Voice
Communication in Business Volume 1
Essays on telecommunications,
1969-1980
Chapter 15
Tutorial on Two Toys
All toys
do not have to cost $100,000 or more. Some are relatively
inexpensive, are just as much fun, and often contain
microprocessors. This article, from the July-August, 1979, Business
Communications Review, relates some of my experience with new
telephone devices affordable by a one-man company.
***
Now that my children
have grown up and left home, I have been forced to find a new source
of toys to play with. I miss the electric trains, the erector sets
and the hopelessly complex puzzles that only children can actually
solve, but fortunately, my own industry has saved me. The telephone
business has been inundated with a whole array of interconnect toys,
and I am able to indulge myself almost without limit under the guise
of keeping up with the field.
Some of the toys on the
telephone market today have a serious intent. Because several of my
readers may actually want to use them for business purposes (as
opposed to the sheer joy of unlimited play), I will revert to my
professional podium and offer some words of discussion and advice.
The subjects of today's adventure will be telephone answering
machines and automatic dialers.
Telephone answering machines
During all the
pre-interconnect years, the telephone industry seems to have been
determined to limit its profits by blocking the connection to the
public network of privately owned machines that would greatly
increase telco revenues. Facsimile is one case in point (see "A
Short History of Facsimile," BCR, July-August, 1977); the telephone
answering machine is another. An answering machine insures a high
completion rate for telephone calls, and quite often causes an
additional call to be generated for each call it answers as the
called party, upon return to home or office, tries to discover the
meaning of the cryptic message left by the caller.
Now that answering
machines are permitted, they greatly increase the utility of the
telephone. I have no intention of telling you which one to buy, but
I hope to offer you some ideas which may help you select the most
suitable answering machine for your requirements. To get a feel for
what is needed, let's look first at what a telephone answering
machine can do.
What happens when you
leave an answering machine guarding the telephone entryway to your
home or office? Something like this: the phone rings, the machine
plays a (fiendishly clever) recorded announcement inviting the
caller to record his or her phone number and additional information;
a "beep" sounds and the recording part of the system springs into
action. When you return, you replay the incoming message tape and
take appropriate action. With more elaborate systems, you can call
up from a remote location, send a signal to rewind and replay, and
get your messages wherever you are.
Now let us depart from
fantasy land and deal with the realities of the situation. How do
you set up your answering machine in the first place? You have to
record the announcement that answers the phone before you can do
anything. As you will discover shortly, most outgoing message
cartridges intend for you to use a message of exactly X seconds
duration — no more, no less. If you go longer, you run out of tape;
if you are short, there is a vast gap between the message end and
the beep that allows the caller to state his business. Getting your
message the right length is tricky. You may discover you need a
script and a stopwatch.
The next thing you
discover is that a brief interval such as 20 seconds can seem like
an eternity. To fill it up, you need a message something like this:
"Thanks for calling the Blarf Putting Green Company. This is Lin
Mauer speaking. I am out of the office right now, tending to the
greening of America. But I'll be back soon and I'll call you, first
thing. Just leave your name and phone number when you hear the beep.
If you'd like to leave additional information, you have 30 seconds
before my machine hangs up on you."
This is a lot of yak.
But it gets worse. Consider the plight of the greens keeper at the
Duffer Golf Course who calls you three or four times a week to come
and replace divots. He has to listen to that dumb message over and
over. He may reject the opportunity. This indicates one of the
questions you must ask about an answering machine before you buy it:
How short an outgoing message will it take? You may want something
like "This is Jim Rockford. At the tone, leave your name and
message. I'll get back to you." (Five seconds). As it happens, the
Dictaphone answering machine on "The Rockford Files" on TV wouldn't
handle a message this short, no matter what the script required, at
the time the shows were filmed. Now, however an eight second tape is
available and works very well.
