Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!watmath!att!bellcore!rutgers!apple!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!wuarchive!texbell!vector!telecom-gateway From: sandy47@ucsco.ucsc.edu (90784000) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Central Office Answering Machine Message-ID: Date: 20 Sep 89 09:42:46 GMT Sender: news@vector.Dallas.TX.US Reply-To: Larry McElhiney Organization: University of California, Santa Cruz Lines: 44 Approved: telecom-request@vector.dallas.tx.us X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@vector.dallas.tx.us X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 390, message 4 of 7 In article john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) writes: >X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 379, message 4 of 4 >In article , kenj%wybbs.UUCP@sharkey. >cc.umich.edu (Ken Jongsma) writes: >> I don't know... Almost $100 a year for an answering machine? One that you >> may not even be able to interrogate from another phone? I think they are >> way to optimistic on their sign up estimates. >It IS catching on in many places. First, there is no capital outlay. It >is one thing to go shopping, plunk down $100 (or more), bring the thing >home and try to figure it out and hook it up, and worry about what >happens when it breaks, and quite another to call "the phone company" >and tell them you want their message service. I believe there is a >central number you can call to retrive your messages (at least there is >on the voice mail offered with my cellular phone). Late 1970's through early 1980's Plantronics Inc. in Santa Cruz, CA built and marketed a system called CentraVox--a CO based answering machine for individual subscribers. FCC ruling against recording devices in COs finally killed the product line. Last operating system that I am aware of was part of the PNB system in the Seattle area. The service was popular among the masses, I am told. Consisted of a 19" rack mounted aluminum box with p/s and central tape driving motors. 12 individual line modules would independently push tape and a rubber roller against a rotating shaft to drive the tape. Two tapes, an announce on a loop and about 20 minutes of message tape were included in an interchangable unit about the size of many cassette recorders. All of the electronics other than the voice recording was digital. The system was controlled by DTMF signals from the subscriber site and there was a tone sequence indicating waiting messages when the handset was taken off hook. VOX was the other feature, up to a 20-min length of message was possible, and the system sensed the end of "intelligibility" and then rewound the tape to that point to await the next call. All features for control were available from the unmodified home telephone and there was a remote included so that you could access your service by calling your home number remotely and sending a BCD signal to authorize. You could change announce, listen to and erase messages all from any telephone. Cost was very low to the consumer as well... Too bad it died just pre-1984!