crossbars, ARF (local) and ARM (transit) particularly during the 1970s.
These switches were pretty efficient, reliable and effective so remained in service along side digital switches albeit only as local exchanges right through the 1980s gradually disappearing by the early 90s.
Ericsson also offered a seamless upgrade path from ARM/ARF to AXE where by digital equipment could gradually replace various parts of the older switch until eventually it could be cut over to being a full AXE.
The smaller Ericsson ARK crossbars used in some rural areas generally were replaced by Alcatel E10 systems as almost all of rural ireland operates on that system. SxS switched areas generally became E10 too.
ARF went through a period of being ARE-11 which was a kinda hybrid of a crossbar but with computerised registers etc. So you picked up, dialled this was handled digitally and a computer system controlled the switch.
These switches sounded exactly the same as the older ones the only difference being they handled DTMF & were marginally faster.
Occasionally ARF switches could go wrong and give youa blast of really rapid MF signaling strings all sounded very high tech, but wasn't compared to SS7![[Linked Image]](https://www.electrical-contractor.net/ubb/smile.gif)
The exchange used these internally to control various moduels and also to signal the network.
Not sure which signaling system it actually was.
Also, compared with most of the rest of Europe digialisation occured much more quickly and much earlier on. Most of the system was fully digital by about 1987 with the remainder being ARF but only locally. All ARF exchanges were working effectively as remote concentrators for nearest AXE or E10.
Also that long burst ring tone is very familar. It's used here as standard the long burst activates caller ID equipment on the line.
However, P&T had installed a signifigant number of large crossbars, ARF (local) and ARM (transit) particularly during the 1970s.
These switches were pretty efficient, reliable and effective so remained in service along side digital switches albeit only as local exchanges right through the 1980s gradually disappearing by the early 90s.
Ericsson also offered a seamless upgrade path from ARM/ARF to AXE where by digital equipment could gradually replace various parts of the older switch until eventually it could be cut over to being a full AXE.
The smaller Ericsson ARK crossbars used in some rural areas generally were replaced by Alcatel E10 systems as almost all of rural ireland operates on that system. SxS switched areas generally became E10 too.
ARF went through a period of being ARE-11 which was a kinda hybrid of a crossbar but with computerised registers etc. So you picked up, dialled this was handled digitally and a computer system controlled the switch.
These switches sounded exactly the same as the older ones the only difference being they handled DTMF & were marginally faster.
Occasionally ARF switches could go wrong and give youa blast of really rapid MF signaling strings all sounded very high tech, but wasn't compared to SS7
The exchange used these internally to control various moduels and also to signal the network.Not sure which signaling system it actually was.
Also, compared with most of the rest of Europe digialisation occured much more quickly and much earlier on. Most of the system was fully digital by about 1987 with the remainder being ARF but only locally. All ARF exchanges were working effectively as remote concentrators for nearest AXE or E10.
Also that long burst ring tone is very familar. It's used here as standard the long burst activates caller ID equipment on the line.
Re: Telephone Talk - 09/16/03 09:29 AM
Here in Austria digitalization officially started in the mid 1980ies, but the last remote parts of Vienna were analog until 2001 or so, and I even suspect there are still some analog exchanges in rural areas (at least the numbering scheme indicates it). In Vienna analog lines were pretty easy to spot because they usually had a slightly different numbering scheme. Single lines had a 6 digit number, party lines were 7 digit. Digital numbers are all 7 digit, but some combinations aren't used any more, for example the 42x, 43x, 45x and 46x range disappeared completely. 42 and 43 were usually moved to 40x (single lines were usually just extended to 402x and 403x, new numbers are in the 405x to 408x area).
In rural areas all (or most) 3 digit numbers are now 4 digit (spoiled some quite cool numbers, for example 555 is now 7555), but in some remote places there are still 3 digit numbers, even though I definitely know they were supposed to be changed to 4 digits years ago. So maybe these areas are still analog. Or they just didn't see any need to change the numbers because of all the new cell phones, so maybe they didn't need the extra capacity.
In rural areas all (or most) 3 digit numbers are now 4 digit (spoiled some quite cool numbers, for example 555 is now 7555), but in some remote places there are still 3 digit numbers, even though I definitely know they were supposed to be changed to 4 digits years ago. So maybe these areas are still analog. Or they just didn't see any need to change the numbers because of all the new cell phones, so maybe they didn't need the extra capacity.
Re: Telephone Talk - 09/16/03 10:10 AM
We never had less than 5 digits in rural areas but, for some reason, they're merging most of those areas into single area codes and making them 7 digits.
Very geographically structured system still though.
01 - Greater Dublin Area
02 - Greater Cork Area
03 - "doesn't exsist (yet)"
04 - North East (& NI 048)
05 - midlands & south east
06 - South & Mid west
07 - Northwest
08 - Mobile
09 - West
Each of those codes, except dublin is then further divided into 10 areas e.g. 021 to 029.
Special services / freefone etc all start with 1
1-800 (Freephone)
18 50 & 18 90 (local rate) (eighteen fifty and eighteen ninty)
15 XX XX XX XX (premium rate 30¢ to 200¢ per min)
e.g. 15 50 30 30 30 (fifteen fifty(tm) 30 30 30)
with mostly 7 but some 5 digit numbering.
The plan is to move it all to
0XX - XXX - XXXX
they've also removed 4 digit area codes like 0506 this year.
[This message has been edited by djk (edited 09-16-2003).]
[This message has been edited by djk (edited 09-16-2003).]
Very geographically structured system still though.
01 - Greater Dublin Area
02 - Greater Cork Area
03 - "doesn't exsist (yet)"
04 - North East (& NI 048)
05 - midlands & south east
06 - South & Mid west
07 - Northwest
08 - Mobile
09 - West
Each of those codes, except dublin is then further divided into 10 areas e.g. 021 to 029.
Special services / freefone etc all start with 1
1-800 (Freephone)
18 50 & 18 90 (local rate) (eighteen fifty and eighteen ninty)
15 XX XX XX XX (premium rate 30¢ to 200¢ per min)
e.g. 15 50 30 30 30 (fifteen fifty(tm) 30 30 30)
with mostly 7 but some 5 digit numbering.
The plan is to move it all to
0XX - XXX - XXXX
they've also removed 4 digit area codes like 0506 this year.
[This message has been edited by djk (edited 09-16-2003).]
[This message has been edited by djk (edited 09-16-2003).]
Re: Telephone Talk - 09/16/03 11:56 AM
A mixed number system was always a feature of the British network. Many rural areas served by a UAX (Unit Automatic eXchange) had 3-digit local numbering into the 1980s.
One consequence of the heavily Strowger-based network with no directors in most areas was that we had many local routing codes.
In addition to the list of national STD codes, everybody was given a book of local dialing codes, which varied from exchange to exchange. Typically, a small outlying village exchange would dial 9 to reach its parent exchange, and from the group center you would dial a two-digit code, often 8x but sometimes 5x, 6x, or 7x to reach neighboring satellite exchanges.
Fictitious & simplified example:
Subscribers in Big Town would be told to dial the following:
Little Village, dial 81 plus number
Tiny Hamlet, dial 82 plus number
Subsscribers in Little Village would get the following instructions:
To call BigTown, dial 9 plus number
To call Tiny Hamlet, dial 982 plus number
At each GSC, there were other codes (generally 9x) to reach adjacent GSCs which were in a different STD code but still within the local call area.
Sometimes there was sufficient traffic between small, neighboring exchanges to justify a direct trunks between them. So if Little Village and Tiny Hamlet often had calls between them, there might be a few direct trunks and callers in Tiny Hamlet might then be told to dial 6 plus the number to reach Little Village.
If those direct trunks were all busy at any time, those in the know could dial 981 instead (unpublished code) and route the call via Big Town.
Some routes would be barred from incoming trunks, but the dial-through nature needed at many locations meant that this was not always possible.
As a result, one could set up local calls via a very convoluted path. From my home in the early 1980s, for example, the direct way to dial Zelah 299 (a test number in the small Zelah exchange) was to dial 54-299.
But I could also get there by dialing something like this:
54951991950991953954299
The routing here was:
Three Waters/Truro(my CO) - Zelah - Truro - Mitchell - Truro - Falmouth - Truro - Veryan - Truro - Falmouth - Truro - Tregony - Truro - Zelah!
![[Linked Image]](https://www.electrical-contractor.net/ubb/biggrin.gif)
[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 09-16-2003).]
One consequence of the heavily Strowger-based network with no directors in most areas was that we had many local routing codes.
In addition to the list of national STD codes, everybody was given a book of local dialing codes, which varied from exchange to exchange. Typically, a small outlying village exchange would dial 9 to reach its parent exchange, and from the group center you would dial a two-digit code, often 8x but sometimes 5x, 6x, or 7x to reach neighboring satellite exchanges.
Fictitious & simplified example:
Subscribers in Big Town would be told to dial the following:
Little Village, dial 81 plus number
Tiny Hamlet, dial 82 plus number
Subsscribers in Little Village would get the following instructions:
To call BigTown, dial 9 plus number
To call Tiny Hamlet, dial 982 plus number
At each GSC, there were other codes (generally 9x) to reach adjacent GSCs which were in a different STD code but still within the local call area.
Sometimes there was sufficient traffic between small, neighboring exchanges to justify a direct trunks between them. So if Little Village and Tiny Hamlet often had calls between them, there might be a few direct trunks and callers in Tiny Hamlet might then be told to dial 6 plus the number to reach Little Village.
If those direct trunks were all busy at any time, those in the know could dial 981 instead (unpublished code) and route the call via Big Town.
Some routes would be barred from incoming trunks, but the dial-through nature needed at many locations meant that this was not always possible.
As a result, one could set up local calls via a very convoluted path. From my home in the early 1980s, for example, the direct way to dial Zelah 299 (a test number in the small Zelah exchange) was to dial 54-299.
