Re: Physically Protecting The Local Loop Metwork?

(Snip, ship, snip...)

A long time ago, when they first started allowing other people to > connect modems to a phone line, but NOT directly, there was the DAA > ("Data Access Arrangement", I think). I worked with these in the late > 1970's. You rented it from the phone company. It had a defined > interface so you could pass voice through it, take the phone off the > hook, pulse dial, detect ringing, etc. For tone dialing you'd just...

(More Snippage...

There was also a gizmo of much the same circuitry called a VCA -- Voice Connecting Arrangement. A VCA was used on a trunk connecting a common carrier's service to a customer owned PBX. While a stand alone VCA was pretty simple, when there were a lot of them there was a lot of stuff - equipment racks, mounting shelves, distributing frames, and who knows what other manner of monkey business. At least there was no power - as I recall these VCAs (made by TelLabs) used no external power. (A "DanRay" PBX I installed in the early '80s had nearly 300 trunks and an equal number of VCAs! These were installed in a room separate from the PBX and consumed quite a footprint).

(Oh -- Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Thanks for helping to educate me throughout all of 2005 -- and several years before that as well!)