31 ms·

I feel like the logical next step is for the author to discover PBX, such as Asterisk or something built on top of it. Then they can call between the two in-hou

by cbhl 4y ago

I feel like the logical next step is for the author to discover PBX, such as Asterisk or something built on top of it. Then they can call between the two in-house phones and also dial out to the real phone line in an emergency. Just need an old PC, a compatible dial-up modem with voice, and a card with a few FXO ports to go to the payphone and child's phone...

CaliforniaKarl 4y ago
It would be cool! You'd need FXS ports, though (those are the ones which provide the line/ring voltage). You'd also need to research how the payphone indicated coin insertion (bell/2bell/bong or something else), and how to tell the payphone to either return the coins or drop them into the box (in some cases it's an MF signal, in others it's polarity reversal of the phone line).
- jcrawfordor 4y ago
  The PacBell branding suggests this unit hasn't been converted, but most popular payphone model have a COCOT conversion kit available. COCOTs or customer-owned-coin-operated-telephones perform the charging internally and don't require exchange support, so they're a lot simpler to get working. The conversion kits are pretty readily available because a good majority of payphones out in the world today, even operated by the incumbent telco, are actually COCOTs since they've become cheaper and easier to manage over time. Plus a lot of payphones aren't managed by the telco anymore but instead by a separate private company like PTS, which runs all COCOTs with an arrangement where they "dial in" to a management system regularly for configuration and reports. General rule of thumb is that any payphone that accepts credit cards is actually a COCOT, any payphone not branded by the ILEC is a COCOT, and a lot of the rest are COCOTs too depending on the telco. "Genuine" exchange-controlled payphones (that signal coin drops back to the exchange) have become rare. I'm pretty surprised he went with the Viking box actually because it costs more than an inexpensive FXS ATA, and a lot more than getting an ATA used. It's simpler to set up, but on the other hand some ATAs have internal logic to connect their two lines that you can enable so they behave as standalone devices. I think this is typical on the older Ciscos.
mrweasel 4y ago
There is an older project where the author hooks up a payphone to a PBX: https://github.com/jcs/payphone https://github.com/jcs/payphone
kalleboo 4y ago
You can also get used Cisco VoIP ATAs for cheap from eBay (mine was $20) with 2 lines that can be programmed for internal calls and incoming/outgoing SIP, that's what I did to play around with old modems and also set up 2 old-style phones to play phone with my kids.

by cbhl 4y ago

CaliforniaKarl 4y ago

It would be cool! You'd need FXS ports, though (those are the ones which provide the line/ring voltage). You'd also need to research how the payphone indicated coin insertion (bell/2bell/bong or something else), and how to tell the payphone to either return the coins or drop them into the box (in some cases it's an MF signal, in others it's polarity reversal of the phone line).

jcrawfordor 4y ago
The PacBell branding suggests this unit hasn't been converted, but most popular payphone model have a COCOT conversion kit available. COCOTs or customer-owned-coin-operated-telephones perform the charging internally and don't require exchange support, so they're a lot simpler to get working. The conversion kits are pretty readily available because a good majority of payphones out in the world today, even operated by the incumbent telco, are actually COCOTs since they've become cheaper and easier to manage over time. Plus a lot of payphones aren't managed by the telco anymore but instead by a separate private company like PTS, which runs all COCOTs with an arrangement where they "dial in" to a management system regularly for configuration and reports. General rule of thumb is that any payphone that accepts credit cards is actually a COCOT, any payphone not branded by the ILEC is a COCOT, and a lot of the rest are COCOTs too depending on the telco. "Genuine" exchange-controlled payphones (that signal coin drops back to the exchange) have become rare. I'm pretty surprised he went with the Viking box actually because it costs more than an inexpensive FXS ATA, and a lot more than getting an ATA used. It's simpler to set up, but on the other hand some ATAs have internal logic to connect their two lines that you can enable so they behave as standalone devices. I think this is typical on the older Ciscos.

mrweasel 4y ago

There is an older project where the author hooks up a payphone to a PBX: https://github.com/jcs/payphone https://github.com/jcs/payphone

kalleboo 4y ago

You can also get used Cisco VoIP ATAs for cheap from eBay (mine was $20) with 2 lines that can be programmed for internal calls and incoming/outgoing SIP, that's what I did to play around with old modems and also set up 2 old-style phones to play phone with my kids.