But I could also get there by dialing something like this:
54951991950991953954299
The routing here was:
Three Waters/Truro(my CO) - Zelah - Truro - Mitchell - Truro - Falmouth - Truro - Veryan - Truro - Falmouth - Truro - Tregony - Truro - Zelah!
[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 09-16-2003).]
Re: Telephone Talk - 09/16/03 12:42 PM
We used to have a bunch of those short area codes in the Vienna area too. I think to vienna was 9, Vienna to baden was 96 and Vienna to Wiener Neustadt was 98, but I'm not exactly sure. These codes disappeared about 10 to 15 years ago. They had 1 to 3 digits and all started with 9.
Re: Telephone Talk - 09/16/03 02:15 PM
We never had that.. however, i do remember when you called from a very old switch in a town we had a holiday home this is what would happen.
you dialled say 39999 (pulse)
the dial tone would go away..
then you'd hear another dialtone and the whole number being pulsed out.. then bebebebe and ring..
it was actually just dialing out on an E10 exchange! Pretty much behaving like a glorified 1950s analogue PABX.
Anyway, if you dialled 39999 and then very quickly tone dialed before it started sending the pulses you could continue tone dialling (the E10 would ignore the pulses) so you'd end up getting any call you wanted for 11 pence All the stingey backpackers knew this!
All that stuff is LONG LONG gone now though. I think it was prob. one of the only very old switches left in the country, no idea what it was even! could have been old xbar or even SxS.
Telecom noticed the payphone billing discrepencies and suddenly all the payphones went over to digital lines, presume they just passed through the old switch.. and with in a few weeks it was fully digital.
Obviously i have never done this myself, but i was told about it by a tourist!!!
you dialled say 39999 (pulse)
the dial tone would go away..
then you'd hear another dialtone and the whole number being pulsed out.. then bebebebe and ring..
it was actually just dialing out on an E10 exchange! Pretty much behaving like a glorified 1950s analogue PABX.
Anyway, if you dialled 39999 and then very quickly tone dialed before it started sending the pulses you could continue tone dialling (the E10 would ignore the pulses) so you'd end up getting any call you wanted for 11 pence
All the stingey backpackers knew this!All that stuff is LONG LONG gone now though. I think it was prob. one of the only very old switches left in the country, no idea what it was even! could have been old xbar or even SxS.
Telecom noticed the payphone billing discrepencies and suddenly all the payphones went over to digital lines, presume they just passed through the old switch.. and with in a few weeks it was fully digital.
Obviously i have never done this myself, but i was told about it by a tourist!!!
Re: Telephone Talk - 09/17/03 07:34 PM
The 2600Hz supervision with MF in-band signaling on many American trunks resulted in the infamous "blue box" which enabled free calls to be made.
The device wouldn't work in Britain due to the different signaling systems, but the "black box" would certainly work on the old GPO system here.
As none of this is applicable to the modern system, it won't hurt to reveal the details.
The black box enabled free calls to be made, the only catch being that the device had to be located at the receiving end of the call. The trick involved was to use a fairly high value of resistance across the line, low enough to trip the ringing on the final selectors (i.e. cut off the ringing voltage to the line), but not low enough to complete the DC loop to signal an off-hook condition. It was the the latter which sent a supervision signal back to the originating exchange to indicate "call answered" and to start charging.
Having tripped the ringing, it was then possible to connect an audio path via isolating capacitors to the line and talk both ways. In some cases, the connection would time-out and release after a minute or two, but of course somebody could just call back again -- Hey, the calls were free!
The practice was, of course, illegal.
The device wouldn't work in Britain due to the different signaling systems, but the "black box" would certainly work on the old GPO system here.
As none of this is applicable to the modern system, it won't hurt to reveal the details.
The black box enabled free calls to be made, the only catch being that the device had to be located at the receiving end of the call. The trick involved was to use a fairly high value of resistance across the line, low enough to trip the ringing on the final selectors (i.e. cut off the ringing voltage to the line), but not low enough to complete the DC loop to signal an off-hook condition. It was the the latter which sent a supervision signal back to the originating exchange to indicate "call answered" and to start charging.
Having tripped the ringing, it was then possible to connect an audio path via isolating capacitors to the line and talk both ways. In some cases, the connection would time-out and release after a minute or two, but of course somebody could just call back again -- Hey, the calls were free!
The practice was, of course, illegal.
Re: Telephone Talk - 09/17/03 11:31 PM
That kind of fraud was relatively rare here due to the lack of MF trunk signaling systems. The trunk system went from 1930s style to fiber optic in one jump. From the early 1980s all of the trunk & international switches went fully digital.
The few remaining local electromechanical switches were not very interesting to phreakers as there was no way of getting around their digital parents.
Making local calls for free was pretty much pointless as until 1993 Eircom charged a flat 11pence for a local call regardless of length. However, with the arrival of the internet and the dial-up modem they suddenly started charging. At the peak of dial-up internet modem traffic was representing up to 80% of all local call mins in some areas!
I was talking with a retired former Telecom worker who actually knew the full history of switching here:
1932-1962 Strowger equipment was being purchased and installed as new.
1954 - Ericsson crossbars began to appear in the system.
1962 - Policy was implemented to phase out Strowger gear and all new equipment was crossbar.
By 1972 at least 75-80% of automatic equipment was common control crossbar.
1978ish : RJ11 modular plugs began to replace hardwire & old style plugs (headphone jack like)
1978ish - Discussion about going fully digital
1979 - Trials of an Irish version of the French CIT/Alcatel E10B switch began. Within a short time the advantages were clear, low/no maintenence, easy to install & flexible (compared to crossbar), small size and very suitable for use in small rural locations as well as urban areas. By the early 1980s the Government had made it a matter of urgent policy to fully digitalise as a matter and pumped money in.
1980/81 - First E10 units went into public service.
slightly later Ericsson AXE switches began to appear.
Many of these went into local service in areas that were still manually switched i.e. rural areas at first.. any remaining step-by-step areas next and then crossbars began to be phased out starting with the oldest ones & any serving core-business areas i.e. city centres / industrial estates / business parks etc.
Crossbar systems installed in the mid-late 70s happily served residental areas as local switches providing very high quality service right up to the early 1990s.
1984: P&T split in 2 and replaced by an independent semistate company "Telecom Eireann" and a seperate post office "An Post"
1985 - Eircell, a TE subsiduary, launched a TACS mobile service using Motorola transmission and ericsson AXE switching.
Around the same time Minitel Ireland (joint venture between TE and France Telecom) appeared but, partly due to poor marketing and lack of any interesting services other than online banking, had very few users compared with French minitel.The service was pretty much dead and burried by the mid-90s although still exsists for some specialised closed-network uses.
1987-88 Smart card payphones appeared following trials of various magnetic and optical alternatives.
--------
Limited STD dialling exsisted back as far as it did in the UK but full STD didn't appear until the 1970s and then only in automatic areas so many rural areas were excluded until they went digital. 100% automatic service was later than the UK, but near full digitalisation was MUCH earlier.
IDD (International Direct Dialling) appeared in Crossbar areas in the mid 1970s to 20 countries via 16 + country code. Strowger switches were limited to STD and some calls to the UK.
Full IDD was available from day 1 in all digital areas
via 16 + country code
PhonePlus, later renamed Call Management services also launched around 1980 on the E10 switches & the AXE systems which followed later.
*Call diversion *21*+ no + # (conditional divertion [busy, no answer, offhook etc] came a few years later)
*Call waiting *43# (R2 to toggle between calls, R3 for three-way call, R1 to dump current call and go to next)
*Threeway calling
*Hotline, where you could programme a number with a code (not sure what it was now!) and once your reciever was off hook for 10 seconds it called automatically.
*Abreviated dialling where you programmed using *41*X*number# and could then dial by using a short code +#
*Alarm call *55*Time#
An automated charge card service also debued in the mid 80s.
*** more came later Voicemail & "Never busy fax", Caller ID, call return, etc.
Here's the inside of a very boring looking eircsson AXE 10 installed in the 1980s. The older gear looked more interesting.
![[Linked Image from iol.ie]](http://www.iol.ie/~cgecomck/iat/ericsson.gif)
![[Linked Image from iol.ie]](http://www.iol.ie/~cgecomck/iat/exchange.gif)
[This message has been edited by djk (edited 09-17-2003).]
The few remaining local electromechanical switches were not very interesting to phreakers as there was no way of getting around their digital parents.
Making local calls for free was pretty much pointless as until 1993 Eircom charged a flat 11pence for a local call regardless of length. However, with the arrival of the internet and the dial-up modem they suddenly started charging. At the peak of dial-up internet modem traffic was representing up to 80% of all local call mins in some areas!
I was talking with a retired former Telecom worker who actually knew the full history of switching here:
1932-1962 Strowger equipment was being purchased and installed as new.
1954 - Ericsson crossbars began to appear in the system.
1962 - Policy was implemented to phase out Strowger gear and all new equipment was crossbar.
By 1972 at least 75-80% of automatic equipment was common control crossbar.
1978ish : RJ11 modular plugs began to replace hardwire & old style plugs (headphone jack like)
1978ish - Discussion about going fully digital
1979 - Trials of an Irish version of the French CIT/Alcatel E10B switch began. Within a short time the advantages were clear, low/no maintenence, easy to install & flexible (compared to crossbar), small size and very suitable for use in small rural locations as well as urban areas. By the early 1980s the Government had made it a matter of urgent policy to fully digitalise as a matter and pumped money in.
1980/81 - First E10 units went into public service.
slightly later Ericsson AXE switches began to appear.
Many of these went into local service in areas that were still manually switched i.e. rural areas at first.. any remaining step-by-step areas next and then crossbars began to be phased out starting with the oldest ones & any serving core-business areas i.e. city centres / industrial estates / business parks etc.
Crossbar systems installed in the mid-late 70s happily served residental areas as local switches providing very high quality service right up to the early 1990s.
