Newsgroups: sci.electronics
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: phone dialing
Message-ID: <1988Jun20.054530.21695@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <361@tiger.oxy.edu>, <131500002@occrsh.ATT.COM>
Date: Mon, 20 Jun 88 05:45:30 GMT

> ... the equipment to decode
> touch-tone is actually cheaper, I hear, than the pulse-dialing decoding
> equipment.

In fact, this was the major motive behind tone dialing.  It's not so
much that the equipment is cheaper, as that it is tied up for a shorter
period of time because tone dialing is quicker.  This means that a
phone exchange can get by with fewer dialing-receivers (don't remember
the proper buzzword for them) than it would need for pulse dialing.
(No, your line is not connected to one at all times -- that's why you
get a dial tone, to tell you that the exchange has noticed you lifting
the phone and has connected one to your line.  This situation may be
changing in the very latest LSI-based exchanges, but the traditional
designs have an absolute minimum of dedicated equipment per line.)

The phone companies originally charged more for tone dialing because the
new equipment had to be installed and it seemed reasonable that the
folks who wanted it should help pay for it.  Now that tone dialing is
nearly universal, they really should start charging extra for *pulse*
dialing, since its lower speed ties up the equipment longer.  However,
the Bell empire is under great pressure to hold down the price of the
most basic form of phone service, and this means charging extra for
absolutely everything else to make ends meet.  Today's political
environment discourages short-term upheavals even when they would lead
to long-term savings.
-- 
Man is the best computer we can      |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
put aboard a spacecraft. --Von Braun | {ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry