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The internet is no longer any fun



 
 
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  #46  
Old February 18th 19, 02:35 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
nospam
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 4,718
Default The internet is no longer any fun

In article ,
lonelydad wrote:

there was once a time when you couldn't do that in your own home. the
phone company only allowed their phones, even with rj11 jacks, and they
could tell if there were additional extensions you weren't paying for,
which is why many phones were designed to not be detectable.


The ringer on each phone/device puts a load on the line. If that load gets
too big the ringers won't work properly and other bad things micht occur.
That's what the big fuss was about with Ma Bell. They decided that the best
way to keep that from happening was to control the devices connected to the
line. These days, every landline device has a ringer equivalence number on
the label. The sum of all connected devices should not be greater that
four, if I remember correctly.


nothing bad occurred with an additional phones, other than the phone
company wasn't being paid for extensions.
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  #47  
Old February 18th 19, 05:06 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
123456789[_3_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 239
Default The internet is no longer any fun

On 2/18/2019 5:58 AM, lonelydad wrote:
On 2/17/2019 8:56 PM, nospam wrote:


there was once a time when you couldn't do that in your own home.
the phone company only allowed their phones, even with rj11 jacks,
and they could tell if there were additional extensions you
weren't paying for, which is why many phones were designed to not
detectable.


The ringer on each phone/device puts a load on the line.


We solved that problem by disconnecting the ringers on all the phones
but one. Those old bell ringers were LOUD so one easily did the job anyway.

If that load gets too big the ringers won't work properly and other
bad things might occur.


Load? Bad things? That didn't bother us kids. The impedance matching
device of my previously mentioned homebrew phone patch was a tube type
radio AC power transformer. The 6V filament windings went to the
receiver speaker out, the high voltage windings to the transmitter mike
input, and... the 110V windings to the phone line.

That's what the big fuss was about with Ma Bell.


In my case Ma Bell was apparently not paying attention.

These days, every landline device has a ringer equivalence number on
the label. The sum of all connected devices should not be greater
that four, if I remember correctly.


These days IF you still have a landline (I do) you likely have a
cordless phone system so the phone company still only sees one phone
even though you have many.
  #48  
Old February 18th 19, 07:10 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
Mark Lloyd[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,756
Default The internet is no longer any fun

On 2/17/19 9:56 PM, nospam wrote:

[snip]

there was once a time when you couldn't do that in your own home. the
phone company only allowed their phones, even with rj11 jacks, and they
could tell if there were additional extensions you weren't paying for,
which is why many phones were designed to not be detectable


IIRC, the phone company could detect them by the additional ringer load.
A phone would not be detectable if the ringer was disconnected. This
would often be done if you had too many extensions (you don't need them
all ringing anyway).

When I was young, I spend a lot of time looking at the Radio Shack
catalog, and remember those 4-prong plugs. I never saw them in use. What
I did see a lot of looked like a 1/4-inch headphone jack. However, there
was no jack but for some reason the installer had used a cover plate
with a hole in it instead of a blank plate.

--
Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us/

"It is necessary for men to be deceived in religion." [Marcus Terentius
Varro]
  #49  
Old February 18th 19, 07:15 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
Mark Lloyd[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,756
Default The internet is no longer any fun

On 2/18/19 6:58 AM, lonelydad wrote:

[snip]

The ringer on each phone/device puts a load on the line. If that load gets
too big the ringers won't work properly and other bad things micht occur.
That's what the big fuss was about with Ma Bell. They decided that the best
way to keep that from happening was to control the devices connected to the
line. These days, every landline device has a ringer equivalence number on
the label. The sum of all connected devices should not be greater that
four, if I remember correctly.


I thought it was 5. 1 is the load from an old mechanical bell.
Electronic phones may have a much lower load. IIRC, there's also a
letter at the end of the REN (usually A or B?) indicating the ringer
frequency.