1984: P&T split in 2 and replaced by an independent semistate company "Telecom Eireann" and a seperate post office "An Post"
1985 - Eircell, a TE subsiduary, launched a TACS mobile service using Motorola transmission and ericsson AXE switching.
Around the same time Minitel Ireland (joint venture between TE and France Telecom) appeared but, partly due to poor marketing and lack of any interesting services other than online banking, had very few users compared with French minitel.The service was pretty much dead and burried by the mid-90s although still exsists for some specialised closed-network uses.
1987-88 Smart card payphones appeared following trials of various magnetic and optical alternatives.
--------
Limited STD dialling exsisted back as far as it did in the UK but full STD didn't appear until the 1970s and then only in automatic areas so many rural areas were excluded until they went digital. 100% automatic service was later than the UK, but near full digitalisation was MUCH earlier.
IDD (International Direct Dialling) appeared in Crossbar areas in the mid 1970s to 20 countries via 16 + country code. Strowger switches were limited to STD and some calls to the UK.
Full IDD was available from day 1 in all digital areas
via 16 + country code
PhonePlus, later renamed Call Management services also launched around 1980 on the E10 switches & the AXE systems which followed later.
*Call diversion *21*+ no + # (conditional divertion [busy, no answer, offhook etc] came a few years later)
*Call waiting *43# (R2 to toggle between calls, R3 for three-way call, R1 to dump current call and go to next)
*Threeway calling
*Hotline, where you could programme a number with a code (not sure what it was now!) and once your reciever was off hook for 10 seconds it called automatically.
*Abreviated dialling where you programmed using *41*X*number# and could then dial by using a short code +#
*Alarm call *55*Time#
An automated charge card service also debued in the mid 80s.
*** more came later Voicemail & "Never busy fax", Caller ID, call return, etc.
Here's the inside of a very boring looking eircsson AXE 10 installed in the 1980s. The older gear looked more interesting.
[This message has been edited by djk (edited 09-17-2003).]
Re: Telephone Talk - 09/19/03 10:57 AM
I think that's one thing which made the old systems that much more interesting for visitors to telephone exchanges: With SxS they could see the switches physically moving as calls were connected and released, but in a modern digital office there's not much to look at except racks full of cards.
The modern CO is pretty quiet too. For anyone who has never been inside an old Strowger SxS exchange, this is what it sounded like.
[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 09-19-2003).]
The modern CO is pretty quiet too. For anyone who has never been inside an old Strowger SxS exchange, this is what it sounded like.
[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 09-19-2003).]
Re: Telephone Talk - 09/19/03 11:10 PM
Quote
Speaking of recorded messages, the US recently lost one of its most famous voices: http://www.nypost.com/news/nationalnews/1679.htm
It's funny how people can be famous even though most people don't know their names.
The majority of Brits will have never heard the name Carole Hersee, even though this little girl's face will be instantly recognized by almost the entire population of the country as "the girl on the test card."
Even though the name may be unfamiliar to most, I doubt there could be anyone in America who hasn't heard Jane Barbe at some time or other.
Click here to hear Jane in a typical role.
(Cue chorus from West of Pond: "Oh, now we know who you mean..."
).
Re: Telephone Talk - 09/20/03 12:39 AM
Telecom Eireann / Eircom use a guy called Connor Mullen, brother of U2's larry mullen to voice all of their announcements as part of their whole brand image. When they relaunched as eircom they came out with their own font and voice as part of the image.
This web page gives you an idea of what EVERY eircom service sounds like. There's also a branded female voice on directory enquiries and operator services.. very posh but friendly sounding.
The crossbar switches i've seen in operation were a LOT quietier than that. You just heard lots of gentle clicking as relays moved around. Sounded a lot like a lot of people typing on very "clicky" 1980s keyboards. That SxS sounds like something out of a victorian cotton mill!
http://www.tones.plus.com/sounds/menagerie/TTDUBLIN.WAV
is prob. a test number from one of the last remaining Ericsson ARF switch in dublin 10+ yrs ago.
[This message has been edited by djk (edited 09-19-2003).]
[This message has been edited by djk (edited 09-19-2003).]
This web page gives you an idea of what EVERY eircom service sounds like. There's also a branded female voice on directory enquiries and operator services.. very posh but friendly sounding.
The crossbar switches i've seen in operation were a LOT quietier than that. You just heard lots of gentle clicking as relays moved around. Sounded a lot like a lot of people typing on very "clicky" 1980s keyboards. That SxS sounds like something out of a victorian cotton mill!
http:/
is prob. a test number from one of the last remaining Ericsson ARF switch in dublin 10+ yrs ago.
[This message has been edited by djk (edited 09-19-2003).]
[This message has been edited by djk (edited 09-19-2003).]
Re: Telephone Talk - 09/20/03 01:42 AM
I'll bet James Earl Jones ["Darth"] could make some very effective "Your telephone-bill payment will be expected in full by Tuesday. Do you have any questions about that?" calls.
Re: Telephone Talk - 09/21/03 01:47 AM
Paul,
Just regarding the DTMF system, how many actual tone frequencies are there to a standard telephone, as some of them sound similar when dialling a given number.
Also, what are these actual frequencies?.
I'm old enough to remember the old Manual exchange, when you would pick up the hand piece and you would hear(read this in a Marge Simpson voice!)"Number Please?".
Not long after we changed over to the Auto exchange, I picked up the phone and had a Dial Tone, I instantly thought the darned thing was broken!!, no-one told me that the exchange had been changed over.
Just regarding the DTMF system, how many actual tone frequencies are there to a standard telephone, as some of them sound similar when dialling a given number.
Also, what are these actual frequencies?.
I'm old enough to remember the old Manual exchange, when you would pick up the hand piece and you would hear(read this in a Marge Simpson voice!)"Number Please?".
Not long after we changed over to the Auto exchange, I picked up the phone and had a Dial Tone, I instantly thought the darned thing was broken!!, no-one told me that the exchange had been changed over.
Re: Telephone Talk - 09/21/03 12:15 PM
Mike,
On a standard 10 or 12-button telephone there are actually only seven different frequencies used.
They are arranged on a row/column basis:
.....1209..1336..1477..1633 Hz
697....1.......2.......3.......A
770....4.......5.......6.......B
852....7.......8.......9.......C
941....*.......0.......#.......D
So when you press 5 for example, you send two tones of 770 and 1336 Hz.
It won't work on new phones, but for anyone with an original Western Electric 1500 or 2500-set, you can hear each tone individually by holding down two buttons in the same row or column, e.g. if you hold down 7 and 9 you'll hear a single 852Hz tone.
The 1633Hz column was in the original DTMF specification, and can be used for special signaling functions, although only special phones are fitted with these extra buttons (they were used extensively in the old AUTOVON military system in America).
By the way, if you listened to the Jane Barbe clip above, the burst of tone signaling at the beginning is not the same DTMF tones as heard when dialing a phone.
The tones you hear there are the ones which were commonly used for inter-office signaling in the past, and they use a different scheme:
1 = 900 + 700 Hz
2 = 1100 + 700
3 = 1100 + 900
4 = 1300 + 700
5 = 1300 + 900
6 = 1300 + 1100
7 = 1500 + 700
8 = 1500 + 900
9 = 1500 + 1100
0 = 1500 + 1300
KP = 1700 + 1100
ST = 1700 + 1500
[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 09-21-2003).]
On a standard 10 or 12-button telephone there are actually only seven different frequencies used.
They are arranged on a row/column basis:
.....1209..1336..1477..1633 Hz
697....1.......2.......3.......A
770....4.......5.......6.......B
852....7.......8.......9.......C
941....*.......0.......#.......D
So when you press 5 for example, you send two tones of 770 and 1336 Hz.
It won't work on new phones, but for anyone with an original Western Electric 1500 or 2500-set, you can hear each tone individually by holding down two buttons in the same row or column, e.g. if you hold down 7 and 9 you'll hear a single 852Hz tone.
The 1633Hz column was in the original DTMF specification, and can be used for special signaling functions, although only special phones are fitted with these extra buttons (they were used extensively in the old AUTOVON military system in America).
By the way, if you listened to the Jane Barbe clip above, the burst of tone signaling at the beginning is not the same DTMF tones as heard when dialing a phone.
The tones you hear there are the ones which were commonly used for inter-office signaling in the past, and they use a different scheme:
1 = 900 + 700 Hz
2 = 1100 + 700
3 = 1100 + 900
4 = 1300 + 700
5 = 1300 + 900
6 = 1300 + 1100
7 = 1500 + 700
8 = 1500 + 900
9 = 1500 + 1100
0 = 1500 + 1300
KP = 1700 + 1100
ST = 1700 + 1500
[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 09-21-2003).]
Re: Telephone Talk - 09/21/03 12:38 PM
Trumpy:
Also, there were the "MF" (multi-frequency) tones used by the exchange equipment and also an operator could dial them:
Here is a small file with MF tones 1 through 0.
[This message has been edited by ThinkGood (edited 09-21-2003).]
Also, there were the "MF" (multi-frequency) tones used by the exchange equipment and also an operator could dial them:
Quote
Code
KP=”Key Pulse” ST=”Start” DIGIT FREQ #1(Hz) FREQ #2 (Hz) ----- ----------- ------------ KP 1100 1700 KP2 1300 1700 1 700 900 2 700 1100 3 900 1100 4 700 1300 5 900 1300 6 1100 1300 7 700 1500 8 900 1500 9 1100 1500 0 1300 1500 ST 1500 1700
Here is a small file with MF tones 1 through 0.
[This message has been edited by ThinkGood (edited 09-21-2003).]
Re: Telephone Talk - 09/21/03 12:55 PM
TG,
Looks like your post and my edit to include the trunk signaling crossed.
Trumpy,
Before you ask, the Key Pulse and Start signals precede and follow the digits, e.g. to send 1234 the equipment (or operator) would actually dial KP-1-2-3-4-ST.
