Does FiOS support rotary phones? [telecom]

Based on some quick googling, the answer is yes, assuming you request a POTS line. (Probably not if it is a VOIP line.)

Brad Houser

Time-Warner digital phone explicitly stated they did not support rotary phones. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but digital phone is IP while FiOS is POTS, so a rotary should work.

According to this person it works fine:

I don't know which kind she got: the dial tone comes out of the FiOS box, if that's a help. In other words, _everything_ is being delivered via FiOS.

Bill

According to Wikipedia, "Verizon offers POTS as well as VoIP over FiOS. The common model optical network terminals have two or four phone jacks."

I don't know if that answers your question or not. But it is a very valid question as many modern services do not support pulse dialing, and it would not suprise me if it FIOS didn't support pulse.

When I was inquiring on what to do with my hard wired rotary phones and DSL, many told me to get rid of the rotary phones. I must admit that other than nostalgia, they aren't very useful. I used to use the phones for answering calls. But, these days I get automated business calls that require a Touch Tone answer (like to confirm an appointment), so the rotary phones won't work. We have ten digit dialing, and dialing ten digits on a metal dial is tiring.

In my case the phones are hard wired so some effort would be necessary to take them out and put in a jack, especially for the wall phone. But if your sister's phones are not hard wired, she may want to consider replacing them with modern phones, or just using them for answer-only.

If the phones are hard wired, it is easy to connect two wires to the network of a wall 554 set, and connect the other end of those wires to a jack, allowing a Touch Tone phone to be plugged in. It's easy to add a jack to an old style connecting block, too.

***** Moderator's Note *****

My sister says that her children dial fewer wrong numbers on the rotary phones, and sometimes hang up before they've finished dialing, because the added effort gave them time to realize that the call was a bad idea, or wasn't needed.

Bill Horne Moderator

There seems to be some misconceptions in this thread that need clearing up. I realize this is about three weeks late, but as the saying goes, better late than never.

The most important point to remember is that with any modern consumer "box" that provides a POTS interface for the end user, whether or not certain standard phones will work has nothing to do with how the box connects to the service provider. This applies irrespective of the connection type and protocol that your service provider uses between the box and the CO. It could be an ATA [Analog Telephone Adapter] furnished by a VoIP provider, a box from a CATV company, a FiOS ONT [Optical Network Termination], or even an SLT [Single Line Telephone] port on a modern electronic key system. In all of these cases, whatever you dial with your POTS phone to set up a call is digested completely by your local box, which then does whatever it has to do to set up your call. It all comes down to what types of phones the makers of said box decide to support.[1]

For the record, FiOS uses a real-time 64 kbps channel[2] for each phone number that appears at the POTS interface connections on the ONT. This channel is just a tiny part of the optical bitstreams between the end user and the CO, and at the CO end, in many cases, it simply goes through a digital cross-connect and presents as a DS0 to an existing

5ESS switch. I don't have access to the written practices that would detail call setup, but more than likely the necessary information is passed on to the same switch much in the same way it would be for a voice channel in an ISDN/PRI [23+D]. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

So does the FiOS ONT support rotary-dial phones? That is the million dollar question, and the only way to answer it is to get your mitts on the manufacturer's documentation for the ONT. Earlier FiOS installs in this area used an ONT made by a company whose name escapes me [they were later bought by Tellabs]. More recent installs in this area use an ONT made by Alcatel-Lucent, and here is where you will run into a brick wall. Documentation for end-user Lucent equipment remains readily available under the Alcatel regime, but anything in the carrier equipment line requires a log-in and password, which you can get by having an active service provider account with them. Bill, you probably have much better connections in this area than most of us - perhaps it is time to call in a favor.

Here are the footnotes, if the reader can stand any more:

[1] The biggest beef most people have with these boxes is that they do not conform to long-established standards for an FXS [POTS] interface. Ringing is the most common complaint, as the boxes seldom provide true 90 VAC sinusoidal current properly imposed on DC loop voltage to enable answer detection. The makers of this equipment either don't know or don't care about the standards, and they wind up reinventing the wheel. Their new wheel often comes out square, which is especially amusing when one considers that there are numerous readily available ASIC chips on the market that could do all of this for them - all they had to do was open a catalog. Other common complaints about these boxes include DC loop current and/or voltage that is not within established standards, sloppy answer [off-hook] detection, lack of CPC support, and so on. [2] Pseudo real-time. It is contained in the ATM data stream, but does not have to go through the gyrations of packetized IP data.