--
Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us/

"It is necessary for men to be deceived in religion." [Marcus Terentius
Varro]
  #50  
Old February 18th 19, 07:15 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
nospam
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 4,718
Default The internet is no longer any fun

In article , Mark Lloyd
wrote:

there was once a time when you couldn't do that in your own home. the
phone company only allowed their phones, even with rj11 jacks, and they
could tell if there were additional extensions you weren't paying for,
which is why many phones were designed to not be detectable


IIRC, the phone company could detect them by the additional ringer load.
A phone would not be detectable if the ringer was disconnected. This
would often be done if you had too many extensions (you don't need them
all ringing anyway).


they could, but they generally didn't care unless it was *much* higher.

an extra phone is no big deal, but ten additional phones would likely
be.

the phone company also used to charge for touchtone, but what they
didn't tell you is that nothing changed at their end, other than an
additional fee.

all the customer needed to do was connect a touchtone phone and it
worked perfectly fine. the only exception was with step switches, which
were too old to handle touchtone and didn't offer it as an option.
  #51  
Old February 18th 19, 07:17 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
Mark Lloyd[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,756
Default The internet is no longer any fun

On 2/18/19 7:35 AM, nospam wrote:

[snip]

nothing bad occurred with an additional phones, other than the phone
company wasn't being paid for extensions.


Other than if too many are in use at the same time, there won't be
enough power to make them work. I've heard of that problem on party
lines, where you can't hear because too many people are listening.

--
Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us/

"It is necessary for men to be deceived in religion." [Marcus Terentius
Varro]
  #52  
Old February 18th 19, 07:22 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
Mark Lloyd[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,756
Default The internet is no longer any fun

On 2/18/19 10:06 AM, 123456789 wrote:

[snip]

These days IF you still have a landline (I do) you likely have a
cordless phone system so the phone company still only sees one phone
even though you have many.


I looked at my (multi-handset cordless phone) which has a REN of 0.1B

--
Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us/

"It is necessary for men to be deceived in religion." [Marcus Terentius
Varro]
  #53  
Old February 18th 19, 07:23 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
nospam
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 4,718
Default The internet is no longer any fun

In article , Mark Lloyd
wrote:

nothing bad occurred with an additional phones, other than the phone
company wasn't being paid for extensions.


Other than if too many are in use at the same time, there won't be
enough power to make them work. I've heard of that problem on party
lines, where you can't hear because too many people are listening.


off hook voltage is separate than the ringer load while on hook.

but yet it all worked fine if you paid the phone company for each
extension.

it's a bit like how wireless devices on airplanes were supposedly
dangerous, up until the airlines realized they could charge people for
inflight wifi. then those very same devices magically became safe to
use.

follow the money...
  #54  
Old February 18th 19, 07:56 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
lonelydad
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 90
Default The internet is no longer any fun

nospam wrote in
:

In article ,
lonelydad wrote:

there was once a time when you couldn't do that in your own home.
the phone company only allowed their phones, even with rj11 jacks,
and they could tell if there were additional extensions you
weren't paying for, which is why many phones were designed to not
be detectable.

The ringer on each phone/device puts a load on the line. If that load
gets too big the ringers won't work properly and other bad things
micht occur. That's what the big fuss was about with Ma Bell. They
decided that the best way to keep that from happening was to control
the devices connected to the line. These days, every landline device
has a ringer equivalence number on the label. The sum of all
connected devices should not be greater that four, if I remember
correctly.


nothing bad occurred with an additional phones, other than the phone
company wasn't being paid for extensions.


You just didn't have enough devices connected to hit the wall.

Per Wikipedia:

The total REN load on a subscriber line is the sum of the REN loads of
all devices (phone, fax, a separate answerphone, etc.) connected to the
line; this number expresses the overall loading effect of the subscriber
equipment on the central office ringing current source. Subscriber
telephone lines are usually limited to support a load of 5 REN or less.

If the total allowable ringer load is exceeded, the phone circuit may
fail to ring or otherwise malfunction. For example, call waiting, caller
ID and ADSL services are often affected by high ringer load. 20th century
equipment tends to contribute to a larger REN than new equipment.

Some analog telephone adapters for Internet telephony require analog
telephones with low REN, for example, the AT&T 210 is a basic phone which
does not require an external electrical connection and has a REN of 0.9B.