Compare the tones in TG's link with those you get from a DTMF keypad. The latter are much more dischordant.
In fact the MF trunk signaling tones are quite musical! Download and listen to this file from the Phone Trips website for a little amusement:
MF Boogie
[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 09-21-2003).]
Looks like your post and my edit to include the trunk signaling crossed
.Trumpy,
Before you ask, the Key Pulse and Start signals precede and follow the digits, e.g. to send 1234 the equipment (or operator) would actually dial KP-1-2-3-4-ST.
Compare the tones in TG's link with those you get from a DTMF keypad. The latter are much more dischordant.
In fact the MF trunk signaling tones are quite musical! Download and listen to this file from the Phone Trips website for a little amusement:
MF Boogie
[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 09-21-2003).]
Re: Telephone Talk - 09/21/03 02:59 PM
Just on another note there was a possibility that the US and EU DTMF schemes could have ended up being different and incompatable! The in band MF systems used for signalling between exchanges nationally and in some cases internationally in Europe were quite different to those used in North America.
Some of the large EU switch manufacturers considered using their own schemes.LM Ericsson, Siemens, ITT Europe, Phillips and the various UK companies involved in swithc manufacture didn't really have to go with the US system.
However, it made more sense to stick to one way of doing things in the end particularly when DTMF rapidly became a way for customers to control automated services.
Also the A,B,C,D tones are often used by voicemail systems to signal. E.g. when our public voicemail calls the house to notify of a call it signals D between each scentence to ensure it doesn't answer itself! If it answers a call and hears "D" it will cause it to hang up immediately and wait a pre-programmed time before it tries to notify of new messages again.
A,B,C,D also get recognised by our local switches here in Ireland.. You can dial them as part of a number and just get a wrong number announcement once 7 digits are dialled or if you just hit them as a first digit you instantly get a wrong number announcement.
The strangest bit: I accidently dialled an A instead of a 1 (old handset from an office system) after the first 3 digits and it started ringing and was answered as by someone working in an office, apparently it's part of the phone company's internal numbering for calling people in switch rooms from a linesman's phone!
E.g. 555-A will get you someone in the switch that handles 555-XXXX
Some of the large EU switch manufacturers considered using their own schemes.LM Ericsson, Siemens, ITT Europe, Phillips and the various UK companies involved in swithc manufacture didn't really have to go with the US system.
However, it made more sense to stick to one way of doing things in the end particularly when DTMF rapidly became a way for customers to control automated services.
Also the A,B,C,D tones are often used by voicemail systems to signal. E.g. when our public voicemail calls the house to notify of a call it signals D between each scentence to ensure it doesn't answer itself! If it answers a call and hears "D" it will cause it to hang up immediately and wait a pre-programmed time before it tries to notify of new messages again.
A,B,C,D also get recognised by our local switches here in Ireland.. You can dial them as part of a number and just get a wrong number announcement once 7 digits are dialled or if you just hit them as a first digit you instantly get a wrong number announcement.
The strangest bit: I accidently dialled an A instead of a 1 (old handset from an office system) after the first 3 digits and it started ringing and was answered as by someone working in an office, apparently it's part of the phone company's internal numbering for calling people in switch rooms from a linesman's phone!
E.g. 555-A will get you someone in the switch that handles 555-XXXX
Re: Telephone Talk - 09/22/03 11:03 PM
Quote
Just on another note there was a possibility that the US and EU DTMF schemes could have ended up being different and incompatable!
Maybe at the time that European countries were working on this they were still mindful of the problems caused by the different dial configurations when international dialing came into being (e.g. an exchange name such as PROspect, which would be 776 in America, but Brits would automatically dial it as 770 -- Hence the instructions given to subscribers here to be sure the number is in the all-figure form).
Quote
The in band MF systems used for signalling between exchanges nationally and in some cases internationally in Europe were quite different to those used in North America.
The MF tones listed above and used extensively in the U.S. were used on international signaling between some countries, the system being known as CCITT No. 5 in Europe.
The use of the extra digits for accessing CO phones in Ireland is quite interesting. In the "old" days (up to the 1980s anyway) in Britain, it was standard GPO practice to reserve certain standard numbers for such use. In a 3-digit exchange, 200 and 201, 300 and 301, etc. were generally so reserved, along with 299, 399 etc. as the remote test numbers. , (Offices with 4-digit numbering reserved 2000, 2001, 2999 and so on). Of course, these standard assignments were in place long before DTMF arrived in Britain.
The extra A/B/C/D digits are recognized by the DTMF decoders in modern digital exhcanges here, but the response to them will depend upon which section of equipment is analyzing that digit.
By the way, the extra digits can be dialed by most modems, e.g. on a Hayes compatible device you can include ABCD in the dial string of an ATDT command.
[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 09-22-2003).]
Re: Telephone Talk - 09/23/03 01:23 AM
123456789*0# seems to initiate a test call here in most places.
There are specific test numbers too. Usually ending in 999.
1993 - reads back the line number
1994 - enters "sirius" remote test service, ID & pin required. Tests are carried out by voice prompt menus.
Each switch also has a 199 code that will initiate an automatic line test.
You dial the code, a continious dial tone is returned. You replace the reciever it runs tests on-hook and then rings back after about 30 seconds with a continious tone if it's ok and a broken tone if it's faulty. Various fault conditions produce different tone patterns.
You can usually select various tests by dialling codes 1-0 */# at the continous tone.
depends on the exchange but they test everything relating to that line / card.
199 is reserved as numbering space for engineering / test purposes only and numbers can be of any length and can be unique to a particular concentrator, primary switch, group of switches served by a particular tandem exchange(s) or available nationally.
On the old crossbars dialling 17 initiated a similar line test but it was not interactive. The menu system described above was accessable via 17 on the digital E10B/AXE switches all through the 1980s and early 1990s too.
17 is now used as part of the voicemail numbering system.
[This message has been edited by djk (edited 09-22-2003).]
There are specific test numbers too. Usually ending in 999.
1993 - reads back the line number
1994 - enters "sirius" remote test service, ID & pin required. Tests are carried out by voice prompt menus.
Each switch also has a 199 code that will initiate an automatic line test.
You dial the code, a continious dial tone is returned. You replace the reciever it runs tests on-hook and then rings back after about 30 seconds with a continious tone if it's ok and a broken tone if it's faulty. Various fault conditions produce different tone patterns.
You can usually select various tests by dialling codes 1-0 */# at the continous tone.
depends on the exchange but they test everything relating to that line / card.
199 is reserved as numbering space for engineering / test purposes only and numbers can be of any length and can be unique to a particular concentrator, primary switch, group of switches served by a particular tandem exchange(s) or available nationally.
On the old crossbars dialling 17 initiated a similar line test but it was not interactive. The menu system described above was accessable via 17 on the digital E10B/AXE switches all through the 1980s and early 1990s too.
17 is now used as part of the voicemail numbering system.
[This message has been edited by djk (edited 09-22-2003).]
Re: Telephone Talk - 09/23/03 07:20 PM
Various test numbers have also existed here for decades.
Ring-back numbers existed on most exchanges in the past, although there was no standard number. 1267 was a common one, and sometimes a 17x or 18x code, but there were others.
The GPO (and later BT) have employed automatic routiners to test lines for years. The devices became known as SALT machines (Subscriber Apparatus & Line Testing). Again, different codes were used for access, but 175 was a common one, and has become the standard code for all the digital exchanges.
The routiner tests the line, rings back, and gives a verdict: "Testing OK," "Earth A", "Battery B", etc. You then get an interrupted dial tone on which you dial a single digit to perform other tests.
The only option that's really of use to a regular home line is the dial test, for which you dial 1. You get a "Start test" message and a new dial tone, at which you dial all the digits in sequence and the routiners checks for correct frequency/pulse width tolerances.
If you dialed in using pulse, it expects the pulse sequence 1234567890; if you dialed using tone, then it expects the DTMF sequence 123456789*0#. (There is actually a test option for the extra DTMF column ABCD as well.)
The other standard test number found on the new digital systems now is 17070. This gives options for simple ring-back, testing your own line, remote testing of any other line in the country (any BT line, that is), as well as automatically applying a cable-pair identification tone to a line and recording cable IDs at junction boxes.
Ring-back numbers existed on most exchanges in the past, although there was no standard number. 1267 was a common one, and sometimes a 17x or 18x code, but there were others.
The GPO (and later BT) have employed automatic routiners to test lines for years. The devices became known as SALT machines (Subscriber Apparatus & Line Testing). Again, different codes were used for access, but 175 was a common one, and has become the standard code for all the digital exchanges.
The routiner tests the line, rings back, and gives a verdict: "Testing OK," "Earth A", "Battery B", etc. You then get an interrupted dial tone on which you dial a single digit to perform other tests.
The only option that's really of use to a regular home line is the dial test, for which you dial 1. You get a "Start test" message and a new dial tone, at which you dial all the digits in sequence and the routiners checks for correct frequency/pulse width tolerances.
If you dialed in using pulse, it expects the pulse sequence 1234567890; if you dialed using tone, then it expects the DTMF sequence 123456789*0#. (There is actually a test option for the extra DTMF column ABCD as well.)
The other standard test number found on the new digital systems now is 17070. This gives options for simple ring-back, testing your own line, remote testing of any other line in the country (any BT line, that is), as well as automatically applying a cable-pair identification tone to a line and recording cable IDs at junction boxes.
Re: Telephone Talk - 09/24/03 10:11 AM
Paul,
Just out of interest got an explanation of the numbering system used here.
The original hierarchiacal structure made a lot of sense for crossbar switching
0AB CD XXXX
0 = trunk
A = Regional Tandem (ARM)
B = Primary switching node (ARF/ARM)
C or CD = Local switch. (ARF/ARK/SxS/Auto-Manual!!)
