prindle@nadc.arpa (Frank Prindle) (11/02/88)
Since I have 6 phones scattered about my home, I grabbed up a device being sold at a local computer show called "Telehelper Single Line Hold" by AT&T. It plugs into the wall (AC) and any modular jack (phone line), and provides a hold service by interpreting two successive hookswitch depressions (in the range 1/4 second to about 1 second each) as a request for hold. At this point, it beeps (much like a Dimension system when you successfully enter an auto call-back request). The next time you press the hookswitch, the box seizes the line for up to 6 minutes or until you pick up the phone elsewhere. Now all this works exactly as advertized, and very well indeed. But the box has one very strange side effect: when people call my phone, and nobody answers, they get disconnected after 8 rings! It is definitely the box, because I have repeatedly tried disconnecting it (it then rings indefinitely), and reconnecting it (it then cuts off after 8 rings). From the calling end, after the eighth ring, there is just a slight click, then nothing. Calling back produces 8 more rings, indicating that the line hasn't been seized by the box (otherwise, it would remain busy for 6 minutes). The most curious thing is that I brought it to work and tried it on my desk phone (Dimension PBX) and it didn't cut off the ringing at all. It only does it at home! Now I realize that if nobody has answered by 8 rings, chances are nobody will, (so it's not really a major problem), but I still think it's odd. Folks at AT&T seem reluctant to talk technical about it, preferring to just read to me from the little manual that comes in the package. Does anybody else have one of these? It this some kind of unadvertized "feature"? Sincerely, Frank Prindle Prindle@NADC.arpa