After the break up of AT&T in early 80's many new low cost long distance carriers came on the market to challenge AT&T. like MCI, LDI and Sprint The problem was the lines where where not yet totally deregulated and shared as they are now and to make a long distance call and save money you had to first dial a 10 digit 800 toll free number to access the carrier then dial the 10 digit number of person you where calling a real pain in the ass. So the long distance carriers came up with a solution a re-dialer whereby when you made a long distance call by dialing certain area codes the re-dialer recognized these numbers and would then seize the line and dial the 800 number automatically connecting you to the long distance carriers 800 number. In fact Phone systems at the time incorporated these dialer's in a sophisticated means called Least Cost Routing LCR where the unit would see where you where dialing and put you on the phone line and into carrier with the best cost.
To allow these units to work special phone blocks known as RJ31X blocks had to be installed to allow the re-dialer to capture the line in the same way Fire & burglar alarm s do. I was often hired by these carriers to install the blocks on mine and other customers of theirs phone systems so that there dialer technician could come by hang the unit and program it and just plug into the phone lines.
With the advent of Digital phone switching and full deregulation where AT&T and the baby bells had to now share there lines with other phone carriers the re-dialer's where no longer needed and where shut off and removed and became a forgotten relic I ran across this old one in picture below while helping a friend move his imaging company's phone system .
 |
| Old deactivated MCI Re-dialer |
But while this era of re-dialer's went away the technology itself is still used today in varying ways in the alarm industry. need to take over an account and send the burglar alarm signal to your central station but the panel is locked out and you can not get into programming ? Well they make a simple re-dialer you hook in line which redirects the call to your central station and account number .
Also with many phone land lines going away and cellular or Internet being used again re'dialers or re-directors as some call them are again being used to plug the panels existing dialer lines into the cellular or internet communicator where signal is converted from a dial up phone line to a cellular or internet digital signal.
Seems when theirs a communication issue in the field some smart engineer is out there figuring out how to make a unit still operate with out replacing a whole system
No comments:
Post a Comment