Next comes the beep and
your caller has his opportunity. How long can he talk? Some systems
have a fixed interval, while others use a VOX (voice operated relay)
to terminate the connection. With a VOX, the system stops when the
caller finishes (or, perhaps, when he pauses to remember some
additional point he wanted to mention). On the other hand, a
slightly noisy line or the return of dial tone from your central
office after your caller hangs up may capture the VOX once again and
run out your tape. A variation, used in some equipment, looks for a
momentary open circuit from the CO when the caller goes on hook.
This open releases hold magnets in key telephone systems and certain
kinds of data sets, and most central offices with metallic switching
matrices (Step-by-step, Crossbar, ESS) provide it. Most PBXs with
electronic matrices, however, do not. And future COs with electronic
matrices may not, either. Another question to ask.
Confronted with this
complexity, you may opt for the fixed length incoming message. Then
you discover that few messages are as long as the 20 or 30 seconds
allowed, and you find yourself listening to a lot of blank tape.
This is particularly annoying when you are calling up from Alaska to
get your calls. You can't win, but you should at least know how you
can lose before you pay your money.
Concerning the length of
incoming messages, you will shortly discover that some messages have
zero length. That is, people hang up in panic (or otherwise) when
they get your recording. Only about 25 percent of the callers, in
some instances, will leave a message at all. To find this out, your
prospective machine should have some kind of a call counter to show
you how many times it has actually answered the phone. This number
is almost certainly going to be a lot larger than the number of
messages you receive. Don't confuse a tape counter for a call
counter; some systems show how much tape has been used and let you
index recorded calls if you want to, but such counters tell you
nothing about the ones that got away.
A hard way to count
calls is found on some machines. The incoming message tape starts
when the phone is answered and your outgoing messages is recorded
followed by the incoming message. All you have to do is count the
number of times you hear your own outgoing message. This may take a
while.
Next, let us consider
just when your machine answers a call. Some machines will count
rings and answer after a fixed number. This can be very helpful in
that you can leave the recorder on all the time; if you answer the
phone before the third ring, for instance, the recorder will not
come on. But, more important, if you can leave the recorder on all
the time, you don't have to remember to turn it on each time you
leave the office. As a final advantage, your regular callers will
know that you are not there if the phone isn't picked up on one or
two rings, and they can hang up before being charged for their call.
Note that some machines answer on the first ring every time, and
have no adjustment.
You may want to let your
answering machine screen calls for you when you are in the office.
Thus, it is important to know what happens when you pick up the
phone after you find out who is calling. This brings up another
interesting problem. Does the machine keep recording in such an
instance? As the rules now exist, you need no periodic beep tone
when your answering machine records a one-way conversation. However,
a two-way conversation still requires a beep every 15 seconds or so.
This is not a law; it was written into the AT&T Interstate Tariff
263 (Section 2.6.4D, paragraph 18.1) in 1948 at the request of the
FCC to insure privacy, and has been added to most intra-state
tariffs as well. If someone complains about your recording their
conversations with you, the telco may be forced to terminate your
telephone service. The FCC is expected to complete rule-making in
the near future to permit parties to a conversation to make legal
recordings without a beep tone as long as both agree. This will
recognized a de facto situation that presently fills a very
important need. To have to take notes with a quill pen in the
computer age is as silly as it is expensive.
In any event, you need
to know if your machine will keep recording when you pick up the
phone after the call is screened, and you also may want to know if
you can connect the recording process in the middle of a call,
either outgoing or incoming, in lieu of making notes, as long as the
other party agrees. Such recording should, of course, last as long
as you like and not be terminated after the basic 30 second incoming
message interval.
At this point, it is
reasonable to consider the recording medium used. For the outgoing
message, a continuous loop tape is handy, but a continuous loop has
a fixed length. See what lengths are available, and how easy it is
to plug in a variety of different messages, depending on the
particular situation. It is a bother to have to make a new recording
every time your routine requires a change.
