Path: utzoo!telecom-request Date: 11 Apr 91 12:59:17 GMT From: Tom Gray Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: End of the [Party] Line Message-ID: Organization: Mitel. Kanata (Ontario). Canada. Sender: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 285, Message 4 of 10 Lines: 32 In article lars@spectrum.cmc.com (Lars Poulsen) writes: >> because of a $1.8 million equipment upgrade, Mitchell said. >> Eliminating party lines also became imperative because of computerized >> 911-emergency response systems. > This does not ring true to me. If the switch software can provide ANI > for billing, I would expect it to provide ANI for E911 witout > problems. It disturbs me when businesses deliberately tell lies to > regulatory agencies. (It also disturbs me that we set up regulatory Calling party detection on party lines is not infallible. It relies on a specifically modified telephones being used in each residence. It is not uncommon for someone to place an unmodified instrument in his home. This would cause errors in the 911 display. ANI for four party service is notoriously unreliable. Usually the fourth party is not equipped because of this unreliability. There is no commonly available ANI system for party lines of greater than four ( and in practice three) subscribers. In short, I don't think it unresonable to assume that the installers of a 911 service would wish to eliminate party lines. A billing error due to ANI failure may be annoying to a subscriber and costly to a telco, but an ANI failure on a 911 call could be fatal. Tom Gray