Well my wife has been telling me of this site for awhile and I thought I would put my two cents in. In the telecommunications industry many of the switches can in fact be put into a "manual" mode allowing voice telephone calls to take place. There are however three major problems with putting the switches in a "manual" mode. First, the line will lose the digital capability and only be able to carry voice. Modems, fax machine, even caller id including 911 technology will not function. Second, any area code which is not hard coded in the switch will no longer be recognized by that switch. This includes most new area codes within the last five years and including the new toll-free area codes (877 & 888). Third, without digital interfaces, RBOC, LEC, and LD may not be able to communicate with each other. You will be able to call someone only if they are in your local exchange telephone company (like your neighbor).

-- Doug (hollander@ij.net), January 17, 1999

Answers

Doug,

Thank you very much for the information. It's great to get first hand knowledge from the field.

Now... can Polyanna explain to me how a business or corporation or a financial interest or even a utility that must rely on digital capability, modems, fax machines, etc. can possible operate under such conditions? Further more, how can business be conducted globally?

I hope there is no need to even fall back to "manual".

Mike =================================================================

-- Michael Taylor (mtdesign3@aol.com), January 17, 1999.

>>First, the line will lose the digital capability and only be able to carry voice. Modems, fax machine, even caller id including 911 technology will not function.

I find this *very* hard to belive, since the signal that a modem and fax transmits over the phone line is *NOT* digital, but analog, exactly like your voice.

I think you have confused digital switching with digital transmission.

-- Jay Kusnetz (jayrtfm@hotmail.com), January 17, 1999.

Jay,

While it is possible in theory to carried digital transmission over POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service), the switching in this country is not conditioned for "manual" transmission because of on-line noise. Without digital filtering the best transmission you can count on is 300 baud because at that speed you are not compacting the signal. Most equipment today will not send or receive at 300 baud speed. Thus, "Modems, fax machine, even caller id including 911 technology will not function."

Doug

-- Doug (hollander@ij.net), January 17, 1999.

Humm. Thanks Doug.

Maybe it's time to rummage around a few used computer parts stores for some of those 'ole 320 (think it was 320 not 300) baud Hayes modems. Remember X Cross Talk? It was as bad as DOS commands. Yeecch!

Gotta find a "slow" Mac equivalent.

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), January 17, 1999.

"You look in all the elementary schools of america.. You wont see a PC. Youll see a mac. Why? Because Mac's are only used by people with undeveloped brains."

:)

-- a (a@a.a), January 17, 1999.

a's a computer troll! Hhrruummpphh!

Leska, telling her awesome iMac to ignore aaaa

xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxx

-- Leska (allaha@earthlink.net), January 17, 1999.

a,

LOL, sorry Leska... but that was a good one!

c

-- c (c@c.c), January 17, 1999.

To the best of my knowledge and memory, on a modem to modem connection over pots, 56k modems and prior modems will attempt handshakeing with the other end until they sync. If at first they don't succeed, they try a slower speed, then a slower, then a slower. I expect there are still 300 and 600 baud modems out there that are used to connect with much faster modems or even perhaps the internet. (Are there still Gopher sites?) C-1 conditioning is needed for error free 1200 baud transmissions and then we get into using two c-1 lines if you want to move up to 4800. One send and one receive. That might be the real limit to speed but I don't believe the newer modems would have to be replaced with slower ones. But then again; I'm never sure of anything. :-)

Me.

-- Floyd Baker (fbaker@wzrd.com), January 17, 1999.