[kwlug-disc] Unlimitel/ATA pricing

[Paul Nijjar]

--- On Wed, 3/11/09, L.D. Paniak <ldpaniak at fourpisolutions.com> wrote:

> Let's try mutual ignorance reduction:
> 
> What is a Norstar CICS phone box and how does it relate to
> phones with RJ11 jacks?

Here is a Norstar CICS:

http://www.athq.com/customer/home.php?cat=440

It's some proprietary (and rather expensive) phone system. This box
does the phone routing and extensions. 

Regular analog phones with RJ11 jacks don't work with the
system directly. Rather, the CICS transforms the analog lines into
some digital format, and expensive proprietary phones interpret that
format and work with the system. There's one thick cable that takes in
punched-down lines from Bell, and another thick cable that you punch
phone connections into (for extensions on the system). 

I think that the incoming phone lines from Bell are analog, though. I
have bypassed the CICS and used a regular analog phone on the line,
and it has worked okay. (I don't know this for certain, however.) 

So I think the diagram is:

Bell lines -> CICS Box -> Extensions block -> Digital phones

Does that reduce ignorance at all?

- Paul



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