For incoming calls,
cassettes are desirable in that they can be removed for storage and
transcribed on standard dictating equipment if you have a long
message that you want to keep. With cassettes, however, you have to
be sure you get the type with magnetic leaders. Regular tapes do not
start recording until ten or fifteen seconds after tape motion
begins when you rewind all the way to the beginning. This could
cause your machine to miss a message. Suitable tapes, exactly like
those used on dictation equipment, are available in most office
supply stores.
Once your callers have
left their messages on your tape (and with a little effort, you can
convince them to leave fairly complete information to help you serve
them better when you call them back), you have the job of retrieving
those messages. When you come back to the office, you just rewind
and play. But take care. How do you know when you get to the end,
particularly if there are many fairly long pauses on the tape? This
is what the tape counter (as opposed to the call counter) is for. It
lets you know when you have gotten to the end of the recorded
portion of the tape.
If you have a unit that
lets you call up from a remote point to get your messages, more is
involved. In the first place, you can't read the tape counter. Thus
you need some means for telling when you have all your messages.
Some systems let you record a message on the tape when you call up
("This is me, leaving a marker on the tape on December 14, 1979, at
3:45 p.m.") and then rewind. When you get to your own message, you
know you have everything on the tape. Unfortunately, other systems
only allow rewind to take place before the outgoing message is
completed. It is also a good idea to find out if you can replay a
given message several times to make sure you have it right. And when
you get back to the office, you should be able to tell if any
messages have come in since the last time you called up to check.
Find out how you can
locate the end of the messages on a remote call-in, and how you can
identify the approximate date and time of a given message on
playback. A machine may rewind beyond the point where the messages
ended the last time you called in, and you may get messages from
yesterday when you want today's calls. You may also want to know if
you can erase the tape remotely in case it is nearly full. If so,
you may want to know what security precautions are built in to
prevent some competitor from calling your machine and doing the
same, or from rewinding your tape and listening to your calls
without erasing.
It is, of course,
important to erase your incoming message tape regularly. If you just
record over old messages, you may not be able to tell on replay when
current messages stop and last week's appear. This can lead to
trouble. But without some sort of fast erase, it may take you quite
a while to clean a tape when you have all your messages.
Durability, maintenance,
loaner policy of the dealer while your machine is being fixed, etc.,
must also be considered. In general, the more expensive machines
really appear to be more durable, but it pays to talk to several
people who already have the machine that has caught your fancy. An
answering machine can be a big help, but only if it does what you
want it to, and does it reliably. Use Table 1 as a checklist when
you go shopping. It is very likely not complete, but it may suggest
some items to look for that you have not considered. After you buy a
machine, it may be too late.
Table 1
SOME QUESTIONS TO ASK WHEN
SELECTING A TELEPHONE ANSWERING MACHINE
-
What is
the name and model number?
-
How
much does it cost?
-
What is
the FCC Registration No ?
-
Ringer
equivalency number?
-
How is
the unit installed?
-
Warranty? Dealer loaner/repair policy?
-
Names
of users?
-
What
outgoing message lengths can be used?
-
Can one
of several outgoing messages be plugged in?
-
How are
outgoing' messages recorded?
-
What
happens if outgoing message is too short? Too long?
-
What is
the medium for recording incoming messages?
-
Can the
incoming message record be removed easily for storage or
transcription on dictation equipment?
-
Is the
interval for incoming messages fixed? Duration? Adjustable?
-
Does
recorder stop at end of incoming message? VOX Controlled?
Detect momentary open at far end hang up? Time out? Other?
-
Is
there a tape counter? A call counter? Does call counter work
when no message is left? If caller abandons before machine
answers?
-
How may
rings before machine answers? Is this adjustable?
-
Does
manual answer prior to machine answer prevent machine from
answering automatically?
-
Can you
pick up after machine has answered (and screened) the call?
Does incoming recording continue?
-
Can
machine be made to record a conversation already in
progress? Without playing the outgoing message?
-
On a
regular incoming call, does the machine record the outgoing
message as well as the incoming?
-
What
happens when incoming tape is full?
