OLE@SRI-NIC.ARPA (Ole Jorgen Jacobsen) (03/09/86)
You can use rotary US phones in the UK without any problems, even if the specs may be a little different (I am happily using a 1932 UK phone here, it's only different in that it goes ting-a-linga-ling when you rotary dial on another phone connected to the same line, in the UK the anti-tinkle circuit is done by mutually excluding the bells of both phones when either is off hook, -if you get my meaning). Forget DTMF, Britain never had and never will have it. I have only once used a phone there which had DTMF and it was connected to a hotel PBX. When the famous "System X" gets installed, the functionality (including * and #) of DTMF will be provided, but digitally. The advantages of being conservative and centrally regulated is that one can occasionally skip a generation of development, which is excatly what is happening with DTMF and the UK. Of course, using US phones on UK lines is illegal and I doubt very much that you can get an individual instrument certified, since this requires "destructive testing" (I am serious!), but I wouldn't let that worry you. (You should pay your TV licence however or they might come after you with the detector van! But for 50 pounds or so you'll get the best TV programs the world has to offer including news from other countries, sorry about the digression). Ole -------