kremen@AEROSPACE.ARPA (Gary Kremen) (10/14/85)
Hello, I was wondering if any of you people out there in Netland had any information about the tones that you sometimes get when you dial a wrong number. For example, if you dial a number that is not in service or one that is disconnected you get a series of three? tones and a synthetic voice telling you what you have done wrong. I was wondering: 1) Are these tones different for different types of messages? 2) Is there a code behind the tone sequence? If there is, what is the code or where can if find a listing for it? 3) What is the official purpose of the tones? Can the be recognized by a Touch Tone (tm) decoder? Thanks in advance.
jhh@ihtnt.UUCP (10/15/85)
Many of the tones at the beginning of recorded announcements were originally put there for a product that the FCC did not let the Bell System put into service - namely Voice Storage System. It had an answering capability, similar to answering machines, plus the more interesting voice mail capability that allowed you to send a voice message at a particular time. It recognized the tones generated in announcements, so that it would not deliver a message to an announcement. The tones are MF (Multi-Frequency, the type of signal that blue boxes used). MF signals were designed for ease of generation and detection, as Touchtone was designed for ease of listening. John Haller
SSR@SRI-CSL.ARPA (10/16/85)
In reply to Kremen@Aerospace's questions about the three tones heard on the beginning of intercept recordings; 1) Are these tones different for different types of messages? 2) Is there a code behind the tone sequence? If there is, what is the code or where can if find a listing for it? 3) What is the official purpose of the tones? Can the be recognized by a Touch Tone (tm) ? 1> No, the three tones you hear are the same for all recorded announcement messages. 2> No and no. 3> The official purpose of the tones is to allow the Service Evaluation System's ( a system that measures network performance ) call classification terminal to interpret the sound into a "call intercepted" message. ssr