Hahnel, Winfried (W.A.) wrote:
>
<snip>
>
> I changed the modem to dial out as is  if I had a "pulse" (old type) phone
> line and it now connects even this is a touch tone phone line [ two other
> computers on this line dial use "tone"].  Any suggestions or further
> comments since to me this a "temporary" fix?
>
> Thanks for your time,
> Fred Hahnel
>

Well, it seems that your phone company has not thrown pulse dialing to
the wind.  Actually, you are probably in luck.  Technically, all common,
residential telephone lines must be capable of pulse dialing.  This is
because the phone company is allowed to charge an extra tariff for tone
dialing service.  So if someone does not want to pay that extra monthly
fee, they cannot be denied phone service, so the local phone company (if
they have updated all of their central exchange equipment to digital
format with tone input) means they must maintain on-line conversion
detectors to receive the pulse dialing sequence and convert it to
digital to activate their central exchange equipment.  With pulse, it
will take a little bit longer to dial the number, but as far as the
telephone company is concerned, it doesn't give a hoot!  (There have
been several discussions about this before, but with some local phone
companies, if you tell them that you do not want touch-tone or tone
dialing service anymore, when the charge is removed from your bill, you
will find that USUALLY you can still use the tone dialing method.  Why
didn't they delete the service?  Because that 'other' dialing method is
automatically on every line and to block tone service from a single line
is more of a bother than it is worth.)

Now to the big question - which is why won't your modem dial out in tone
but will dial out in pulse!  I assume that you have ALWAYS had three
computers tied onto the line at the same time. (True or false?)

Did you recently add any additional phones to your house or did you
replace any phones with new ones? (Yes or No)

Reason why I ask these questions - about a month ago there was a
discussion about a problem someone was having with a modem. My thoughts
on the subject were, in effect, based on the following:

Every phone or device that is designed to connect to a phone line has a
special number, called a REN (ringer equivalence number).  This number
represents a sort of quality or amount of load that the device places on
the phone line.  The phone company, for a long time, required people to
report the total REN of their household, especially whenever thay added
a new phone or device.  Well, this reporting went out the window
eventually, but the limit still exists, but people just are not aware of
it.  The approximate maximum REN value is 4.0.  Now, not all modems are
of equal quality.  Some are better than others.  Not all telephone lines
in houses are equal. Some are installed properly and some may have a
staple or two through a wire.  All of these things can change the way
the system appears to each device.

If, because you have added or changed a phone, the REN increased a small
amount, maybe your modem cannot properly acquire and provide the proper
level of tone signal onto the phone line because of the new 'appearance'
of the line to that modem.

I know that this sounds kind of geekish, and maybe strange, but if those
questions I asked above are Yes or True, then the condition of the phone
line system in your house has changed from previously, and it is very
possible that your modem cannot handle it when operating in tone mode.
Remember, tone mode are audio signals of a specific combination of two
unique audio frequencies that represent a unique character on the
telephone keypad.  To function properly, that audio signal must be at a
minimum amplitude with a limited amount of distortion in order for the
central exchange to decode the tones and drive the digital switching
equipment.

Pulse operation is very simple.  If you dial "0" (zero) you 'break' the
line (the equivalent of rapidly hanging up and then lifting the
receiver) ten times (the timing of the break/make action is in
milliseconds). Dialing 1 (one) means you break the line once. The rapid
break/make action of the line causes the central exchange to 'read' the
number of breaks that have occurred and convert that to a digital
representation of a number.  No signal levels are involved, so pulse
dialing should ALWAYS work.  Only drawback is it is slower to dial the
original number.  And some modems use VERY CHEAP relays for pulse
dialing so they fail faster.

Sorry for the length, but I think if you read this carefully, you may be
able to isolate your problem further.

HTH

--
Jean Bourvic :>))

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