hello - is there ANY way/means possible from a m5316(or other) phone to show the connected LEN port?? - even if "HASU"(unassigned)? In my past, I've worked on humble key systems that could do this & without invoking dial tone - just a few silent key presses.
anybody?? . . . .
Your question mentions that the system in question uses M5316 desksets, which are elsewhere described as Centrex terminals. This implies to me, that they are probably interfaced to POTS pairs on the backend. The Nortel Meridian systems I have been responsible for used M7100 family desksets, which were really ISDN-BRI terminals.
Memories of old telephones ...
When I first arrived in California, the engineering company where I worked had a Western Electric 1A2 key system for about 30 engineers, served by a hunt group of 8 POTS lines. Incoming calls were answered by a secretary, who then announced on the overhead PA speakers: "Call for Paul on line 4" or whatever. Not much privacy, but eliminated problems of calls getting lost when you were visiting a colleague's workspace.
In my next job, we had Centrex. Exactly like a PBX, except that each extension line ran back to the GTE central office. Always seemed to me that that was a waste of long copper pairs.
Next one, we had a Meridian "Hybrid" PBX with M7100 family desk sets. In a reorganization, I became the telephone admin.
When the Meridian got old and rusty, I bought us a KXT 8x24 system, and took on the task of setting it up from scratch. This was easier because I had earlier set up a lab for testing dial-up modems with a KXT 3x8. The new thing was that we gave the system an auto-attendant.
These days my office uses an IP (SIP) system with switching by CallCentric and desksets by Grandstream. And where we used to pay GTE (later Frontier) about $280/month for 3 POTS lines, we now pay an average of $15/month to CallCentric. If we assign the cost of our
10M/10M to the telephones, we are still less than half of what we paid the ILEC.The times they keep a-changing ...
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