rkane@BBNCC5.ARPA (Richard Kane) (10/24/85)
I moved into a new apartment last month and had quite a bad experience getting phone service. Several weeks before I actually moved, I ordered my new phone service with New England Telephone and was told that there would be no problem in setting up my new service on time. Since I was only moving across the street from where I had been living, I wanted to keep my existing phone number, but I also wanted to have a second line installed with a new number for my home terminal (I didn't tell NET that that was what it was for). To make a very long story a bit shorter, when the installer came down on the day that I moved, he discovered that they couldn't give me any phone service at all since there were no more "facilities" (spare trunks) available in my neighborhood. (My apartment was wired up, but there were no spare lines in the basement coming in from the street). After 2 weeks of calling (from work) and badgering them almost every day, NET decided to provide service to me by way of an AML. An AML is apparently some sort of multiplexor which is able to provide service for 2 (or more) phone numbers over a single pair of wires. The AML takes one number as input and gives another number as output. (There is apparently another AML or similar device at the central office end of the circuit). The configuration is depicted below. line in (main number) |---| __________________________________|AML|______________ second | |---| phone | number |------| |filter| |------| | | | main phone number Since I wanted two lines (numbers) coming into my apartment, and since it was not convenient to run another set of wires up to my apartment from the basement, the phone company came down and installed two AMLs in the building. One AML was installed in the basement. This AML was used to provide service to two residents of my building who had previously had dedicated lines of their own. These residents were not informed of this change, but it all should have been transparent to them anyway. This thus freed up a dedicated pair of wires to connect to the wire going up to my apartment. The second AML was installed in my apartment. This AML now provides me with the two lines which I had originally requested and everything works fine. One more interesting thing to report about this whole affair is its effect on my telephone answering machine. For some reason unknown to both me and the phone company, my answering machine will not answer calls when it is hooked up to the line which is output from the AML, but works fine on the primary incoming line. Anyone have any ideas?
Frankston@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA (10/25/85)
As I've noted in a previous note, the AML has a serious side effect of reducing the voltage on the second line to 16 volts thereby causing equipment that depends on voltage to fail. In particular hold buttons that attempt to detect another phone off hook by detecting the voltage change. I had my AML removed and replaced by separate pairs.
larry@kitty.UUCP (11/10/85)
> I moved into a new apartment last month and had quite a bad experience > getting phone service. ... > After 2 weeks of > calling (from work) and badgering them almost every day, NET decided to > provide service to me by way of an AML. An AML is apparently some sort of > multiplexor which is able to provide service for 2 (or more) phone numbers > over a single pair of wires. The AML takes one number as input and gives > another number as output. (There is apparently another AML or similar > device at the central office end of the circuit). ... > One more interesting thing to report about this whole affair is its effect > on my telephone answering machine. For some reason unknown to both me and > the phone company, my answering machine will not answer calls when it is > hooked up to the line which is output from the AML, but works fine on the > primary incoming line. Anyone have any ideas? Oh yucch, AML. AML (Added Main Line carrier) is indeed what you mentioned - a method of multiplexing a second telephone circuit over an existing physical cable pair. Most AML apparatus is manufactured by Superior-Continental; I don't believe WECO ever made any AML per se. The system works by frequency division multiplex, with the CO generally sending at 76 kHz, and the station sending at 28 kHz. Modulation is typically AM double sideband. The yucchy part about AML is what your station apparatus sees. Unlike a conventional CO line which presents 48 volts DC in an on-hook condition, AML provides typically 6 to 10 volts DC. Since there is essentially negligible loop resistance between the AML and the station, the off-hook telephone excitation CURRENT is sufficient for operating most devices. HOWEVER, certain electronic telephone sets and anciliary devices which look at T/R loop voltage for line status purposes will NOT work because the low open circuit voltage makes the device think the circuit is permanently off-hook. Another bad part is ringing. Many AML devices - as a result of making the subscriber unit as simple as possible - do NOT provide superimposed ringing; i.e., instead of 20 Hz ringing being over T+R, the ringing runs between the R lead and an auxiliary Y lead. There is no way around this situation if that is the way your AML is designed. Newer telephone answering machines and modems no longer provide a separate ringing detector lead which could be connected to the Y lead; as a result, many newer telephone answering machines and modems will NOT detect ringing when connected to AML. Period. Yet another bad part is that while the PHYSICAL telephone line associated with the AML is OFF-HOOK, your AML is being powered solely by an internal rechargeable battery. If the physical line - which need not be your own line - is in use for excessive periods of time, your battery will not be sufficiently charged, thereby causing assorted troubles for the AML circuit. There are auxiliary AC-powered chargers which the telephone company can install to solve this latter problem, but usually it takes a lot of complaints to the telephone company in order for them to do this. I don't know if there is anything you can do to force the telephone company to provide you with a physical pair service instead of AML; it all depends upon what their tariffs say, or what class of service you are paying for. Fortunately, the use AML devices like the above is on the decline. While there are still subscriber line multiplex (i.e., `pair gain') devices being used, the trend is to locate them in outside enclosures for groups of subscriber lines; these newer devices are also much better designed, use digital techniques, and do not have the pitfalls of the AML devices above. === Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp., Clarence, New York === === UUCP {decvax,dual,rocksanne,rocksvax,watmath}!sunybcs!kitty!larry === === VOICE 716/741-9185 {rice,shell}!baylor!/ === === FAX 716/741-9635 {AT&T 3510D} ihnp4!/ === === === === "Have you hugged your cat today?" ===