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From: johns@scroff.uk.sun.com (John Slater)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: TouchTone(tm) in the U.K. (was Re: Touchtone History)
Message-ID: <9784@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 16 Jul 90 14:09:39 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 488, Message 6 of 9


In article <9673@accuvax.nwu.edu>, iosg::robertsn@iosg.enet.dec.com
(Nigel Roberts 0860 578600) writes (with regard to TXE-2 exchanges):

>Is there any way it could support TouchTone? (A BT engineer once told
>me that there might be some kind of black box which they can add).

I believe the TXE-3 was the first BT-installed switch that supported
touch-tone (but you had to ask them to switch it on).

In theory they can bolt a black box on to anything to give it TouchTone
capability, including Strowgers. I don't know whether this is common
practice.

>And does anyone have a guess as to how long it will be before it is
>updated to something modern? (I IMAGINE we've got another 19 years of
>pulse dialling to put up with, but I hope I'm wrong ...)

I hope so too. My understanding is that if it doesn't do TouchTone, it
ain't going to be around much longer (two or three years, max). Then
again they might decide to bolt on lots of black boxes instead of
replacing the switches. :-(

We might be way behind the Americans in offering state-of-the-art
services, but at least the UK network is pretty much the same across
the country (no hand-cranked phones(!), no non-automatic exchanges,
international dialling from _anywhere_, easy and cheap LD access to
the entire country).  I appreciate that these things are rare in the
States, but they are non-existent here.

Now if only they'd offer me itemised billing ...

>Nigel Roberts (on contract at DEC)

That's too bad. We've all got to earn a crust somehow, I suppose. ;-) ;-)


John Slater
Sun Microsystems UK, Gatwick Office