Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!hplabs!hpda!hptsug2!taylor
From: BBUXEIPD@UIAMVS.BITNET (Robert Pearson)
Newsgroups: comp.society
Subject: Standards, and touch tone interfaces
Message-ID: <479@hptsug2.HP.COM>
Date: 30 Aug 88 18:14:19 GMT
Sender: taylor@hptsug2.HP.COM
Lines: 54
Approved: taylor@hplabs

> Robert, if manufacturers of switchable tone/pulse phones do not provide
> the '*' and '#' keys then you should be complaining to them.  Those keys
> all along were designed for use as special-function keys.
>
> For a dial-up service that accepts DTMF input, if you have input fields
> of unknown length it is very hard to implement without a delimiter that
> won't be confused as data.  (It can be done with a time-out, but then you
> might as well call a human)

I suppose you are right.  If these services become attractive enough to
consumers than they will demand equipment that supports them.  As I see it,
the process goes something like this:

  1) A 'standard' is created that contains some features that are rarely, 
     if ever, used.  (In this case the two 'extra' touch tones.)
  2) Various companies that make 'compatable' equipment find advantages to
     deviating from the standard in these rarely used areas.  These 
     advantages could include lower cost, more features, or it could simply 
     be sloppy design.
  3) Since the equipment is perfectly 'compatable' in those areas most used, 
     many units are sold.
  4) Eventually, software or other services are developed that require these
     'standard' features that aren't universially implemented.
  5) Catch-22.  The end user eather needs to replace equipment that is working
     flawlessly, or not use the new software/service.  Indeed, the user that
     purchased the 'compatable' equipment, that wasn't, is often in a worse 
     position then the person who is just getting started....

There are two ways to attack this.  Software/service developers can avoid
using 'incompatable' featues (even if supposedly 'standard') unless they 'need'
them for some reason.  Or users could refuse to buy any equipment that doesn't
exactly meet the standard (this however can sometimes be VERY costly).

In the case of the 'touch tone' example, the '*' key was being used to end
voice input.  It was not a situation where the key was being used as a
deliminer between digits, or as a 'shift' key to choose the desired meaning 
of the digits.  As such, wouldn't it have been just as easy to use the '0' 
key in this situation?

A few years ago when I was buying my phone, it was the ONLY pulse/tone phone 
I could get for less then $75 (it's a $25 phone).  This phone used the '*' 
key as a 'mute' button, and the '#' key for the memory dialer.  While it 
could have been designed with additional buttons for these features, it 
wasn't.  (I've noticed the same thing in a lot of pulse/tone switchable 
phones.)  Should I have forked over $50 extra, just to maintain possible 
compatability in the future?

It all comes back to the slippery process of defining a 'standard'.  Even
if a 'standards committie' has addressed an issue, manufacturers and consumers
will often find reasons for violating at least some aspect of the 'standard'.
(9600 baud modems are a good example.  Just what percentage are V-32
compatable?)  And the situation is worse if some large company (such as IBM)
simply declares something to be a 'standard'....

Robert Pearson