Digitalisation removed A&B&SxS&Auto/Maunal very rapidly in the early 1980s. Trunk stuff was all digital by about 84.
Areas with codes ending in 1 had more than one main switch and had another layre of crossbar switching sending the calls the right way.
The current system consists of 50 digital "core switch nodes" and 3 Tertirary switches which act as international gateways primarily.
25 switches are Ericsson AXE
25 are Alcatel E10
These all feed many more local RCU switches scattered around cities or serving smaller areas in the countryside. These could be considered exchanges, and would have in the past, but are basically just remote parts of one of the larger switching centres.
All switches provide tandem switching services, some more than others depending on where they're located and they're interlinked using pretty huge capacity fiber optics fully backed up with digital microwave links. It behaves a lot more like the internet than an old style PSTN system. The nodes are all fully capable of backing eachother up in the event of any kind of problem and the network's got so many ways of sending traffic that it would be almost impossible to damage it. (Which was a vital consideration given the Northern Ireland situation as it was for BT too)
Intelligent network software provides all of the special services like 1800 (Freefone), carrier selection etc etc. In the past freefone was provided by a tertiary switch dealing with Freefone, shared cost and premium services.
Other operators tie into the network at all of the above 50 nodes but generally not at more local level.
The two switching systems have similar specs but strangely enough you can actually identify which system you're calling E10 has more melodic ring tones as its tone system handles transitions much more smoothly. The announcement systems are also slightly different.
[This message has been edited by djk (edited 09-24-2003).]
Just out of interest got an explanation of the numbering system used here.
The original hierarchiacal structure made a lot of sense for crossbar switching
0AB CD XXXX
0 = trunk
A = Regional Tandem (ARM)
B = Primary switching node (ARF/ARM)
C or CD = Local switch. (ARF/ARK/SxS/Auto-Manual!!)
Digitalisation removed A&B&SxS&Auto/Maunal very rapidly in the early 1980s. Trunk stuff was all digital by about 84.
Areas with codes ending in 1 had more than one main switch and had another layre of crossbar switching sending the calls the right way.
The current system consists of 50 digital "core switch nodes" and 3 Tertirary switches which act as international gateways primarily.
25 switches are Ericsson AXE
25 are Alcatel E10
These all feed many more local RCU switches scattered around cities or serving smaller areas in the countryside. These could be considered exchanges, and would have in the past, but are basically just remote parts of one of the larger switching centres.
All switches provide tandem switching services, some more than others depending on where they're located and they're interlinked using pretty huge capacity fiber optics fully backed up with digital microwave links. It behaves a lot more like the internet than an old style PSTN system. The nodes are all fully capable of backing eachother up in the event of any kind of problem and the network's got so many ways of sending traffic that it would be almost impossible to damage it. (Which was a vital consideration given the Northern Ireland situation as it was for BT too)
Intelligent network software provides all of the special services like 1800 (Freefone), carrier selection etc etc. In the past freefone was provided by a tertiary switch dealing with Freefone, shared cost and premium services.
Other operators tie into the network at all of the above 50 nodes but generally not at more local level.
The two switching systems have similar specs but strangely enough you can actually identify which system you're calling E10 has more melodic ring tones as its tone system handles transitions much more smoothly. The announcement systems are also slightly different.
[This message has been edited by djk (edited 09-24-2003).]
Re: Telephone Talk - 09/26/03 08:33 AM
Quote
0AB CD XXXX
0 = trunk
A = Regional Tandem (ARM)
B = Primary switching node (ARF/ARM)
0 = trunk
A = Regional Tandem (ARM)
B = Primary switching node (ARF/ARM)
So presumably this old X-bar network had six regional tandems serving the country.
Do you know if they were located within the areas served by each 0x1 area code, i.e. Cork (city), Limerick, Galway etc.?
Re: Telephone Talk - 09/26/03 09:08 AM
The old xbar network never really got completed before digital switching started to arrive on the scene . It had major switching hubs in all of the major regional centres i.e. each area code and there were in some cases, due to the geographical spread of people 2/3 centres. However, the network was pretty bad outside of the urban areas. Most rural areas, with some notable exceptions, went straight from manual to digital.
The hierarchical system of numbering basically had a main trunk centres at Cork serving Co. Cork (02), Galway serving much of the west (09), Limerick serving the midwest (06), Waterford serving the south east (05X), Athlone serving the midlands (050X), Sligo serving the Northwest (07X) and Dublin serving Co. Dublin and sorrounding areas (01). The 04 area was a bit scattered so had a few centres.
These centres also housed the main operator centres and services like directory enquiries etc. and in many cases still house eircom call centres for DQ and operator services.
Basically at the 0X1 or the 0X01 codes, with a few minor exceptions.
Common control Xbar was slightly more intelligent than SxS so traffic could be routed a little more easily than in the UK network without the need for Directors etc.
However, there were still plenty of rural areas where dialling the area code would get you an operator. Or where you had to dial 10 and ask to be connected to "Exchange name + number"
P&T (The Department of Post and Telegraphs) which was actually a government department rather than a semi-state company was an complete disaster. Underfunded, over staffed and suffered from extreme political interference and bureaucracy that Sir Humphry (Yes Minister) would have been proud of. At its lowest point, just before it was abolished, a 1 to 2 year wait was normal to install a phone line and the trunk network could barely handle calls between Cork and Dublin automatically due to lack of capacity! The only thing they had working semi-acceptably were the urban xbar systems although they were totally under capacity.
It got so bad it turned into a political crisis as it was very seriously damaging business and the result was P&T was completely abolished. Telecom Eireann set up with a mission to digitalise the network as fast as possible. They cut a deal with Alcatel and set up a joint venture company, Telecom Alcatel, with them to manufacture and roll out the E10 network and did a similar deal with Ericsson to speed up AXE roll out.
E10 switches were manufactured in Cork in modular racks for larger switches or for rural areas in weather proof air conditioned containers which could be dropped in to a town, usually behind the post office or police station and hooked up to a fiber optic link back to their parent exchange and tie in the local subscribers. It meant digital phone lines started popping up very rapidly.
Ericsson AXE systems were manufactured in Athlone, in the midlands and similarly rolled out.
Telecom Eireann actually developed considerable expertise in this area and ended up acting as consultants for network modernisation projects around the world.
Telecom Alcatel and the Ericsson joint venture companies were wound down but both companies retained some manufacturing/assembly, mostly to support Eircom and pretty large training facilities. Ericsson have a centre in Dublin used to train people in digital switching systems from right around the world. It's complete with working model AXE switching systems.
Alcatel still does quite a lot of software development and training in West Cork as well as supporting Eircom's alcatel network.
[This message has been edited by djk (edited 09-26-2003).]
The hierarchical system of numbering basically had a main trunk centres at Cork serving Co. Cork (02), Galway serving much of the west (09), Limerick serving the midwest (06), Waterford serving the south east (05X), Athlone serving the midlands (050X), Sligo serving the Northwest (07X) and Dublin serving Co. Dublin and sorrounding areas (01). The 04 area was a bit scattered so had a few centres.
These centres also housed the main operator centres and services like directory enquiries etc. and in many cases still house eircom call centres for DQ and operator services.
Basically at the 0X1 or the 0X01 codes, with a few minor exceptions.
Common control Xbar was slightly more intelligent than SxS so traffic could be routed a little more easily than in the UK network without the need for Directors etc.
However, there were still plenty of rural areas where dialling the area code would get you an operator. Or where you had to dial 10 and ask to be connected to "Exchange name + number"
P&T (The Department of Post and Telegraphs) which was actually a government department rather than a semi-state company was an complete disaster. Underfunded, over staffed and suffered from extreme political interference and bureaucracy that Sir Humphry (Yes Minister) would have been proud of. At its lowest point, just before it was abolished, a 1 to 2 year wait was normal to install a phone line and the trunk network could barely handle calls between Cork and Dublin automatically due to lack of capacity! The only thing they had working semi-acceptably were the urban xbar systems although they were totally under capacity.
It got so bad it turned into a political crisis as it was very seriously damaging business and the result was P&T was completely abolished. Telecom Eireann set up with a mission to digitalise the network as fast as possible. They cut a deal with Alcatel and set up a joint venture company, Telecom Alcatel, with them to manufacture and roll out the E10 network and did a similar deal with Ericsson to speed up AXE roll out.
E10 switches were manufactured in Cork in modular racks for larger switches or for rural areas in weather proof air conditioned containers which could be dropped in to a town, usually behind the post office or police station and hooked up to a fiber optic link back to their parent exchange and tie in the local subscribers. It meant digital phone lines started popping up very rapidly.
Ericsson AXE systems were manufactured in Athlone, in the midlands and similarly rolled out.
Telecom Eireann actually developed considerable expertise in this area and ended up acting as consultants for network modernisation projects around the world.
Telecom Alcatel and the Ericsson joint venture companies were wound down but both companies retained some manufacturing/assembly, mostly to support Eircom and pretty large training facilities. Ericsson have a centre in Dublin used to train people in digital switching systems from right around the world. It's complete with working model AXE switching systems.
Alcatel still does quite a lot of software development and training in West Cork as well as supporting Eircom's alcatel network.
[This message has been edited by djk (edited 09-26-2003).]
Re: Telephone Talk - 10/12/03 10:12 PM
Fellow Brits will have seen the TV commercials for the "New 118" numbers which have replaced our traditional 192 number for DQ (Directory Enquiries).
Anyone calling 192 now hears this message .
Get that last part! "Hey everyone, we've changed our number but we're not allowed to tell you what it is."![[Linked Image]](https://www.electrical-contractor.net/ubb/rolleyes.gif)
When someone calls the information line they refer to, he gets a message telling him just one of the many new directory services, picked at random.
Click here for a few sample calls I made.
Apart from being completely unnecessary, this three-ring circus with different companies and different connection and per minute charges is going to be very confusing for many people.![[Linked Image]](https://www.electrical-contractor.net/ubb/frown.gif)
[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 10-12-2003).]
