CMP.WERNER@R20.UTEXAS.EDU (Werner Uhrig) (09/28/86)
[ I forward this message from USENET as I am interested myself in the answer.
I'm also interested in knowing if reporting to the phone company that I
have N devices (phones, answering machines, etc) connected to a line should
result in any raised signal-levels which I could test for having been done
or not; yep, sometimes only some phones ring ... ---Werner
BTW: you can respond to the author of the message below directly from ARPA by
mailing to: jljl%sphinx.uucp@seismo.css.gov ]
Subject: What's special about AT&T phones in 2 line house?
From: jljl@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP (james e levin @ Univ. of Chicago Computation Ce
nter)
What is it about AT&T phones? My sister has two
telephone lines into her home, and 8 or 9 two line phones.
Recently, she tried "upgrading" with two new telephones. They
were made by different reputable manufacturers (i.e., Panasonic),
but neither would work with her second line. Both companies
suggested that she had too many phones for theirs to work
properly. She even tried unplugging all of her existing phones,
but the new ones still didn't work. Other than buying AT&T, can
anyone suggest a way to pick telephone sets that will work for
her? Illinois Bell told her that there was nothing that they
could do. Is there something she could do to boost the power of
her system? Why does the first line work but not the second?
How many phones, answering machines, and modems can you resonably
expect to put on one residential line? Even AT&T phones.Frankston@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA (10/06/86)
This sounds like a problem I had. As I noted in my previous letter to this list, the problem with a 2-line Panasonic phone in which one line works and the other doesn't is likely to be that the line is being split with a mux that seems to also split the voltage such that the second line as about 16 volts. The Panasonic interprets this as indicating that another phone on the line is offhook.