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  #31  
Old 02-09-2019, 03:38 PM
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NowhereMan 1966 NowhereMan 1966 is offline
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I know one thing that copper POTS lines are still good at is when they help 911 locate emergency calls. BTW, when I worked at a call center for a telecommunications company, I sold POTS service to a young man of the Old Amish tradition so they can have it for emergencies.
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  #32  
Old 02-12-2019, 06:40 AM
Dude111 Dude111 is offline
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How does 911 work on a cable companies digital phone network,does anyone know??

I havent ever dialed 911 to test it and Im curious how they do it... It cant psosibly go into the polices 911 switch like a reg copper network does... It must go into a call center and you tell them what # to connect you to?? (Police,fire,ems)


I dunno....

Last edited by Dude111; 02-25-2019 at 11:15 PM.
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  #33  
Old 02-12-2019, 12:38 PM
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I have a plain landline, and it works fine ... but I essentially
don't use it, on the other hand, its cheap.
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  #34  
Old 02-12-2019, 05:08 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dtvmcdonald View Post
...on the other hand, its cheap.
I wish mine was cheap! My monthly bill for my land line is right at 70 dollars! The ONLY option I have on my line is call forwarding. Nothing else. No caller ID, no call waiting, not even touch-tone! And still it's 70 bucks!

I think part of the reason is the distance I can call. To the South, I can call to the other side of Beaumont... which is about 45 miles from here. They call it "extended local calling" and I am not able to opt out of it. Funny thing is that I cannot call more than 10 miles to the North. Woodville is only 17 miles up the road and that's long distance.

For businesses and purchases requiring a phone number (which I think is so stupid), they get my home number. That's only if I deem it to be at least half-ass reasonable for them to need it. I only give out my cel number to people I know personally.

I think it's completely asinine that I cannot go into certain establishments to get a freakin' haircut without first giving them a phone number. I've walked out of a few places because of it. When I ask why is a phone number needed to lower my ears, and they tell me it's for their system, I end up getting mad and try to explain how ridiculous it is to need a phone number. Then I get pissed and leave.

One place tried to get my number and I told the girl she could make one up... I wasn't telling her mine. She told me the system would know if it was a bogus number... so she ended up putting in her own. Crazy!
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  #35  
Old 02-13-2019, 12:41 AM
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Not a landline but an Xlink BT to have a proper "home phone" (2 WE 510 rotary dial phones)

I've never had a landline as an adult.
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  #36  
Old 02-16-2019, 06:11 AM
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Charlie; how come no touch tone? Are you talking about D.T.M.F. or something else?
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  #37  
Old 02-16-2019, 09:49 AM
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Correct... no DTMF. For my area, it's actually optional. It doesn't save much... less than a dollar I think. Since I only have two old rotary phones for the house line, it wasn't necessary to be charged for something I didn't have a use for.

Years ago, I had every option you could get on the phone line. As each year passed, and the bill went higher, I would have them remove the options that I felt I really didn't need... all in an effort to keep my basic bill from exceeding 50 bucks.

Ten years ago, my last "modern" phone crapped out (it was only 5 years old) and being disgusted with cheaply made junk from overseas, I decided not to buy a new one and just let my old rotary phones do the job. It's damn near impossible to destroy the old Western Electric phones. They're in the same classification as an old Zenith AM radio or the Ford 300-I6... freakin bulletproof!

So now, all I have left on my bill is call forwarding and "remote" call forwarding. I use that when I go back to sea. All my house calls get forwarded to my cel phone while I'm on the ship.

Now, it's at the point to where it cost more to have a copper land line than it does a cel phone... which seems absolutely crazy.
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  #38  
Old 02-16-2019, 11:11 AM
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I don't know if this technically qualifies as a land line, but I have a cordless telephone connected to Spectrum (Time Warner Cable) phone service; the telephone service comes through the same cable as my cable TV and Internet. I have several features on my line, including touchtone, caller ID, call waiting, unlimited long distance, etc., which are part of my basic service package.

BTW, My understanding always was that TT was more or less standard nowadays on all US telephone lines. I can't imagine why any US telephone company would still be using rotary (pulse) dialing in this day and age.

