Re: In deep water with ISDN / Broadband install


"Graham." <me@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:ffdmiv$v68$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I think you actually have is just an ISDN line, nothing else.

Typically Basic Rate ISDN is used to provide:
1) a dedicated 128kbs data line, no POTS
2) 1X64kbps data + 1POTS
3) 2 separate POTS, no data

So the incoming line (which will just be dead if you connect a POTS a
phone to it)
goes upstairs to the ISDN NTE, the box with the line-powered light.
A pair of wires from one of the POTS terminals in the NTE goes to
the phone socket, and also back downstairs to the other POTS
socket, but this is a different pair to the incomming ISDN, but
it may well be in the same cable.

Different DDI/ MSN numbering is quite normal.

--
Graham

Lots of interesting information received, thanks everybody! I'll try to
answer the questions, if I can, but first, let me assure Graham that there
was a POTS service in existence before the ISDN came along, and it still
exists with the same telephone number as it always had, and the 'phone is
still plugged into the same master socket that it always was. I can quite
believe that there are two pairs coming in to the master socket, but if
that's the case, I still don't understand how they are connected.

The NTE (whatever that means) is about 6 inches square, and about an inch or
so thick, and AFAICR there's no obvious legend on the front, only this green
light that 'pulsates' rather than flashes, if you see what I mean - it sort
of "fades up" and then "fades down" without ever turning off, at about one
cycle per second. I would guess that it's a "proper" ISDN not a Home
Highway as it was provided by one of the high street Banks. I only got
blank pages from http://aaisp.net.uk/aa/isdnintro.html but none of the
pictures on the http://www.quaketweaks.com/bthomehighway.html page looks
like anything I've seen before.

Graham said "It would also be worthwhile asking the decommissioning
technician to explain
the wiring before any is disconnected, to allow discussion of how best to
re-use it. So it would be worth your while being present while the BT
technician does the work" I had kind of expected that the supplier -
whether by that I mean BT or the Bank, or both - would judge that it would
be more costly to de-install the equipment than it would be to just abandon
it (as the Bank has with the desk, chair, and HP printer/scanner/fax jobbie
they provided - the only thing they wanted returned was his laptop computer)
and disconnect the line at the exchange. If it IS 'decomissioned' the only
person likely to be present is his elderly Mum, and she can barely speak
English so getting any useful information from the Tech is pretty unlikely!

I rather suspect this is all academic, and eventually I shall end up
disconnecting everything from the master socket, identifying the POTS line
from the jumble of wires therein and re-connecting it in the "normal
configuration". Don't tell BT !!


.

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