  #55  
Old February 18th 19, 07:59 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
lonelydad
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 90
Default The internet is no longer any fun

Mark Lloyd wrote in news:SECaE.137768$4r2.30679
@fx25.fr7:

On 2/18/19 7:35 AM, nospam wrote:

[snip]

nothing bad occurred with an additional phones, other than the phone
company wasn't being paid for extensions.


Other than if too many are in use at the same time, there won't be
enough power to make them work. I've heard of that problem on party
lines, where you can't hear because too many people are listening.


We only had four families on our party line, so that never became a
problem. Calling another party on the same line was kind of a pain though.
After the town switched to dial it wan't a problem any longer.
  #56  
Old February 18th 19, 08:14 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
lonelydad
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 90
Default The internet is no longer any fun

nospam wrote in news:180220191323556518%
lid:

In article , Mark Lloyd
wrote:

nothing bad occurred with an additional phones, other than the phone
company wasn't being paid for extensions.


Other than if too many are in use at the same time, there won't be
enough power to make them work. I've heard of that problem on party
lines, where you can't hear because too many people are listening.


off hook voltage is separate than the ringer load while on hook.

but yet it all worked fine if you paid the phone company for each
extension.

follow the money...

Back when Bell controlled everything, if you had them add a second [or
third, or fourth, etc.] phone, they adjusted the line to compensate. That
was part of the cost for the extra device. Remember, also, that you
didn't own your phone, you rented it from Ma Bell. While they weren't
happy about the lost revenue of you providing your own device, the only
legal recourse they had was the excuse of having to control the ringer
equivalence. With the Hush-A-Phone v. United States and Carterphone
cases, the FCC determined that the phone company had no legal reason to
restrict access to the phone system by customer owned devices.

My uncle was the phone guy for a small town in Nebraska. When we went to
visit him he had a phone in almost every room of the house, including the
bathroom. I don't know how many had active ringers though. I'm sure it
must have been interesting when the phone(s) rang.
  #57  
Old February 18th 19, 08:15 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
nospam
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 4,718
Default The internet is no longer any fun

In article ,
lonelydad wrote:

there was once a time when you couldn't do that in your own home.
the phone company only allowed their phones, even with rj11 jacks,
and they could tell if there were additional extensions you
weren't paying for, which is why many phones were designed to not
be detectable.

The ringer on each phone/device puts a load on the line. If that load
gets too big the ringers won't work properly and other bad things
micht occur. That's what the big fuss was about with Ma Bell. They
decided that the best way to keep that from happening was to control
the devices connected to the line. These days, every landline device
has a ringer equivalence number on the label. The sum of all
connected devices should not be greater that four, if I remember
correctly.


nothing bad occurred with an additional phones, other than the phone
company wasn't being paid for extensions.


You just didn't have enough devices connected to hit the wall.


few people did.

Per Wikipedia:


not always a good reference.

The total REN load on a subscriber line is the sum of the REN loads of
all devices (phone, fax, a separate answerphone, etc.) connected to the
line; this number expresses the overall loading effect of the subscriber
equipment on the central office ringing current source. Subscriber
telephone lines are usually limited to support a load of 5 REN or less.


but might work above that. it's just not guaranteed.

If the total allowable ringer load is exceeded, the phone circuit may
fail to ring or otherwise malfunction. For example, call waiting, caller
ID and ADSL services are often affected by high ringer load. 20th century
equipment tends to contribute to a larger REN than new equipment.


'may fail'.

call waiting only occurs during a call, when the phone is off hook, and
therefore *can't* be affected by ren.

Some analog telephone adapters for Internet telephony require analog
telephones with low REN, for example, the AT&T 210 is a basic phone which
does not require an external electrical connection and has a REN of 0.9B.


atas need to generate a 90v ring voltage from a (usually) 12v power
supply, so it's no surprise it has more stringent requirements, plus
only one phone is connected to a port.
  #58  
Old February 18th 19, 08:20 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
lonelydad
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 90
Default The internet is no longer any fun

Mark Lloyd wrote in
:

On 2/18/19 6:58 AM, lonelydad wrote:

[snip]

The ringer on each phone/device puts a load on the line. If that load
gets too big the ringers won't work properly and other bad things
micht occur. That's what the big fuss was about with Ma Bell. They
decided that the best way to keep that from happening was to control
the devices connected to the line. These days, every landline device
has a ringer equivalence number on the label. The sum of all
connected devices should not be greater that four, if I remember
correctly.


