Jack.Winslade@f666.n285.z1.fidonet.org (Jack Winslade) (09/05/90)
I want to thank all who replied to my query about the conference feature on the Panasonic phones. Although the bottom line is inconclusive, I'll summarize what I've received. > ..the conf feature is a JOKE!! Especially on speaker. Nobody can > hear anybody without shouting. The speakerphone sounds like calls > are coming from Mars! > The Panasonic KXT-3170 does NOT have amplification between the > lines while in a conference call. I have one. I am not all that > happy with it. Most people hate the way that I sound on the > Speakerphone, and this thing causes ***SEVERE*** interference(sp) > to my short-wave radio !!! I wish that I could get my hands on a > KXY-3160. Had one before ... it was great. Do you know of any > speakerphone with two or more lines that provides amplification ... > It's not too bad with all three lines going, so I'd say that it's > at least amplified. This weekend, I looked around at all types of phones with the 'con- ference' feature. Not one manual, and not one salesperson could answer my question. Manuals were >>VERY<< vague. Some sales droids were overwhelmed when I used the term 'conference', let alone such terms as 'bridge' and 'amplified'. :-( Having been involved with the hardware end of such things, I know that doing such things as bridging, amplifying, 2w<->4w, etc. from the subscriber end of the loop is about as close to a black art as you can get in the field of telephony. I am wondering if some of the new wonder-widget-hi-tech phones are able to provide 'real' conference calling or if they fake it by simply connecting one line to another to another. I can see that it might be possible to design a phone which could compensate for the variations in line characteristics and do a fair job of overcoming the losses between the far ends, but I saw phones with the 'conference' feature that were priced as low as $69 or so. I seriously doubt that they do much more in conferencing than the old trick of removing the 'cat' sliders in the key phones to allow more than one line key to be pressed at once. (Seriously, they must at least block the DC with capacitors or a cheap 1:1 transformer. Or do they ??? ;-) If anyone out there knows of multi-line phones that do a 'real' conference, I'd appreciate knowing about it. Thanks. Good Day! JSW --- Ybbat (DRBBS) 8.9 v. 3.11 r.4 [1:285/666@fidonet] CP/M, the virus-proof OS, Omaha -- --- Through FidoNet gateway node 1:16/390 Jack.Winslade@f666.n285.z1.fidonet.org