-
When
replaying messages, how do you know when you've heard them
all?
-
Can you
retrieve messages from a distant phone?
-
What
can be done to prevent others from doing the same thing?
-
From a
distant phone, can you replay messages several times if
necessary?
-
From a
distant phone, how do you know when you've heard all the
messages?
-
How do
you know when a message was left?
-
Can old
messages be erased from tape easily? Independent of regular
recording operation?
-
Can you
access and erase a full tape remotely?
Automatic dialers
Automatic dialers are,
if anything, even more fun than answering machines. But,
unfortunately, their manufacturers do not seem to have even begun to
realize their potential and, as a result, they have designed them
with some rather strange limitations and inflexibilities.
For business use, there
are two very important applications that seem to have been
completely missed. The first is accessing Execunet and similar
services. One of the major problems with Execunet is the need to key
in 20 or more digits to set up a call (access the system, put in
authorization code, and then dial the called number). An automatic
dialer could dial all this, and if the authorization code were put
in secretly by the communication manager, it could be protected from
unauthorized use, particularly from former employees. Unfortunately,
the great majority of automatic dialers on the market today do not
use DTMF (Touch-Tone) out-pulsing and, as a result, cannot access
remote systems; further, they proudly display the number that they
are calling, making secrecy of authorization codes impossible. Oh,
well. You can't win them all.
The second missed
opportunity for automatic dialers lies in cooperation with "modern"
PBXs that require the station user to become a telegraph operator to
make the system perform. When 15 or 20 feature codes must be
remembered and dialed by station users, "Future Shock" sets in very
quickly. An automatic dialer could minimize this shock. There is no
law that says a dialer must transmit only telephone numbers. It can
send feature codes just as easily. Ideally, it should be able to
send a switch-hook flash, recognize dial tone, and then send a
feature code—all at the push of a single button. This would let a
single line telephone have many of the properties of an electronic
key telephone set, and could save communication managers who have
just installed single line systems from bodily harm. It might even
be cost effective. The potential market is enormous.
A related variation here
is the alphabetical DSS (direct station selection) panel. Again
assuming flash and dial tone detection could be available, an
automatic dialer could have the 30 or so most called numbers in a
PBX arranged in alphabetical order. When a party is asked for by
name, the number could be called with a push of one button, even
from a small console or by a regular telephone doubling as a
console. Maybe some day these obvious ideas will be exploited. But
we aren't there yet.
So, what should we look
for? The first question to ask is about type of signaling. Is it
DTMF or dial pulse? Since the clerk in the store will not have the
foggiest idea of what you're talking about, try to get him to give
you a demonstration. If you can hear the beebilie-beeps going out,
or if outpulsing time is very short, you know you have Touch-Tone
(Bell's trade name for DTMF). On the other hand, if you hear a
series of clicks reminiscent of an irate rattlesnake, you know the
machine is sending dial pulses. Note that many central offices can
handle DTMF from your phone, even if you have a rotary dial.
By and large, DTMF is
what you want. Ten digits can be sent in one second, and you can
send other digits or whole numbers through the public network to
some mechanism at the far end. This is what allows you to enter
Execunet, control remote equipment, etc. Dial pulsing, however, is
much easier for the toy vendor to provide. You may need it if you
are in one of the very few central offices not yet converted to DTMF,
or if you are in a business that has a large dial tandem
(step-by-step) tie trunk network. Tones will not work step-by-step
switches; with a dial tandem network, you need some kind of
converter if you are going to use tone signaling.
If dial pulsing is used,
most machines have an option to work at 10 or 20 pulses per second.
Almost all common control COs have been designed to receive both.
Only step-by-step requires 10 PPS. Thus 20 PPS signaling can save
you a lot of time. However, note that the time between digits is
important, too. With 20 PPS signaling, a 250 millisecond
interdigital interval is suitable, as opposed to the 600 millisecond
interval required by step-by-step. Nobody you can talk to will know
about interdigital intervals, but you can ask, anyhow.