I thought it was 5. 1 is the load from an old mechanical bell.
Electronic phones may have a much lower load. IIRC, there's also a
letter at the end of the REN (usually A or B?) indicating the ringer
frequency.

Yes, you are right, it is five. Since in these days ringers are electronic
and as such don't have an electromagnet, the voltage/impedance load can be
significantly less than one. While I personally wouldn't go above four,
knowing how some land lines are maintained these days, five is the limit.
  #59  
Old February 18th 19, 08:25 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
Rene Lamontagne
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,549
Default The internet is no longer any fun

On 02/18/2019 12:10 PM, Mark Lloyd wrote:
On 2/17/19 9:56 PM, nospam wrote:

[snip]

there was once a time when you couldn't do that in your own home. the
phone company only allowed their phones, even with rj11 jacks, and they
could tell if there were additional extensions you weren't paying for,
which is why many phones were designed to not be detectable


IIRC, the phone company could detect them by the additional ringer load.
A phone would not be detectable if the ringer was disconnected. This
would often be done if you had too many extensions (you don't need them
all ringing anyway).

When I was young, I spend a lot of time looking at the Radio Shack
catalog, and remember those 4-prong plugs. I never saw them in use. What
I did see a lot of looked like a 1/4-inch headphone jack. However, there
was no jack but for some reason the installer had used a cover plate
with a hole in it instead of a blank plate.


Back in the day when I was young and lived on a farm in Saskatchewan we
had wall mounted Phones with a crank up generator to power the ringers,
We were on a 3 party line , our call was 2 long and 1 short ring, one
neighbor a mile away was 2 short rings, the other one half a mile away
was 1 long and 1 short ring.
If you wanted to connect to any other line you gave 1 extra loooong ring
which hooked you up with "Central" 11 miles away, you told her whom you
wanted to call and she would patch you through on her jack field and
patch cords which was tied to every phone in the municipality.
I don't remember what the Phone generator ring voltage was but the audio
circuit in each phone was powered by 2 #6 cells for a total of 3.2
volts, The whole system was very reliable and never gave much trouble.

Rene

  #60  
Old February 18th 19, 08:26 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
nospam
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 4,718
Default The internet is no longer any fun

In article ,
lonelydad wrote:

nothing bad occurred with an additional phones, other than the phone
company wasn't being paid for extensions.

Other than if too many are in use at the same time, there won't be
enough power to make them work. I've heard of that problem on party
lines, where you can't hear because too many people are listening.


off hook voltage is separate than the ringer load while on hook.

but yet it all worked fine if you paid the phone company for each
extension.

follow the money...

Back when Bell controlled everything, if you had them add a second [or
third, or fourth, etc.] phone, they adjusted the line to compensate. That
was part of the cost for the extra device.


there's nothing to adjust, other than the amount they billed you.

same for touchtone. it was a scam.

Remember, also, that you
didn't own your phone, you rented it from Ma Bell.


that was the official line.

they might have owned the phones they provided, but they sure as hell
didn't own the phones that they did not provide. they rarely asked for
them back after canceling service, so their 'ownership' is debatable.

While they weren't
happy about the lost revenue of you providing your own device, the only
legal recourse they had was the excuse of having to control the ringer
equivalence. With the Hush-A-Phone v. United States and Carterphone
cases, the FCC determined that the phone company had no legal reason to
restrict access to the phone system by customer owned devices.


yep. they got caught ripping people off.

My uncle was the phone guy for a small town in Nebraska. When we went to
visit him he had a phone in almost every room of the house, including the
bathroom. I don't know how many had active ringers though. I'm sure it
must have been interesting when the phone(s) rang.


i had six phones in my small dorm room in college. at least one was
within arm's reach no matter where i was. most were 500s.
 




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