Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcsun!hp4nl!star.cs.vu.nl!condict From: condict@cs.vu.nl (Michael Condict) Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards Subject: Re: FCC doing it again... Message-ID: <4695@condict.cs.vu.nl> Date: 3 Dec 89 21:19:31 GMT References: <1989Nov28.011514.4193@virtech.uucp> <246@cfa.HARVARD.EDU> <11198@csli.Stanford.EDU> <11721@smoke.BRL.MIL> <31848@news.Think.COM> Reply-To: condict@cs.vu.nl (Michael Condict) Organization: VU Informatica, Amsterdam Lines: 32 In article <31848@news.Think.COM> barmar@think.com writes: >In article <11721@smoke.BRL.MIL> gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn) writes: >>or were you unaware that FCC tariffs require you to >>notify the phone company when you attach a modem to the line? > >I thought the only thing you were required to give to the phone company >when attaching a device to a phone line was the ringer equivalence number. >And I think this requirement went away a few years ago, when owners were >given possession of the lines within the building. Now it's the phone >company's responsibility to safeguard their lines against whatever the user >might attach, and we don't have to tell them what we're doing. Modem >manuals used to include instructions to call the phone company, but the >last modem I got didn't. Surely you are not suggesting that it is legal for me to connect to my telephone line one of the following: (1) A "device" consisting of a 0.1 ohm resistor (why pay the gas or oil company for heat, when the phone company will heat your house for free?). (2) A light bulb (why pay the electric company?). (3) A "60-baud modem" whose output is obtained by copying its input (the 115V power line) onto the telephone line (that should "light up the switchboard" as the expression goes :-). Or is the phone company's equipment really smart enough to use current limiters in both directions, so you can neither steal power, nor fry their equipment with externally-generated power? -- Michael Condict condict@cs.vu.nl Vrije University Amsterdam