tel@cbnewsh.att.com (thomas.e.lowe) (05/29/89)
I live in brand new development where all utilities are underground. Our nearest telephone junction box is Three houses away. (Should have been right in front of our house, but they screwed up. Seems they forgot to put one there). We have a two pair cable running from the junction box to our Network Access box outside. This limits me to two phone lines, unless I want to have more cables pulled underground. Does anyone know if the phone companies (New Jersey Bell in my case) have the ability to multiplex phone lines in a residential service? I would need independant lines for modems, fax machines, etc. Any ideas of pricing? What's the service officially called? I tried asking our business office, but they don't know their (BLEEP) from a hole in the ground, and two different technicians didn't even know what kind of switch we have here. (One thought it might be a Western Union switch ((Yes, Union, not Electric))) Thanks for any ideas! -- Tom Lowe tel@hound.ATT.COM or att!hound!tel 201-949-0428 AT&T Bell Laboratories, Room 2E-637A Crawfords Corner Road, Holmdel, NJ 07733 (R) UNIX is a registered trademark of AT&T (keep them lawyers happy!!)
ms6b+@andrew.cmu.edu (Marvin Sirbu) (05/30/89)
> I live in brand new development where all utilities are underground. > Our nearest telephone junction box is Three houses away. (Should > have been right in front of our house, but they screwed up. Seems > they forgot to put one there). We have a two pair cable running > from the junction box to our Network Access box outside. This limits > me to two phone lines, unless I want to have more cables pulled > underground. In most jurisdictions, the telephone company is obligated by tariff to provide as many lines as you want to your Network Access box for no more than the standard turn-on charge per line, whether there are wires already in place or not. If they have to pull an extra wire, the cost is averaged in with the costs of all the other hookups where they charge you $50 for nothing more than making a few entries at a terminal to turn on an existing line. They may choose, of course, to multiplex (FDM or TDM) several circuits on one wire if they decide that is cheaper. My guess, however, is that they will find it much less expensive to simply pull a new wire from the junction box to your house, and that they will do just that if you order a third line. Marvin Sirbu Carnegie Mellon University internet: ms6b+@andrew.cmu.edu bitnet: ms6b+%andrew@CMCCVB
john@ucbvax.berkeley.edu (John Higdon) (05/30/89)
In article <telecom-v09i0178m03@vector.dallas.tx.us>, tel@cbnewsh.att.com (thomas.e.lowe) writes: > Does anyone know if the phone companies (New Jersey Bell in my case) > have the ability to multiplex phone lines in a residential service? Trust me, you *don't* want that! It is known as "subscriber carrier" and is General Telephone's answer to undercapitalization. They use a device that multiplexes a second subscriber on a telephone pair by means of a supersonic carrier. If you are the metallic subscriber, there is little problem. If you are the carrier subscriber, your telephone service isn't worth the powder to blow it up. The unit is "phone line powered", which means that it sits there and trickle-charges its nicads during the metallic subscriber's on-hook periods. If he talks a lot, or the carrier subscriber gets a lot of calls (the device has to supply ring voltage), the batteries run down and phone service phades away. The audio is terrible, and there is no loop current signaling for answering machines, etc. I suspect that our various telcos (General being the worst) never anticipated the "information age" and felt that planning for two drops per housing unit would be more than adequate. Although no one at Pac*Bell has said anything, I suspect that my nine lines have put somewhat of a strain on the neighborhood facilities. My friends in southern California (who are served by General Telephone) marvel, not just at being able to get nine lines, but at the fact that they're all metallic. To the best of my knowledge, none of the BOCs have used subscriber carrier. And for good reason. > I would need independant lines for modems, fax machines, etc. > Any ideas of pricing? What's the service officially called? The service you want is "enough pairs to serve your needs". You will (probably) have to do a little trenching yourself, but it's the only real solution. At least until ISDN. -- John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.uucp | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o !