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  #16  
Old 03-22-2015, 01:37 PM
Jeffhs's Avatar
Jeffhs Jeffhs is offline
<----Zenith C845
 
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Fairport Harbor, Ohio (near Lake Erie)
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I've had Time Warner Cable phone service for some time, and it works well with both phones in my apartment (both are Touch-Tone with capability to switch to pulse, if necessary). I haven't used dial phones in years; in fact, the last time I had a rotary phone was at my previous residence, about five years before I moved. The telephone company at the time (AT&T, IIRC) switched to touch-tone just about that time, and I was able to use a rotary dial phone with no problems, but I had switched to touch-tone by then so this wasn't an issue for me.

However, these days I just might have trouble with rotary phones on today's touch-tone service, for reasons others have mentioned. I have yet to use a rotary dial phone with the phone service I have now, mainly because I don't have dial phones anymore (got rid of them years ago and didn't look back), so I cannot comment on how well or how poorly they work with modern digital phone lines. My best guess is that, as another VK member has mentioned, dial phones could well be incompatible with digital lines by virtue of the difference in dialing speeds.

In most cases, but not necessarily all, dial phones will not work with business phone systems that use menus to connect callers to different services, since these systems are almost always configured for touch-tone phones only. One VK member mentioned that he was able to use his 1940s-vintage dial phone on such a system, even to use the menu selections, but I think that is a rare exception; most of the time, modern systems will ignore dial pulses. If they do manage to connect to a modern phone system, it is entirely possible the dial could send the wrong signals; for instance, dialing 1 could cause the system to activate menu option 3 or any other option available on that line.

If you want to try your antique dial phone on a modern line, you can (the telephone company or your cable company won't mind or care unless the phone somehow damages their network, by virtue of a short or other problem), but don't expect it to work--well or at all. That is, you may be able to dial out and to receive calls as normal, but don't expect miracles as far as using these phones with business telephone systems goes; the experiment will almost always fail miserably. The VK member whose 1940s rotary phone does work on these sophisticated systems must have a phone with a dial that outputs pulses at just the right speed for his digital telephone line.

BTW, as an experiment, I tried about a month or so ago to to use my touch-tone phones in pulse mode; they dial out with no problems, but I still hear tones in the earpiece while dialing, just as I do with the phone in tone mode. The last time I tried this, I was expecting to hear dead silence, or at least clicks, while entering the number I was trying to reach on the keypad.
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Last edited by Jeffhs; 03-22-2015 at 09:38 PM.
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  #17  
Old 03-22-2015, 10:26 PM
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David Roper David Roper is offline
console lover
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
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I switched to Comcast telephone service a few years ago and my rotary phones worked just fine with their modem--until they didn't one day last May. Some damn software upgrade came through and that was it, no more rotary. I finally got a refurbished Panasonic PBX to restore the old phones' functionality. It has the added benefits of A) making all the phones double as intercoms and B) greatly increasing the potential number of phones that can be in service at once. As if I need to expand another collection....
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  #18  
Old 03-23-2015, 11:53 PM
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Jon A. Jon A. is offline
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Join Date: Jun 2013
Location: Canada
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I want one of those Western Electric card dialers with a rotary dial, but they're so darn expensive.

I still have a land line and probably will as long as they're available. Early adopter I'm not.
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  #19  
Old 03-24-2015, 01:37 AM
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ChrisW6ATV ChrisW6ATV is offline
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Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: Hayward, Cal. USA
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Electronic M View Post
Yes I can use my rotary phone to dial on my VOIP system
Quote:
Originally Posted by AdamAnt316 View Post
We have Verizon FiOS service, and my various rotary dial phones dial out just fine with it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Olorin67 View Post
I switched a couple years ago from a regular old land line to Warner cable, i was surprised to find my 1940's vintage WE 300 still was able to dial out..haven't had any issues with it.
This is good to know! I have had a friend or two use Vonage, Ooma, or maybe Magic Jack devices, and I think I had read that rotary phones will not dial using those devices. Maybe the key is to have an actual company-provided VoIP service rather than the retail-store-bought boxes I mentioned.

For now, I still have real analog phone service combined with my high-speed Internet, and I like being able to make rotary-dial calls. Even to cell phones.
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  #20  
Old 03-25-2015, 05:08 PM
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AdamAnt316 AdamAnt316 is offline
Collector of heavy things
 
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: MA
Posts: 140
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jon A. View Post
I want one of those Western Electric card dialers with a rotary dial, but they're so darn expensive.

I still have a land line and probably will as long as they're available. Early adopter I'm not.
I got lucky with mine. I found it at a local flea market, sitting in the seller's 'overflow' booth (where they stuck things which didn't fit in their regular booth) along with a couple of other non-descript phones. I asked how much they wanted for it, and they said one dollar. It was missing the ringer, and the hookswitch was messed up, but both were easy fixes. Unfortunately, the card dialer part no longer dials out correctly; I'm guessing the contacts involved with its mechanism have gotten dirty, but I'm not entirely sure. Hopefully, it will someday grace my computer desk once more...

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