Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site bbncca.ARPA
Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!bbncca!jsol
From: jsol@bbncca.ARPA (Jon Solomon )
Newsgroups: net.dcom
Subject: Re: Anyone know FCC regulations?
Message-ID: <286@bbncca.ARPA>
Date: Tue, 8-Nov-83 19:26:36 EST
Article-I.D.: bbncca.286
Posted: Tue Nov  8 19:26:36 1983
Date-Received: Wed, 9-Nov-83 23:30:22 EST
References: <302@pucc-h>
Organization: Bolt, Beranek and Newman, Cambridge, Ma.
Lines: 19

The reason you can't connect to party lines is because most party lines
don't have "standard" RJ11C jack configurations, and also sometimes need
more than the standard two wires that normal lines use. A party line makes
use of sleeve and ground, especially to determine whose phone needs to be
rung. 

In most cases, if you use a party line phone, it won't be on a RJ11C.
If it is, and you have standard 2-wire service (with the party line
stuff resolved at the pole, for example), then you are lucky; but like most
laws, it applies to everybody, and not everybody is as lucky. That's the
same logic which tells AT&T that it can't charge less for credit cards you
enter yourself than when an operator does it (majority of areas don't have
this feature). 

I hope I don't have to explain why you can't connect it to a pay telephone
line. I remember connecting an *acoustical* modem to a pay telephone, but
that's another story.

--JSol