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From: aspect!kevinc@uunet.uu.net (Kevin Collins)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Help Needed With Panasonic KX-T2355 on Rolm System
Message-ID: <12961@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 2 Oct 90 19:44:43 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 706, Message 12 of 13


In article <12142@accuvax.nwu.edu>, Matthew McGehrin writes:

> First off, I feel sympathy for you. Rolm is a monster of a system. I
> have many friends who attend colleges with Rolm systems installed
> and it is a pain in the a** to use. It re-defines the word simplfy.
> I know people who before Rolm to dial a operator you would dial '0',
> but with rolm you may dial 678 then 0. Also, I thought that
>'non-Rolm' phones are not compatible with the network.

I am a *former* ROLM employee, but I still feel I must defend their
products' honor. The recent [and not-so-recent :-)] company troubles
ROLM has had are well known, but their products (PhoneMail, 8000,
9000, 9751 series CBX) are still pretty darn good. I would venture to
say that the problems Mr. McGehrin's friends have had are caused more
by poor configuration of the CBX than by deficiencies of the switch
itself. The ROLM CBX can be configured to use about any dialling plan
that the customer wants; it almost sounds as if the college in
question is trying to discourage students from calling the operator.
When I worked at ROLM, our phone system (ROLM, of course!) had 5-digit
extensions, "0" for company operator, "9-0" for your friendly AT&T (or
MCI, or Sprint) operator, etc. - none of this "678 then 0" stuff.

As far as non-ROLMphones being incompatible: the CBX does have an
interface for plain ole' brown phones that (I believe) supports any
standard analog phone.  I'm sure if I'm wrong about that, someone will
correct me :-).

Before somebody asks: yes, I did work in CBX development, but none of
the bugs are my fault, so please don't ask me about them :-) :-).


Kevin Collins                   	Aspect Telecommunications
USENET: ...uunet!aspect!kevinc		San Jose, CA
Disclaimer: My opinions are mine. My mother agreed with me once, but that
	    was looong ago.