Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!netsys!vector!telecom-gateway From: ijk@violin.att.com (Ihor J Kinal) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Phone Design For Humans Message-ID: Date: 4 Oct 89 19:38:27 GMT Sender: news@vector.Dallas.TX.US Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories Lines: 36 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 431, message 4 of 9 In article , davef@brspyr1.brs.com (Dave Fiske) writes: > We used to have this problem at home. My father had a home office, > with a separate line installed, and they could never tell whether it > was the home or the office phone that was ringing. > I managed to solve this problem for them, totally by accident. I was > rummaging through a bin of reduced-price clearance items in a > Montgomery Ward store once, and found this little device which stifled > your phone's normal ring, and instead played one of up to 8 > user-selectable tunes. An unnecessarily hi-tech solution. My family had the same problem [my father is a Family Doctor - the office phone rang almost constantly]. The SIMPLE solution was to REMOVE the BELLs from the office phones. They still made a whirr sound, instead of a noisy ring. Much better, and easily identifiable [plus easier to ignore at 3AM for the rest of the family]. Note that this was technically illegal, since the phone was telco property, but I presume that statute of limitations has expired. I also do the same for my bedroom phones - easier to ignore when I don't want to answer the phone. Unfotunately, my last phone expired and the replacement has an electronic ringer, which I can only turn to lo [still a bit annoying] or off [too quiet]. Ihor Kinal P.S. The other amusing thing was that for many years, the office and home were NOT located in the same residence. But my father still had the office phone in both places. I have no idea how much extra it cost, but it was possible. Some of the extensions needed to have their ringers disabled, since the load was too high.