Path: utzoo!censor!geac!torsqnt!lethe!yunexus!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!casbah.acns.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request From: cml@cs.umd.edu (Christopher Lott) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: In a Corner of our Bedroom Message-ID: Date: 26 Feb 91 17:07:15 GMT Sender: news@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Mr. News) Organization: The University of Maryland Dept of Computer Science Lines: 52 Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 163, Message 7 of 8 Originator: telecom@delta.eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Nntp-Posting-Host: hub.eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu In article you write: >hundred or so pairs terminating in that terminal box were multiplied >all over over the neighborhood. ^^^^^^^^^ Pardon my stupidity, Pat, but would you please explain what this means? I can't find much mention of lines being multiplied in the glossary. Thanks, Christopher Lott \/ Dept of Comp Sci, Univ of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742 cml@cs.umd.edu /\ 4122 AV Williams Bldg 301.405.2721 [Moderator's Note: Unfortunatly a case of the PD's crept in there. Printer's Deviltries, (or PD's for short -- another name for typographical errors) creep in when you print a large quantity of stuff every day. The correct word was 'multipled' -- not 'multiplied'. A telephone cable contains a large number of pairs of wires. At each place along the way where a phone is (might be) installed, some of the individual pairs are 'opened', or made available for connections. For maximum flexibility, each pair in the cable might be opened a dozen times along the cable run. Naturally, only one subscriber will use the pair at any given time. When we say a pair is 'multipled', we mean it is availale for being picked up (or used, or connected to a phone) at several places between the central office and the other end of the cable a few miles away. Picture a switchboard with a dozen trunk lines to the central office and maybe a hundred extensions. The extensions share the trunk lines, being swapped on and off the line as required. The same thin happens with cables. A pair terminates at my house and the same pair terminates at your house a block away. I move out and no longer need the pair, but you install a second line and need another pair. In other words, the pairs within the cable go parallel to several locations at once. When the phone installer climbs the pole at your house to bring you a second line, he is supposed to then go down the street to where I used to live, climb the pole and *disonnect* (or open up) the same pair at that end, preventing someone down the street from getting on your line. They sometimes forget to do that. Once in an apartment I had, there was a modular phone jack. I had only one line, but there were two pairs in the modular jack. I was curious, and went on the other pair: Viola! dial tone ... I dialed the ring back code to see what would happen, and let it ring. Presently it was answered by a lady. When I questioned where she was at, it turned out she was across the alley and a few houses down. A phone man had not done his job correctly. A long example, but that is what we mean by 'mulitples on the cable': The opening up, or ability to connect to the same wires at many locations, depending on who got them first and who needs themm when the subscriber on them quits the service. PAT]