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).]
