Rotary phone dialing on Sonic fiber?

Fusion Voice service, features and help.
12 posts Page 1 of 2
by rcoaster » Fri Jun 24, 2022 6:22 pm
Hello-

This post is partly in honor of my ten-year-old discussion of the same question for Fusion, some things never change:

viewtopic.php?f=14&t=537

If I am correct, these are a few facts about Sonic fiber service (whether re-sold AT&T or Sonic native):

-All fiber services include an integrated or separate IP-to-analog phone device ("voice gateway" or "analog telephone adapter").
-They are required so that Sonic or others can get access to the public utility infrastructure as another "utility".
-Those devices are rented to the customers for a monthly fee. (Wire maintenance may be included with that fee, but it is irrelevant to this discussion.)

So here are a few new questions:

-What model(s) of analog telephone adapters are supplied with the various Sonic fiber services?
-Are any or all of those models known to work (or to -not- work) with rotary/pulse dialing? (There are definitely a number of pulse-friendly ATAs on the market now.)
-If I sign up for Sonic Fiber service (likely the native Sonic one when it is available here maybe soon) and their stock ATA is not pulse-compatible, can I return that adapter, buy my own, and save the monthly fee?

Thank you!
by kyle.depasquale » Mon Jun 27, 2022 8:18 am
For Sonic fiber, no additional ATA is provided (or paid for), as it is part of the ONT. I'd be pretty surprised if it supported pulse dialing, but you could always use something like this: https://www.dialgizmo.com/ which may work. (I've never used it though, so YMMV). Do note though that typically rotary phones need higher voltages to make the phone ring, and I'm not sure if any ATA would supply high enough voltages to do that.
by ngufra » Mon Jun 27, 2022 10:13 am
With the 1 Gbps fiber service the ONT (Adtran 411) is loaned, not rented.
The ONT converts from fiber to 1000BaseT (RG45) and analog phone RG11.
You cannot use another ATA than the one sonic supplies.

The Adtran brochure at https://portal.adtran.com/pub/Library/D ... 01_411.pdf lists DTMF dialing. no mention of pulse dialing.
REN (ringing equivalent number) is 3.
by rcoaster » Mon Jun 27, 2022 3:53 pm
Thank you for your responses and notes, Kyle and Francois. I appreciate your help.

I have never looked up REN (Ringer Equivalence Number, I think), but reasonably a 500/2500-type phone should be a 1.0, so I should be all good there. I did a brief search for ANSI and ETSI standards for analog telephone lines ("POTS", as specified in the Adtran document, but I did not find any quick answers about those standards. Maybe I will ask about the Adtran on the Classic Rotary Phones forum; they are the source for my list of pulse-friendly ATAs.

Worst case, if I ever lose my Fusion service and have to move to fiber as described today, I could either ask Sonic if they can just work with my own ATA rather than that function of the Adtran 411, or I could ignore the Sonic phone service and get a third-party provider (Ooma, maybe?) that has rotary-friendly options.
by ngufra » Mon Jun 27, 2022 4:48 pm
If you plan on receiving calls the pulse /dtmf dialing is moot.
If you need to place calls it seems amazon sells a pulse to tone converter for $64
by rcoaster » Mon Jun 27, 2022 7:21 pm
I am aware of the pulse-to-tone converters, thanks. It is something else I could consider if I cannot get set up with a rotary-friendly ATA, which seems it would be the cleanest option (next after staying with real analog-to-the-home phone service, as I have and enjoy now).
by virtualmike » Tue Jun 28, 2022 8:18 pm
You can also get a good DTMF phone for less than the cost of the pulse-to-tone converter.
by dane » Tue Jun 28, 2022 10:13 pm
I'm surprised no one has asked this: why is rotary pulse dialing so critical for you?
Dane Jasper
Sonic
by rcoaster » Tue Jun 28, 2022 10:56 pm
dane wrote:I'm surprised no one has asked this: why is rotary pulse dialing so critical for you?
It is a reasonable question, yes. The answer is, I collect antique telephones, and I enjoy using them. It is just really cool to call someone on their cell phone, from my restored Western Electric 50AL. (That is a "candlestick phone" with a dial.)

Think about the big resurgence of vinyl records, and then imagine that the only stereos you can buy have nothing but HDMI inputs.
by ngufra » Tue Jun 28, 2022 11:43 pm
rcoaster wrote: It is a reasonable question, yes. The answer is, I collect antique telephones, and I enjoy using them. It is just really cool to call someone on their cell phone, from my restored Western Electric 50AL. (That is a "candlestick phone" with a dial.)

Think about the big resurgence of vinyl records, and then imagine that the only stereos you can buy have nothing but HDMI inputs.
I suspected it was something like that. I like the analogy with vinyl and receivers without preamp.
I use a dv camcorder (Canon XL1) and find it harder and harder to find computers with firewire interface.
I recently scored a nikon D1x on ebay and had to dust an old Compact flash card reader.

Old tech is fun.
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