Anyone calling 192 now hears this message .
Get that last part! "Hey everyone, we've changed our number but we're not allowed to tell you what it is."
When someone calls the information line they refer to, he gets a message telling him just one of the many new directory services, picked at random.
Click here for a few sample calls I made.
Apart from being completely unnecessary, this three-ring circus with different companies and different connection and per minute charges is going to be very confusing for many people.
[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 10-12-2003).]
Re: Telephone Talk - 10/13/03 12:44 AM
Paul
We dropped the old 1190 Directory enquiries number in 1999 moving to 5-digit 118XX numbers
The regulator didn't bother requiring that complicated system of announcements. Each phone company could announce whatever they liked.
E.g. eircom always announces:
This is a recorded message from eircom, the number you have dialled XXX XXX XXXX is not in service, please check the directory or call our directory enquiry service on 11-8-11
While O2 will give you "Your call could not be connected. Please check the number or call O2's prefered Directory Assistance on 11-8-50."
I know that Comreg (the regulator) debated doing something like that or using a system where when callers dialled 1190 they would be read out a randomly assigned DQ provider's number. In the end it was decided it was just far too complicated and the new entrants turned out to be well able to get market share.
The only thing is that over 4 years there was a massive shake out with only 2 main stream DQ providers surviving.
The mobile phone companies all dropped their own directory enquiries numbers and advise customers to call 11-8-50 (the main non-eircom provider.. Conduit, they also operate 118888 in the UK and various other services in Europe)
11-8-11 Eircom's DQ service has also remained very popular.
There are some other 118XX numbers but no one uses them.
The reality of it is that people will only remember 2/3 of these codes at most and once they're available from their mobile and landlines they'll stick with them.
Both of the above services can do the following:
Call completion.
SMS advice of the number you require.
Golden Pages Talking. (Yellow pages)
and provide various information services like traffic, lotto, etc etc.
11811 also co-ordinates pay as you go teleconferencing facilities.
... 11811 have started to introduce a little voice recognition technology to the service too.
When you call the number a pre-recorded greeting from the operator is played "welcome to eircom 11811 xxx speaking ..." they then look up the number and it then asks you do if you wish to be connected (voice recognition of yes or no) If you say no the number is read out by machine (male or female voice depending on the operator). If you say yes you just get "thank you for using 11811.. connection costs XXX.. please hold while we try to connect your call.. "ringing...
11850 does a similar service but uses key presses rather than voice commands.
We dropped the old 1190 Directory enquiries number in 1999 moving to 5-digit 118XX numbers
The regulator didn't bother requiring that complicated system of announcements. Each phone company could announce whatever they liked.
E.g. eircom always announces:
This is a recorded message from eircom, the number you have dialled XXX XXX XXXX is not in service, please check the directory or call our directory enquiry service on 11-8-11
While O2 will give you "Your call could not be connected. Please check the number or call O2's prefered Directory Assistance on 11-8-50."
I know that Comreg (the regulator) debated doing something like that or using a system where when callers dialled 1190 they would be read out a randomly assigned DQ provider's number. In the end it was decided it was just far too complicated and the new entrants turned out to be well able to get market share.
The only thing is that over 4 years there was a massive shake out with only 2 main stream DQ providers surviving.
The mobile phone companies all dropped their own directory enquiries numbers and advise customers to call 11-8-50 (the main non-eircom provider.. Conduit, they also operate 118888 in the UK and various other services in Europe)
11-8-11 Eircom's DQ service has also remained very popular.
There are some other 118XX numbers but no one uses them.
The reality of it is that people will only remember 2/3 of these codes at most and once they're available from their mobile and landlines they'll stick with them.
Both of the above services can do the following:
Call completion.
SMS advice of the number you require.
Golden Pages Talking. (Yellow pages)
and provide various information services like traffic, lotto, etc etc.
11811 also co-ordinates pay as you go teleconferencing facilities.
... 11811 have started to introduce a little voice recognition technology to the service too.
When you call the number a pre-recorded greeting from the operator is played "welcome to eircom 11811 xxx speaking ..." they then look up the number and it then asks you do if you wish to be connected (voice recognition of yes or no) If you say no the number is read out by machine (male or female voice depending on the operator). If you say yes you just get "thank you for using 11811.. connection costs XXX.. please hold while we try to connect your call.. "ringing...
11850 does a similar service but uses key presses rather than voice commands.
Re: Telephone Talk - 10/14/03 09:00 PM
I can't help thinking that the same thing is likely to happen here. Are all these places going to last very long? I don't believe so.
I received my phone bill today, and there's a leaflet enclosed listing the new DQ services. You can see them all online as well: www.newdirectoryenquiries.com
I received my phone bill today, and there's a leaflet enclosed listing the new DQ services. You can see them all online as well: www.newdirectoryenquiries.com
Re: Telephone Talk - 10/15/03 08:54 PM
Linked from another thread:
Things were almost naturally deregulated over here.
RJ11 modular jacks started to appear in about 1979. Before that the phones were usually hardwired or in some instances connected with what looked like a full size stereo headphone jack.
An old phone connection here looks like a small grey/black or beige box about the size or a bar of soap. Inside there are 4 terminals with lugs (only two were used). The phone was connected onto these with spade connectors.
----
Once modular jacks arrived so did a vast array of imported phones, particularly from Canada and the USA. Mostly cordless phones, feature phones and fancier answering machines. All of which seemed to work fine on the irish phone network. As long as they tone dialled they supported all the services. As time's gone on they all support our Caller ID protocall too.
It spured Telecom Eireann to be a lot more creative with its own branded phones (almost all Nortel). So hey started marketing much fancier models.
There are 2 types of modular jack used here:
The normal skirting board style ones and another type that sits behind the phone on the wall. It has a standard 6-way RJ11 socket in the middle of a metal plate with 2 US standard phone mounting clips.
You use a short phone cord (<5cm) plug it in and mount the phone directly ontop of the socket.
Wallphone socket:
![[Linked Image from trynci.com]](http://www.trynci.com/cat/p-346337.jpg)
There are two raised screws for mounting the phone.
Standard phone socket:
![[Linked Image]](https://www.electrical-contractor.net/Forum/International/R0010800.jpg)
Things were almost naturally deregulated over here.
RJ11 modular jacks started to appear in about 1979. Before that the phones were usually hardwired or in some instances connected with what looked like a full size stereo headphone jack.
An old phone connection here looks like a small grey/black or beige box about the size or a bar of soap. Inside there are 4 terminals with lugs (only two were used). The phone was connected onto these with spade connectors.
----
Once modular jacks arrived so did a vast array of imported phones, particularly from Canada and the USA. Mostly cordless phones, feature phones and fancier answering machines. All of which seemed to work fine on the irish phone network. As long as they tone dialled they supported all the services. As time's gone on they all support our Caller ID protocall too.
It spured Telecom Eireann to be a lot more creative with its own branded phones (almost all Nortel). So hey started marketing much fancier models.
There are 2 types of modular jack used here:
The normal skirting board style ones and another type that sits behind the phone on the wall. It has a standard 6-way RJ11 socket in the middle of a metal plate with 2 US standard phone mounting clips.
You use a short phone cord (<5cm) plug it in and mount the phone directly ontop of the socket.
Wallphone socket:
There are two raised screws for mounting the phone.
Standard phone socket:
Re: Telephone Talk - 10/15/03 10:44 PM
Also transferred from the DIY thread.
DJK:
I'm with you on that. To someone who's grown up with the modulated ring tones found in most English-speaking countries, the single-frequency ring signal on the Continent sounds really peculiar.
We used to have a variety of ring tones in Britain years ago with all the different exchange equipment in use. Click here for a short audio clip demonstrating a few of the old types. It's kind of boring now that every exchange has the same ring!
The UK busy/congestion/NU (number unobtainable) tone is based on a basic 400Hz signal, so it's close.
Dial tone in the UK is different though. The modern system uses a dual-frequency signal similar to America, but the old network used 33 or 50Hz, giving a very distinctive "purring" sound.
Irish dialtone came as a surprise to me the first time I picked up a phone over there. In fact I thought it was held up on NU tone at first!
Although we have a distinct congestion tone, many people never seemed to notice that it's slightly different to a regular busy signal. It's rare to hear it these days, but you'll run across it from time to time. NU tone has also been disappearing in favor of the SIT tones and announcement.
The closest we had to it here was the old pay tone, commonly called the "pips," which were used on post-payment coin phones to tell the caller to insert money. That was still nothing like as fast as your routing tone, though.
Another sample of the old system, in sequence: Regular busy, congestion, pay tone .
[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 10-15-2003).]
DJK:
Quote
I've found a lot of the European systems confusing and I don't like the non-warbling flat ring tones used in Europe. I prefer ours it's much more like what a phone sounds like ringing.
We used to have a variety of ring tones in Britain years ago with all the different exchange equipment in use. Click here for a short audio clip demonstrating a few of the old types. It's kind of boring now that every exchange has the same ring!
Quote
Dialtone = continious 450Hz.
Busy = 450hz busy tone (similar to UK)
Congestion = same
The is no number unobainable tone it's always an announcement or the 3 tone dooo deee dooo.. thing
Busy = 450hz busy tone (similar to UK)
Congestion = same
The is no number unobainable tone it's always an announcement or the 3 tone dooo deee dooo.. thing
Dial tone in the UK is different though. The modern system uses a dual-frequency signal similar to America, but the old network used 33 or 50Hz, giving a very distinctive "purring" sound.
Irish dialtone came as a surprise to me the first time I picked up a phone over there. In fact I thought it was held up on NU tone at first!
Although we have a distinct congestion tone, many people never seemed to notice that it's slightly different to a regular busy signal. It's rare to hear it these days, but you'll run across it from time to time. NU tone has also been disappearing in favor of the SIT tones and announcement.
