[comp.dcom.telecom] Hangup Indication

zweig@cs.uiuc.edu (Johnny Zweig) (11/26/90)

I was just listening to the seventeenth message in a row on my
answering machine that says "If you would like to make a call, please
hang up and try it again" and got to thinking: for POTS, what
indicator is there that the party on the other end of a connection has
hung up?  Is it just the dialtone(*), or is there some other kind of
signal (line-voltage, say) that lets you know?  I understand that ISDN
will have hang-up messages on the D-channel, so maybe I should just
rush out and buy one of the ISDN answering machines I've been seeing
all those ads for.


Johnny Curious

(*) followed by silence followed by the stupid announcement followed by that
loud beeping followed by more silence

tad@ssc.UUCP (Tad Cook) (11/29/90)

In article <14947@accuvax.nwu.edu>, zweig@cs.uiuc.edu (Johnny Zweig)
writes:

> I was just listening to the seventeenth message in a row on my
> answering machine that says "If you would like to make a call, please
> hang up and try it again" and got to thinking: for POTS, what
> indicator is there that the party on the other end of a connection has
> hung up?  Is it just the dialtone(*), or is there some other kind of
> signal (line-voltage, say) that lets you know? 

In most modern electronic offices there is a signal called the CPC
Pulse (I don't know what CPC stands for ... Calling Party Control
maybe??) that happens when the other party goes on hook.  It is a
brief interruption in battery on the line.  Many answering machines
can respond to this, so that they will reset and stop recording when
the other party hangs up.  My Panasonic machine even has a CPC switch
on the bottom for disabling this feature.

Unfortunately, there is no signal to tell you when the called party
has gone off hook ... which is why COCOTs have problems deciding when
to collect your coin.


Tad Cook  Seattle, WA   Packet: KT7H @ N7HFZ.WA.USA.NA   Phone: 206/527-4089 
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