As far as long distance goes, most phone companies these days have unlimited long distance as part of their basic service package. The telephone service in your area must be provided by a company which still considers long-distance calling, caller ID, et al. as extra cost options, although again I can't imagine why. I would think these days, even phone companies in smaller towns would provide most services, including caller ID and unlimited long distance calling, just as phone service providers such as AT&T, et al. have been providing for years now. You must be in a very remote area of Texas, miles away from the state's major cities.
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Last edited by Jeffhs; 02-16-2019 at 11:15 AM.
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  #39  
Old 02-16-2019, 11:27 AM
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Yeah Jeff... I'm out in the woods!! I can't even get high speed internet on a line. My only choices for internet are satellite and cellular... I use the latter going through my wifi hotspot.

Being that my land line is AT&T, they call from time to time trying to convince me to get Direct TV (I use Dish). I usually tell them not to call again unless they can get me internet on a wire and a cheaper phone bill.

I'm 45 miles north of Beaumont. I don't even live close enough to any small towns to get anything better.

I really don't care much about the lack of options on my landline. I just wish they would be more reasonable about what they charge for it.
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  #40  
Old 02-17-2019, 12:12 PM
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The only telephone exchanges that coul do only pulse where the analogical one. I can't belive are still using one since they where mechanical.
For a good D.T.M.F. telephone try an "Western Electric" 2500.
Today I went to and house and construction store (bricolage) and in the bin where they had "electronics waste". There where 2 telephone plug (non-R.J. 11), one still packed. I wanted to get the 2, but the dern "bodyguard" didn't let me. Oh, stupid people, they preffer waste. I have in my collection 3 pins plugs and sockets for telelphone... those things wehre so big and sturdy that you can swear they where made for an washing machine, not for an telephone. Oh, and if you knew the position of the socket you could plug the plug with eyes closed... rotate it and you found the right position.
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  #41  
Old 02-17-2019, 02:17 PM
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I've had a landline in my house since I was small. Right now, it's how I get my DSL internet service, too. It's only 3Mb down, 768kb up, and $48 a month(!).

However, there's an option in my town for fiber... 1Gb down, 1Gb up, no data caps, no contracts, totally free installation, modem and router included in the monthly rate of $69.99, offered by my city-owned gas and electric utility. Phone service is another $13 on top of that. I will hopefully be taking advantage of this offer in the spring. My neighbors next door did it and they're loving it.

https://www.whipcityfiber.com/
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Last edited by OvenMaster; 02-17-2019 at 02:22 PM.
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  #42  
Old 02-17-2019, 05:00 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Telecolor 3007 View Post
The only telephone exchanges that coul do only pulse where the analogical one. I can't belive are still using one since they where mechanical.
For a good D.T.M.F. telephone try an "Western Electric" 2500.
The touch tone exchanges always supported BOTH the touch tone and the old pulse dial phones...Many of those exchanges also supported disabling the touchtone dialing recognition...That way they could make touchtone an optional extra cost feature of any line... (by that time phones were no longer provided solely by the phone company so you could go to an electronics store and buy what ever phone you wanted).
Also, not all pulse dial phones here in the states were rotary...I've seen many early pushbutton dial phones that had a "pulse-tone" switch to select which way it would signal the exchange with the dialed number. IIRC there were even pulse only push-button phones available for a while.
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  #43  
Old 02-17-2019, 05:13 PM
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Telecolor 3007 Telecolor 3007 is offline
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Why in the world they would want to desable the D.T.M.F. option?
I have an 2002? phone that haves that Pulse - Tone selector. https://www.price.ro/specificatii_br...nuet_62404.htm
https://www.okazii.ro/telefon-fix-br...nuet-a42256064
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  #44  
Old 02-17-2019, 05:32 PM
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Electronic M Electronic M is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Telecolor 3007 View Post
Why in the world they would want to desable the D.T.M.F. option?
To summarise the reason I gave you earlier: MONEY!$!$!$
The phone companies if they are able to turn DTMF on and off can default it to off and charge their customers extra to turn it on.
They can also make cheap and or old folks that don't want or don't want to pay for DTMF think they got a bargain by offering it cheaper DTMF delete service...This was common into the 90's, but some phone utilities are 30+ years behind the times so as absurd as it seems in this day and age the service still exists.
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  #45  
Old 02-17-2019, 06:38 PM
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Charlie Charlie is offline
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So THAT, my friend, is a great explanation as to how I'm able to have a phone line that only does pulse dialing for my seldom used house line.

Very well put, Tom!
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