There is another point
of great importance here. The Bell System is no longer maintaining
their equipment to handle 20 PPS dialing. Thus, it may be considered
"permissive." If you start getting a lot of wrong numbers with your
machine set on fast pulsing, don't expect the phone company to bail
you out. On the other hand, if you are reasonably close to the CO,
you'll probably be all right.
The next question you'll
want to ask is how many digits can be stored per number. In the
public network in the United States, you will need 10, plus a 0 or 1
first digit in some areas, plus an access code if you are behind a
PBX. If you make overseas calls, you'll need more digits. If you
have a dial tandem network and can go off-net at the far end, you
may need even more digits. In the latter case, however, you may want
to use separate number memories for distant city access codes, and
store seven digit local telephone numbers in other memories for
people you call in those cities (don't store area codes—you'll
already be in the area when you hit the public net). In any event,
it appears that 16 digits or so should be enough. In the situations
where you need more, you may be able to use two numbers, one after
the other. Be sure your machine will do this.
In addition to digits,
you will have to store certain other things. In particular, if you
are behind a PBX, you may have to be able to store a "stop" or a
"pause;" if your PBX operates cut-through, you are expected to get
outside dial tone and then dial through the transparent PBX into the
CO. A pause is a timed interval after the access code is dialed to
permit the PBX to cut through and the CO to find an originating
register and return dial tone. I am defining a pause as just
that—the dialer takes off automatically at the end of the timed
interval and dials the rest of the number. This is distinguished
from a stop in that the latter requires you to listen for dial tone
yourself and tell the dialer to continue. Both approaches are
sometimes found in the same machine.
A better approach is to
be able to store a dial-tone detection capability in a digit slot.
Place it after an access code and the dialer will continue as soon
as the connecting system says it is ready. People tell me that a
dial tone detector is very hard to design. If you are sending DTMF
digits, you almost have to be using precise dial tone: 350 and 440
Hz, linearly mixed so that no harmonics or cross-modulation products
are formed. This should be the easiest detection problem in the
world, but somehow it isn't. Touch-A-Matic, the Bell System
automatic dialer, has an optional dial-tone detector available, but
few other units do. Keep asking, however.
The reason you want to
keep asking is because someday somebody will do what I suggested
earlier: make an automatic dialer that can send feature codes upon
receipt of dial tone. When that day arrives, you will need one other
item to store in a digit memory slot: the ability to send a
switch-hook flash. Store a flash, a dial tone detection, and a
feature code, and you're home free.
Back to present reality.
Some dialers will allow you to seize the line without taking the
related telephone off the hook. They will presumably delay
appropriately or detect dial tone, dial the indicated number, and
let you listen to the called phone ring. When it answers, you can
pick up your phone to converse; if nobody responds, you can abandon
the call without ever taking the handset off its cradle. Some
dialers time out and abandon the call for you. If you pick up before
time out, you may get a jolt of acoustic feedback that can blast you
(and the telco) right to the moon.
There are some kinds of
calls, including banking by telephone, where you may be able to
handle an entire transaction without picking up the phone. This,
however, requires that the dialer have a DTMF key pad to permit you
to send additional digits once you have accessed the bank computer,
and requires the dialer not to time out and disconnect while you are
listening to the computer's voice answerback. A built-in DTMF pad
will also let you dial less frequently called numbers, from the
dialer manually, as well as from your telephone set itself.
In addition to 30 or
more pre-stored telephone numbers, many dialers have provision for
storing the last dialed number. Thus, if you get a station busy, you
simply retry in a few minutes by hitting the last-number-dialed
button. Note that this feature is relatively useless if the last
number dialed has to be one of the numbers already in a regular
number memory. That is, the last-number-dialed feature is useful
only for numbers not already in the machine. It has to work on
numbers dialed up by the telephone set's signaling device or the
digit pad on the dialer itself; otherwise, you have just traded one
number-select button for another.