Jim Bennett

************************************************** Speaking from a secure undisclosed location.

There's one other way; experimentation! I've got FiOS with a Tellabs ONT on the wall. I've got a 500 set in a box. I took the 500 set out of the box, plugged it into one of my phone jacks. Guess what? I got dial tone and was able to actually *dial* the phone. In other words, it worked.

-Gary

Gary, that is *way* too easy. ;)

Actually, I am not surprised a bit - Tellabs is an "old-school" Telecom company. I would not be surprised if the Alcatel/Lucent ONT's also support pulse dialing. Verizon has been looking to an all-fiber network for some time, and they probably want the option of serving *every* customer in some areas with FiOS, including the ubiquitous "little old lady with the same phone she has had [rented] since 1955."

Jim

************************************************** Speaking from a secure undisclosed location.

Thanks for trying this out.

A question if I may about FIOS service. Have you ever had a power failure, and if so, did you lose your FIOS service due to the battery going out (or some other reason)? I know people with FIOS who had a long power outage after a winter storm and lost their phone service.

I just tried an old DP phone on my Vonage service. It works fine. My guess is that most adapters support DP.

I'm happy to answer questions (and ask them too :-). That's why I still hang around this dusty old corner of the internet.

Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately), I can't directly answer your question as I haven't had any power outages longer than a few minutes in the last decade. I did think seriously about this before switching from POTS/DSL to FiOS two years ago, and decided that since my electric is rather reliable and that I've got cell phones for a backup, I could deal with a longer power outage.

That said, I did also add a small UPS to power the router and ONT in the event of an outage. When the ONT looses power, it switches to it's internal backup battery. It cuts off internet and video after a few minutes of no power to save the battery for voice. The ONTs are designed to provide 8 hours of voice service from battery backup.

With my setup, I get a some time with both internet (laptops have batteries) and phone service before the UPS cuts out. Since most everything has gone paperless these days, having internet access is key to finding phone numbers to call to report outages. I suppose I should write these numbers down in case I need them in an outage, but I'd probably loose the sheet of paper and the numbers might be out of date.

My ONT also has an external 12 DC power input. Some folks have connected big deep cycle batteries to these to provide extended run time. I've no idea if they keep internet running. Of course, you'd still need a UPS for the router and any other network gear.

And don't forget that whatever backup power you provide at your home is only as good as the backup power in the network. With POTS, I've had outages caused by battery failure at the remote terminal that serves my development. At least with FiOS the network power problem is pushed back to the CO, but who knows how much money Verizon is putting into keeping backup power in good condition these days.

-Gary

***** Moderator's Note *****

AFAIK, FiOS terminates the "fiber" portion of the path at a local CEV, and the physical layer is Coaxial cable from there to the homes. That, at least, is the way my sister's FiOS install happened, and I don't think the CEV equipment is powered from the CO. That means that FiOS is subject to the same limits as any SLC-served POTS line.

FWIW. YMMV. My 2¢.

Bill Horne Moderator

I wondered about that at the beginning. I understood the original poster as saying it was a neighbor who was asking and that rotary-dial

500 sets were handy, so why not take one over to his neighbor's and try it?

Wes Leatherock snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com snipped-for-privacy@aol.com

My wife and I may be a little old man and lady, but we have two so-called "decorator" phones that WE used to provide innards for. We have them not because we've always had them but because of their decorative aspect as part of the decor. They have rotary dials--anything else would be an anachronism.

Oh, yes, we have several T-T phones, too--on the same line. We are AT&T customers.

Wes Leatherock snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com snipped-for-privacy@aol.com

My Cisco SPA2102 just gives a fast busy after about three pulse digits, and I don't find the phrase "pulse dial" in the Admin manual or any relevant settings in the config screens (for what that's worth, a lot of the settings I don't have any clue what they do). Of course, this isn't FiOS, but clearly it's up to the adapter to provide (or not) the support for DP.

