Vic, The German authority, BAPT, has no problem with telephone equipment being connected in parallel when they're on-hook; on the contrary, they're supposed to work in parallel, just like everywhere else, otherwise they wouldn't all ring when an incoming call arrives!
The German discomfort with parallel connections in the *off-hook* state arises, as far as I can gather, from questions of privacy, and (at least in the past) from the desire to prevent users from interfering with each other when they're engaged in conversations or in data communications. Possibly, they are also worried (unnecessarily, most of us would agree) that parallel off-hook telephones might not receive sufficient DC power to support satisfactory two-way speech in all cases. Unless I have misunderstood everything about the German system, it seems to me that support for telephone conferencing (without the drawbacks of a speakerphone) by allowing two or more local users raise the receivers of separate telephone sets sharing the same line, which is an amenity that telephone users in most countries enjoy, is denied to German subscribers. It also appears to me that if one local German user is talking on the telephone and another user situated downstream (in the direction of the central office) picks up his telephone, the first user will suddenly have a dead line. This seems to me to be a severe pain in the neck to me rather than a weel thought-out feature. In most other countries, such an event would terminate with the second user immediately replacing the receiver without any harm having being done, or at worst replacing the receiver after the first user yells at him to do so! I suppose these differences come into the category of national psyche and nobody may claim superiority. Everyone is entitled to his own point of view. Also, there may be locally applicable technical reasons for apparently arbitrary decisions, of which outsiders may be quite unaware. *However*, as a question of law, it seemed to me that a Directive (aren't Directives legally binding on EU members?) of the European Union, of which Germany is a member, required each member country to condense its national requirements into those truly essential for correct operation of the network. Differences in psychological standpoint, such as the issue of non-parallel connections appears to constitute, do appear to violate that law. It is a fact that TBR21 is being delayed for such a ridiculously lengthy period, to the detriment of nearly all those involvedin, and influenced by, its success or failure, partly due to such philosophical differences. Regards, David Drori >What was wrong with installing telephones in parallel. In north America we've always >installed telephones in parallel and we have the REN (USA) or Load Number (Canada) > to indicate the load equivalency of a device. (Network design would allow for > operation of a maximum of five C-4 (electromechanical) ringers in parallel. >Granted, if you install an electronic device in parallel with an >electromechanical device, >the electromechanical devise tends to suck up all the current and the electronic >device won't work very well. That problem is self-correcting, I can assure you. >Check garbage during weekly collection day (people do not neccessarily throw away the device they >should). >Ciao, >Vic Boersma --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Novarex Enterprises Ltd., POB 2833, Jerusalem 91028, Israel. Tel: +972 2 581 0995 Fax: +972 2 581 3750 Mobile: +972 5 067 8686 E-mail: [email protected] --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [End of message]