Quote
The progress tone's rarely heard on fixed line calls these days......{cut}....
Even though it's MUCH more rapid than a busy tone or a "reorder tone" ? the cheapo modems used to see it as busy.
Even though it's MUCH more rapid than a busy tone or a "reorder tone" ? the cheapo modems used to see it as busy.
The closest we had to it here was the old pay tone, commonly called the "pips," which were used on post-payment coin phones to tell the caller to insert money. That was still nothing like as fast as your routing tone, though.
Another sample of the old system, in sequence: Regular busy, congestion, pay tone .
[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 10-15-2003).]
Re: Telephone Talk - 10/15/03 11:01 PM
The Irish dial tone a continious tone 425-450Hz seems to be in line with the norm in most of Western Europe though. The systems in Scandinavia, France, Germany all seemed to use rougly the same dial tone.
The crossbar switches here sounded the same.. same tones, just electromechanically generated including the tri-tone wrong number tone.
I get the impression that because we used a lot of Ericsson switches that we prob. ended up with a lot of scandinavian tones. (other than the ring tone)
The only place I've heard a UK style tone was The Netherlands.
The only place you'll hear a UK/US type tone here is in some old PABXs where it was used to differentiate between an internal and an external line.
I've noticed a European flat 425Hz ringing tone seems to have appeared on our operator services over the last few years.
The ring tone that's presented when you call is actually recorded as part of the please hold announcement. It's followed by a burst of French/German style ringing and then an automated "welcome to eircom xxx speaking".
Here are the standard tones:
Dialtone
Ring Tone
Busy / Engaged Tone
Special Information Tone: (Wrong Number)
Call Progress Tone (Please Wait)
These sounded very similar on an the old Ericsson Crossbar systems (ARF) just a little more electromechanical and the Call Progress Tone didn't didn't feature at all.
[This message has been edited by djk (edited 10-15-2003).]
The crossbar switches here sounded the same.. same tones, just electromechanically generated including the tri-tone wrong number tone.
I get the impression that because we used a lot of Ericsson switches that we prob. ended up with a lot of scandinavian tones. (other than the ring tone)
The only place I've heard a UK style tone was The Netherlands.
The only place you'll hear a UK/US type tone here is in some old PABXs where it was used to differentiate between an internal and an external line.
I've noticed a European flat 425Hz ringing tone seems to have appeared on our operator services over the last few years.
The ring tone that's presented when you call is actually recorded as part of the please hold announcement. It's followed by a burst of French/German style ringing and then an automated "welcome to eircom xxx speaking".
Here are the standard tones:
Dialtone
Ring Tone
Busy / Engaged Tone
Special Information Tone: (Wrong Number)
Call Progress Tone (Please Wait)
These sounded very similar on an the old Ericsson Crossbar systems (ARF) just a little more electromechanical and the Call Progress Tone didn't didn't feature at all.
[This message has been edited by djk (edited 10-15-2003).]
Re: Telephone Talk - 10/16/03 12:26 PM
Our tones are pretty similar, only the ring tone sounds like the busy tone, only longer and wih longer gaps.
Never heard the call forwarding here. If a number doesn't exist you get the tritone in endless loop (officially) or sometimes just busy forever.
Connector boxes for hardwired phones were about 5x10x2 cm and usually beige, old ones black. You sometimes still see them around, especially where the subscriber had more than just 1 standard phone. There were 2 types of modular jacks, a round one with 4 concentric rings, like a headphone plug only thicker and it got much thinner with every ring towards the tip. Other type, mostly used in commercial buildings had IIRC something like 10 pins in 2 horizontal rows. Pretty weird beasts.
Connector boxes had 4 spade terminals, 2 used, 1 reserved for auxiliary bell, 1 used for whatever (there was a green wire in all phone cords that was almost sleeved and unused). IIRC the terminals are a, b, W2 and E (maybe earth?). Aux. bell hooked up to a and W2, W2 has to be connected to W2 in the phone, W1 is the interbnal bell connector.
Never heard the call forwarding here. If a number doesn't exist you get the tritone in endless loop (officially) or sometimes just busy forever.
Connector boxes for hardwired phones were about 5x10x2 cm and usually beige, old ones black. You sometimes still see them around, especially where the subscriber had more than just 1 standard phone. There were 2 types of modular jacks, a round one with 4 concentric rings, like a headphone plug only thicker and it got much thinner with every ring towards the tip. Other type, mostly used in commercial buildings had IIRC something like 10 pins in 2 horizontal rows. Pretty weird beasts.
Connector boxes had 4 spade terminals, 2 used, 1 reserved for auxiliary bell, 1 used for whatever (there was a green wire in all phone cords that was almost sleeved and unused). IIRC the terminals are a, b, W2 and E (maybe earth?). Aux. bell hooked up to a and W2, W2 has to be connected to W2 in the phone, W1 is the interbnal bell connector.
Re: Telephone Talk - 10/16/03 02:59 PM
the two most common phones supplied in Ireland during the 1980s were:
![[Linked Image from telephone-depot.com]](http://telephone-depot.com/usrimage/harmony.jpg)
Northern Telecom Harmony (Branded Telecom Eireann Harmony and made in Ireland)
And the wonderfully tacky Ireland map version of the same phone:
![[Linked Image from images.fairmarket.co.uk]](http://images.fairmarket.co.uk/images/thumbs/images_fairmarket_co_uk/images/site669/members/1263690-ireland.jpg)
![[Linked Image from robertopiecollection.com]](http://www.robertopiecollection.com/Application/Images/Teleph/7208lg.jpg)
This was one of the standard early 80s-late 80s phones here. Apparently now a very collectable iconic design by Henning
Andreasen of Denmark.
I would still use either of them in place of the modern made in china rubbish that's on the market. Rock solid, well designed, excellent sound quality and last for 20+ years no problem.
[This message has been edited by djk (edited 10-16-2003).]
Northern Telecom Harmony (Branded Telecom Eireann Harmony and made in Ireland)
And the wonderfully tacky Ireland map version of the same phone:
This was one of the standard early 80s-late 80s phones here. Apparently now a very collectable iconic design by Henning
Andreasen of Denmark.
I would still use either of them in place of the modern made in china rubbish that's on the market. Rock solid, well designed, excellent sound quality and last for 20+ years no problem.
[This message has been edited by djk (edited 10-16-2003).]
Re: Telephone Talk - 10/16/03 11:19 PM
I couldn't have run into that many Irish busy tones, as I never noticed before that they're slower than the British version.
The cadence appears to be 0.5 sec. on, 0.5 off, the same as standard U.S. busy signals.
British busy is 0.375 sec. on , 0.375 off, placing it halfway in speed between the American busy and reorder.
(Though both sound rather different to U.S. tones due to the single 400 or 425Hz tone.)
The cadence appears to be 0.5 sec. on, 0.5 off, the same as standard U.S. busy signals.
British busy is 0.375 sec. on , 0.375 off, placing it halfway in speed between the American busy and reorder.
(Though both sound rather different to U.S. tones due to the single 400 or 425Hz tone.)
Re: Telephone Talk - 10/17/03 09:03 AM
Paul,
Well modems seem to have no problems identifying it.
Most modems are even fine with the call progress tone if it ever does crop up (Rare unless you're calling a mobile).
Actually they're proposing to introduce a new tone to identify off network mobile calls to be inserted before the first ring.
It's become a problem since number portability came into effect. The mobile phone companies have taken to putting in announcements like "The person you are calling is no longer an O2 customer please wait while we connect you" when you call an 086 (o2's original prefix) number that's now on Vodafone or Meteor.
A lot of customers found the announcements repeditive, time consuming and annoying and others even hung up as it sounded like the customer had been cut off for non-payment or something.
They feel the need to tell you this as you might get charged higher rates if you call a number "off network".
Well modems seem to have no problems identifying it.
Most modems are even fine with the call progress tone if it ever does crop up (Rare unless you're calling a mobile).
Actually they're proposing to introduce a new tone to identify off network mobile calls to be inserted before the first ring.
It's become a problem since number portability came into effect. The mobile phone companies have taken to putting in announcements like "The person you are calling is no longer an O2 customer please wait while we connect you" when you call an 086 (o2's original prefix) number that's now on Vodafone or Meteor.
A lot of customers found the announcements repeditive, time consuming and annoying and others even hung up as it sounded like the customer had been cut off for non-payment or something.
They feel the need to tell you this as you might get charged higher rates if you call a number "off network".
Re: Telephone Talk - 10/17/03 10:31 AM
I think the congestion tone here is basically the Call Progress Tone. Rather than actually telling you that the system is tied up it will just make you wait until it puts the call through. I've come across it when there's been a network glitch or some sort. E.g. one weekend two of eircom's major switching centres had a software glitch (they'd centrally uploaded the wrong software to the network! [or one of their "switching partners" did] and calls were being handled by other switches which all started to run slow as they were obviously under heavy pressure. So lots of "bebebebebe" before you were connected. The system seemed to accept call attempts just made people wait until it was good and ready to complete them.
----
Also on the being dumped off the system if you don't dial with in X time we've a weird siutation here:
1) on a normal line you'll get a dial tone, then after about 50 seconds an engaged tone, designed to cause any automated equipment to hang up. After a further 50 seconds the line goes silent for 30 seconds then the DC feed is cut.. you'll hear a relay cutting the power and then complete silence until the phone's replaced.
2) if the line has voicemail: (as 70% do)
you pick up.. dialtone for 35 seconds after this period you'll be prompted like this "mailbox name" please enter your password. (Voicemail can also be accessed by dialling 171)
3) If there's DSL on the line the line card is programmed not to cut the power to the line even if it's left off-hook so it will provide a dial tone as normal then just go to a never ending busy tone if you don't hang up.
-----
The old crossbar lines behaved very similarly. Dialtone (50 seconds) busy tone (1 min) then cut the line off until it is reset by replacing the reciever.