Dave

***** Moderator's Note *****

That seems odd to me. Every SFU (single family unit) FiOS install I've seen here in the south eastern PA and NJ areas has fiber directly to the premise. A battery backed up ONT:SFU is installed at the premise and provides POTS, Ethernet and coax (video) to the home. The battery actually belongs to the subscriber, ridding Verizon of the cost of battery maintenance.

For MDU (multiple dwelling units), otherwise know as apartments, condos, or townhomes; a single ONT:MDU servers multiple homes (dwelling units). The connection from the ONT to the home is usually copper or coax. The ONT:MDU is typically installed in the telco or utility room if the building has one or outside near the old POTS demarc.

I've not seen or heard of a Verizon FiOS installation that did not bring fiber to the premise. Fiber to the curb, neighborhood or node is done by other companies (Comcast and AT&T are a couple of big ones), but not Verizon as far as I'm aware. Note that "FiOS" is Verizon's brand name for PON, so if your sister has a service from someone other than Verizon, it isn't FiOS just like Scott Tissues aren't Kleenex. That might explain it.

-Gary

Interesting observation.

My condo complex (garden court style units) will not allow Verizon to install FiOS in here because the condo says the necessary outside boxes are ugly. (Indeed, even a FIOS sales rep warned that the necessary outside box is large and may not be appreciated). But if only one box per building (15 units) is needed then the box could easily be easily be installed in the back, near the old Bell big junction box.

I wonder if the condo misunderstood what Verizon wanted to do, or the Verizon contact didn't explain it well. Both are entirely possible.

Many of us want FIOS to have some competition against the local cable company, although admittedly, the FIOS TV service offerings and price just happen to be the same as cable. How about that!

One other for us is commercial power reliability. Our power supply is lousy. In a heavy thunderstorm or snowstorm, we can expect to lose power. Usually it's only about 60-120 minutes, but in some bad storms it was six hours. Friends who have FIOS told me their battery died after four hours of outage.

(I also think the condo should get a generator for the clubhouse so at least one place has power, but they won't do that.)

A friend of mine has FiOS, up in Maryland. A year or so ago I visited him and the FiOS box in the garage was flashing a red light saying the battery needed replacing, which I pointed out to him. Last week I visited again, and the light is still flashing and the battery has not been changed.

If you don't do scheduled maintenance, things break.

--scott

Right. Part of the attraction of FiOS, from VZ's point of view, is that [they] foist off the responsibility for maintaining the battery backup on the customer, who generally doesn't understand that until it's too late.

I mentioned this to someone at our rural ILEC a while back, who was flabbergasted that the telco wouldn't maintain the batteries. This is hardly a new issue, [since] they changed out customer batteries all the time in the early 1900s.

R's, John

Not having to change the batteries was the major reason to go to central office battery in the early days. Saved a bundle on maintenance costs, even more than the invention of the switch hook saved (not turning off the phone was a major cause of battery rundown...). The change was maintenance cost driven, not at all due to customer convenience during power outages. Sending a craftsperson out to change the batteries was expensive then and prohibitively expensive today.

Somehow that perspective got twisted over the years. Of course today, with the demise of police call boxes and Gamewell fire boxes, the telephone has become the primary emergency communications means, so operation in the absence of utility power may now be a public safety issue...

Besides, providing premises power requires copper; fiber doesn't transmit that level of power very well, so a separate copper plant would have to be maintained. That would make FiOS an additional infrastructure, not a replacement infrastructure. Going to fiber only eliminates the expensive maintenance of the copper plant (eventually...), thus the VZ requirement to give up the copper connection if you subscribe to FiOS.

Such is progress.

ET

I've got to wonder a bit about that, at least from a pure, technical, side.

Back in the 1980s I remember articles in Science News about the (for then) super high efficiency solar cells coming out of Bell Labs research. (Yes, children, once upon a time there was this company, in New Jersey!, that did lots of ground breaking research).

It wouldn't work for a commercial complex with multiple phone systems in place (which have generally required local utility power anyway [a]), but I wouldn't be surprised if, given a few nudges in teh right direction, we'd have phones and related equipment that could, indeed, be powered by the laser/fiber light stream.

And... we'd also have seen quite a bit of improvement in small sized, high density, storage cells - that would "charge up" from the laser between calls.

And the consumer premises equipment ("CPE") would be far more energy efficient than what's now in common use.

[a] typically there'd be a couple of phone sets which had "power failure pass through", getting direct dial tone from the CO.