DMG4449@ritvax.bitnet (Daniel M. Greenberg) (06/29/89)
There is a very interesting curiousity I've noticed here in Rochester since Rochester Telephone went digital. One day, I was playing around with my phone and pressed flash hook repetitively for about 30 seconds. The telephone line died for 2 minutes! If someone were to call it, they'd hear a recording that reported "We're sorry, the number you are calling is out of order, it is a temporary condition, and has been reported". Then, in around 2 minutes, the line would reset and calls could be received or dialed on that line. What exactly is it that happens here? If I do it a lot will it get me in trouble? Does it confuse the telco equipment? Thanks, Daniel
hobbit@topaz.rutgers.edu (*Hobbit*) (07/06/89)
DMS switches seem to have excessively "safe" ways to deal with what they consider error conditions. Lots of up-and-down on the hookswitch is apparently interpreted as something wrong with the line or instruments, and one attempted corrective action is to remove the line voltage completely for a while with the hope that whatver's causing the problem out there will eventually reset itself and be quiet. My office [Dunellen NJ] does the same thing. I discovered this while playing around with my series-resistance feature, that simply increases the DC resistance of the phone until the line card gives up. With older offices the finder used to go crazy, and oscillate back and forth. The DMS cards have hysteresis, so if you turn this thing down until it disconnects you have to turn it up a ways again to get the dialtone back. What really annoys me is the automatic diagnostics the office does around 2am every night. My fone is such that significant DC variations on one line seriously affect a modem on the other line -- admittedly a design flaw in the fone, but I know it also annoys lots of people out there who have the cheap little ringer circuits that click and chirp when this sort of thing is going on... _H*