[This message has been edited by djk (edited 10-17-2003).]
----
Also on the being dumped off the system if you don't dial with in X time we've a weird siutation here:
1) on a normal line you'll get a dial tone, then after about 50 seconds an engaged tone, designed to cause any automated equipment to hang up. After a further 50 seconds the line goes silent for 30 seconds then the DC feed is cut.. you'll hear a relay cutting the power and then complete silence until the phone's replaced.
2) if the line has voicemail: (as 70% do)
you pick up.. dialtone for 35 seconds after this period you'll be prompted like this "mailbox name" please enter your password. (Voicemail can also be accessed by dialling 171)
3) If there's DSL on the line the line card is programmed not to cut the power to the line even if it's left off-hook so it will provide a dial tone as normal then just go to a never ending busy tone if you don't hang up.
-----
The old crossbar lines behaved very similarly. Dialtone (50 seconds) busy tone (1 min) then cut the line off until it is reset by replacing the reciever.
[This message has been edited by djk (edited 10-17-2003).]
Re: Telephone Talk - 10/18/03 02:58 AM
Guys,
Just a small question regarding Cordless phones.
My next door nieghbour bought a cheap Cordless yesterday and it's coming through on my TV set.
I informed her of this and she is sending it back on Monday.
But, my question is, what sort of frequency do the handsets of these systems work on?.
Also, I was under the impression that these sorts of phones were very LOW power devices, with the output measured in micro-Watts, but I'm beginning to wonder.
Can someone please help?.![[Linked Image]](https://www.electrical-contractor.net/ubb/wink.gif)
Just a small question regarding Cordless phones.
My next door nieghbour bought a cheap Cordless yesterday and it's coming through on my TV set.
I informed her of this and she is sending it back on Monday.
But, my question is, what sort of frequency do the handsets of these systems work on?.
Also, I was under the impression that these sorts of phones were very LOW power devices, with the output measured in micro-Watts, but I'm beginning to wonder.
Can someone please help?.
Re: Telephone Talk - 10/18/03 09:25 AM
Trumpy,
They usually do work on very low power, however it sounds very like that cordless phone is not approved for use in NZ and shouldn't be on the market at all. She should bring it back and kick up a stink. If they refuse to do anything about it threaten them with bringing it to the attention of the telecommunications regulator as its using unlicenced radio spectum etc.
She should get a DECT (Digital Enhanced (used to be European) Cordless Telephony) phone they retail over here for as little as € 60 and provide much better battery life, signal that's comparable to a fixed wired phone and are much more secure. She would also have the possibility of adding handsets to her base station (from any manufacturer) and setting up a 6 extension phone system (wirelessly)
[This message has been edited by djk (edited 10-18-2003).]
They usually do work on very low power, however it sounds very like that cordless phone is not approved for use in NZ and shouldn't be on the market at all. She should bring it back and kick up a stink. If they refuse to do anything about it threaten them with bringing it to the attention of the telecommunications regulator as its using unlicenced radio spectum etc.
She should get a DECT (Digital Enhanced (used to be European) Cordless Telephony) phone they retail over here for as little as € 60 and provide much better battery life, signal that's comparable to a fixed wired phone and are much more secure. She would also have the possibility of adding handsets to her base station (from any manufacturer) and setting up a 6 extension phone system (wirelessly)
[This message has been edited by djk (edited 10-18-2003).]
Re: Telephone Talk - 10/18/03 10:52 AM
djk,
I had my Scanner do a few loops while she was using the said phone.
And I came out with the fx (73.350 fundamental), with Harmonics at 2x, 3x, 4x,8x, 16x).
This was searched by a AOR 8900 desk-top Scanner.
[This message has been edited by Trumpy (edited 10-18-2003).]
I had my Scanner do a few loops while she was using the said phone.
And I came out with the fx (73.350 fundamental), with Harmonics at 2x, 3x, 4x,8x, 16x).
This was searched by a AOR 8900 desk-top Scanner.
[This message has been edited by Trumpy (edited 10-18-2003).]
Re: Telephone Talk - 10/19/03 11:40 AM
I once read about some US cordless phones operating at the Frequency of German Radio Bayern (FM 88.7 MHZ or something like that)... and anyone tuning in Bayern could listen to your conversations if you took such a phone to Germany...
Re: Telephone Talk - 10/19/03 11:30 PM
Dave,
The routine on the new switches here for a phone off-hook but nothing dialed is weird:
Dial tone for about 20 sec.
SIT (three ascending tones)
Announcement repeated: "Please hang up and try again" for about 20 sec.
Quiet line for approx. 3 mins.
Howler for approx. 3 mins. (it fades in at the start over a period of about 10 secs.)
What then? Permanent signal or quiet line? Nope -- You get dumped back to dial tone!
After this one times out again, you go to SIT and 20 secs. of the announcement once more, then a dump to permanent quiet line until you hang up.
Quiet line here still has battery, and from the background noise it sounds as though at this point you're on very unbalanced power.
I'd left BT before these switches came into use, so I have no idea why it's arranged this way. Very strange.
Depending upon type and configuration, older switches would either let you listen to dial tone all day, or time out after 30 to 60 secs. In most cases after timeout you would get either N.U. tone or equipment engaged tone, followed by a quiet line.
Howler application wasn't automatic as it is now. It would be applied to the line manually if a number was reported as always busy and verification showed the line just off-hook.
Mike,
Cordless phones designed for the "wrong" market have been a problem here as well. I'm not sure if 73.35 MHZ is authorized for cordless phones in NZ, but strong harmonics certainly shouldn't be radiated. According to my data, the 3rd harmonic of 73.35 falls right in NZ TV channel 10, for a start.
Here's a summary of the cordless p;hone frequencies authorized in the U.K:
http://www.radio.gov.uk/publication/ra_info/ra193.htm
[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 10-19-2003).]
The routine on the new switches here for a phone off-hook but nothing dialed is weird:
Dial tone for about 20 sec.
SIT (three ascending tones)
Announcement repeated: "Please hang up and try again" for about 20 sec.
Quiet line for approx. 3 mins.
Howler for approx. 3 mins. (it fades in at the start over a period of about 10 secs.)
What then? Permanent signal or quiet line? Nope -- You get dumped back to dial tone!
After this one times out again, you go to SIT and 20 secs. of the announcement once more, then a dump to permanent quiet line until you hang up.
Quiet line here still has battery, and from the background noise it sounds as though at this point you're on very unbalanced power.
I'd left BT before these switches came into use, so I have no idea why it's arranged this way. Very strange.
Depending upon type and configuration, older switches would either let you listen to dial tone all day, or time out after 30 to 60 secs. In most cases after timeout you would get either N.U. tone or equipment engaged tone, followed by a quiet line.
Howler application wasn't automatic as it is now. It would be applied to the line manually if a number was reported as always busy and verification showed the line just off-hook.
Mike,
Cordless phones designed for the "wrong" market have been a problem here as well. I'm not sure if 73.35 MHZ is authorized for cordless phones in NZ, but strong harmonics certainly shouldn't be radiated. According to my data, the 3rd harmonic of 73.35 falls right in NZ TV channel 10, for a start.
Here's a summary of the cordless p;hone frequencies authorized in the U.K:
http:/
[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 10-19-2003).]
Re: Telephone Talk - 10/20/03 12:57 AM
Paul:
Is the howler tone there anything like the obnoxious one here in the US?
Is the howler tone there anything like the obnoxious one here in the US?
Re: Telephone Talk - 10/20/03 03:45 PM
Time-out after 30 seconds of not dialling or more than 10 seconds between digits, line goes to busy forever (you know that, somebody knocks over the handset in the late evening and the next morning you find it there, and it's on the busy tone). Priority Telecom is different though, there the line goes dead after some time, don't know how long. They didn't document their service nearly as good as Telekom Austria did (they published all that info on the first pages of the old directories, before those pages were filled with ads for adult hotlines).
Re: Telephone Talk - 10/20/03 07:21 PM
Here's the US "Receiver Off Hook" tone:
http://www.telephonetribute.com/audio/off_hook_alert.wav
According to the website listed above:
http:/
According to the website listed above:
Quote
This is a summation of 1400, 2060, 2450 and 2600 Hz applied at 5 PPS with a 50% duty cycle, applied at a level of approximately +5 VU measured at the MDF leaving the CO towards the customer.
Re: Telephone Talk - 10/20/03 09:08 PM
Quote
Is the howler tone there anything like the obnoxious one here in the US?
Here's a sample I recorded from my line.
[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 10-20-2003).]
Re: Telephone Talk - 10/20/03 11:54 PM
Paul, that almost sounds like something out of a sci-fi movie before everything blows up!
Re: Telephone Talk - 10/21/03 12:23 AM
Paul:
After the end of the busy tones here you get :
either clunk, click and just dead silence if you've any line powered feature phones connected their displays will go blank. Or else a kinda weird fading of the busy tone and the a click to complete silence and the power is removed (again feature phones and memory phones loose power)
It has one very handy effect. If I leave my Siemens DECT phone off hook accidently once the power to the line is cut it automatically hangs up!
If the power is completely cut however i have no idea how it detects when the phone is back on hook though. I presume it must keep some kind of very low power DC on the line regardless.
After the end of the busy tones here you get :
either clunk, click and just dead silence if you've any line powered feature phones connected their displays will go blank. Or else a kinda weird fading of the busy tone and the a click to complete silence and the power is removed (again feature phones and memory phones loose power)
It has one very handy effect. If I leave my Siemens DECT phone off hook accidently once the power to the line is cut it automatically hangs up!
If the power is completely cut however i have no idea how it detects when the phone is back on hook though. I presume it must keep some kind of very low power DC on the line regardless.
Re: Telephone Talk - 10/21/03 03:26 PM
Don't know when that was, but since the early days, cordless phones used the 46/49 Mhz band, although the TX frequency was created by a 16 Mhz or so crystal oscillator, and multiplied.