News:

On Tuesday September 6th the forum will be down for maintenance from 9:30 PM to 11:59 PM PDT

Main Menu

I don't want to confuse new users :-)

Started by Lavarock7, April 07, 2013, 12:19:26 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Lavarock7

Forgive me for posting this here rather than in the New Users forums. I was afraid that some might get confused with my terminology. Also, I planned to post this last week and just forgot. Chalk that up to old age. This is based upon the recent request for rotary dial access to the Obi.

--

I am using an old-style crank telephone and wanted to pass along how it works. I am hoping to use an Obi.

The phone is a wooden box that attaches to the wall. It has a crank, connected to a magneto to generate a signal to "Central" (the phone company), and when I crank it, they answer (essentually giving me a live "automated" attendant"). I tell them who I want to speak with and they connect the call. Thus my outbound call routing is quite simple. All calls go out to the the attendant who processes the call by some kind of lookup table.

Inbound calls are a different matter. Everyone in my neighborhood has selective ringing. This is like the new-fangled system the telephone company came up with that lets two parties share a single phone line. My ring is two short and my neighbor is a short and a long ring. I believe that if we needed to, we could change the ring tone.

I have heard of this FAX stuff, but have been unable to get a photo to fit into the mouthpiece of the phone. I don't think I can send pictures directly. What I have resorted to is describing the photo to the party on the other end. For some people I must slow that down considerably and use error correction, especially with my great grandpa.

However, calling the police or fire department works pretty well, but it is not a direct call. I pick up the receiver, crank a few times and when the attendant comes online I ask for the police or fire department. In an emergency, the attendant will redial and relay the message, especially if my phone line goes dead. There is no extra monthly charge for that service!

For directory assistance, well first there are few people in my neighborhood and I have a list of their numbers already. For long distance, not that I know anyone there, I just describe who I want and hang up and await a callback.

Our phone company does not let us own any equipment and we have to lease it from them. The wall-crank phone comes in two versions, a standard one and one with a piece of wood as a shelf that we can write notes on.

Service is pretty good, but come high water, sometimes the phone line goes off until the phone guy can get his truck up on to the bluff to reposition the pole that has fallen into the mud.

As for caller-id, we don't have it specifically. I can call the attendant (I call her "Operator") and she can tell me if someone called me. She appears to have a list of all inbound and outbound calls. Sometimes, if I "press the right buttons" I can get news items and personal opinion about local and worldwide events, but often that information will be inturrupted when someone else makes a call or her boss comes in the room.

Extra personalized service is often given with no extra charge, but sometimes I take a cherry pie with me when I go tothe phone company office to pay my bill.

I am not quite sure how the Obi devices would help me, but they sound great!

Oh, and "April Fools!"

My websites: Kona Coffee: http://itskona.com and Web Hosting: http://planetaloha.info<br />A simplified Voip explanation: http://voip.planet-aloha.com

GregoryZ

 ;D  Good Read.  Thanks for the laugh.
OBi100, OBi110, OBi200, OBi202