Yes, some folks made Bell very umm... blue at times. Indeed I remember a Touch Tone fee on our bills until the 90's. In fact, at one point I couldn't believe it was still a charge, as rotary phones had largely been replaced either as a choice or through attrition.
Consumers WANTED Touch Tone. There didn't NEED to be a "strategy" to eliminate pulse dialing, as it cost the Baby Bells nothing to support it. After deregulation the appearance of 3rd party devices with a DTMF pad and a pule/tone switch wasn't to help customers work around this "scheme" of AT&T. The 3rd parties, in general, wanted to produce inexpensive sets that featured a pulse option for those people/areas stuck in the past. You couldn't do that inexpensively trying to replicate the clunky rotary dial, and again, no one/few WANTed them. I get the whole desire to promote EzIP as the greatest thing since NAT itself, but fabricating a bizarre hot take on the implementation of Touch Tone/DTMF as an attempted parallel to IPv6 vs IPv4 is kinda "out there". The *corrected* history of Jay's actual does draw parallels, but more as a tale of how some people will do anything to save $1 (a month) even if the tech is highly beneficial. Danny Messano On Jan 15, 2024 at 14:12 -0500, Jay Hennigan <j...@west.net>, wrote: > On 1/15/24 09:37, Abraham Y. Chen wrote: > > > 2) Allow me to share with you an almost parallel event in the PSTN, > > to illustrate how tough is to achieve the replacement of a working > > service, even under an environment with very strict backward > > compatibility disicpline: > > > > A. The Decadic (rotary) Dialing (DD) technique worked well on > > the telephone loop to a certain limit of distance for many years that > > enabled the automatic telephone switching systems. But, it could not go > > beyond the CO (Central Office). > > > > B. So, Bell Labs studied the use of DTMF (Dual Tone > > Multi-Frequency) or commonly known as Touch-Tone as trademarked in US, > > etc. The work started in mid 1940s. > > Actually, Bell had a multifrequency interoffice signaling system long > before Touch-Tone was introduced to the public. Many of us old-timers > were *very* familiar with this, much to the discontent of the Bell System. > > > F. Initially, AT&T offered the DTMF service for free (well, > > covered by the rental of the new phone) to encourage that adoption. > > Then, they raised the monthly service rate for lines still requiring DD > > receiver hoping to gracefully forcing the subscribes to wean from using > > DD phones. > > In the early days of deployment, DTMF was not free. It was typically $1 > more per month. IIRC, there was at one time an upcharge for 12-button > vs. 10-button Touch-Tone pads. I have never seen a tariff with an > upcharge for pulse dialing. > > > G. Guess what, the inertia of the huge DD phones out there in > > the field accumulated through near one century made the strategy > > impossible. That is, many subscribers would rather to pay one extra > > dollar or so a month to enjoy having the old DD phone around, either to > > avoid paying a new DTMF phone or just for the antique look of the DD > > phone. This also created a nightmare of three types (DD, DTMF and > > combined) line cards in the CO. > > With step-by-step, XY, or panel offices the DTMF receiver was an add-on > that buffered the digits and outpulsed them at rotary dial speed. Pulse > dialing always worked. Crossbar was also an add-on but with a crossbar > marker the delay of converting to pulse was avoided. By the time ESS > came around both pulse and DTMF were built in. > > Again, when and where was there ever an upcharge for pulse dialing? > > > H. As this went on, a version of phone with DTMF dial pad but > > sending out DD pulses appeared on the open market (thanks to the > > deregulation / break up the Bell System). Such novelty phones really > > gave phone companies a hard time about the transition plan. > > The purpose of these phones was actually the opposite. It allowed a > "modern" keypad-equipped phone to function on older lines not equipped > with a Touch-Tone receiver. In GTE territory with Strowger switching, > the digits from DTMF phones were buffered in the CO and outpulsed as > rotary dialing. Bang out the number with Touch-Tone and you could hear > the tick-tick of the digits being sent while you waited. > > These days people get upset with post-dial delay of more than a couple > of seconds. It used to be substantially more, especially with > interoffice calls. > > > I. In the meantime, IC technology advanced to have single chip > > capable of both dialing techniques (even further integrated other > > traditional line card functions onto the same chip) making the > > transition plan moot. > > TTBOMK, every common BORSCHT chip accepts both. > > > J Nowadays, almost every line card type chip handles DTMF as > > advertised. But, if you try a DD phone on it, chances are, it works anyway! > > Yes, because TTBOMK, telco central offices have always accepted pulse > dialing and still do. SIP ATAs, on the other hand, mostly don't, with > the exception of some older Grandstream units. > > -- > Jay Hennigan - j...@west.net > Network Engineering - CCIE #7880 > 503 897-8550 - WB6RDV >