This leads to some
consideration of how stored numbers are accessed. I much prefer
having one number-select button for each stored number. The button
is labeled with the name of the called party, and selection is
simple and fast. There are other ways of doing things, however. You
might have to press one button to select a number and a second
button to have it dialed out. This lets you push a different button
to display the number without outpulsing—a feature sometimes useful.
Some systems require you
to dial a shorter number to get a longer one (abbreviated dialing).
This says you have to memorize one number for use at your desk, and
a second number to make the same call from any other phone. You may
feel differently, but if I can't get what I want with the push of a
single button, I can't be bothered with the machine at all.
In general, getting
numbers out of the machine is much better today than it was on early
repertory dialers five or six years ago. Who will ever forget the
Bell System "toaster" with its plastic bread slices with little
holes punched in them? Could anybody ever find the right slice when
it was needed? Then, too, there was the dialer with the infinitely
long list of numbers that had to be positioned just exactly right or
the machine wouldn't work. Did it ever?
But getting numbers into
the dialer is also important. Be sure you actually try this in the
store before you buy the machine. One dialer has none of its
programming buttons labeled; you either have to find out what they
are from the manual, or have infinite luck. Even the digit buttons
are unlabeled in the programming mode. I have made several
modifications in my own unit.
One reason you want to
be sure the programming of the machine is easy is because automatic
dialers are being used in a variety of ways not imagined by their
designers. Some people who make heavy use of the Phone in their
businesses program their calls each
morning and use the
dialer to carry them through the day. Others make frequent changes
for a variety of reasons. If you have something like this in mind,
make sure you can program the dialer with minimal effort, and can
label the stored numbers conveniently every time you change them.
Once a number is stored,
you may think it is there until you change it. But what happens when
the power goes off or, if the dialer is battery powered, what
happens when you have to change batteries? Look for a system that
runs off house power but has stand-by batteries that can at least
save the memory when the power fails (or when you want to move the
gadget into another room). Ideally, you should be able to change
batteries without losing memory if you have it plugged in.
How many numbers do you
need? It is surprisingly easy to fill 32 number memories before you
realize what is going on (home and office numbers for 16 associates,
for instance). But 32 seems to be a common size these days. Some
systems have a smaller quantity of button-accessed numbers, with a
larger quantity that can be accessed by abbreviated dialing. Keep
track of your calling habits for a few days, just to get an idea
what you may need.
Many dialers can be
installed by simply plugging them into your telephone's jack and
then plugging the phone into the jack located on the dialer. You
still have to let the phone company know what you are doing,
however, and you have to give them the FCC registration number and
the ringer equivalency number. If you don't have a jack, they will
be happy to install one for you at a cost that is surprisingly high
compared to the cost of the dialer itself.
Table 2 is a list of
questions to use when shopping for an automatic dialer. As with
answering machines, you may find that you are not interested in all
the things that interested me, or, perhaps, you may know a few
things that I should be interested in but haven't discovered yet.
The odds are pretty good that there are quite a few things I have
missed; if you'd like to share your adventures with me for use in
future articles, please call me at my office or drop me a note. If
we all stick together, we can keep from getting stuck.
Table 2
SOME QUESTIONS TO ASK WHEN SELECTING AN AUTOMATIC DIALER
-
What is
the name and model number9
-
How
much does it cost'?
-
What is
the FCC Registration No 9
-
Ringer
equivalency number'?
-
How is
the unit installed'?
-
Warranty'? Dealer loaner/repair policy'?
-
Names
of users'?
-
Does
machine outpulse DTMF9 Dial Pulses 10 PPS'? 20 PPS'?
-
How
many digits per number can be stored'?
-
Can you
replace a digit with a pause'? A stop'? A switch-hook
flash'? Dial tone detection'?
-
How
many numbers can be stored'? Can dialer send two or more
numbers per call'?
-
Can
dialer be used to send non-stored numbers'?
-
Does
machine remember last-dialed number'? Even if dialed from
associated telephone'?
-
Can
dialer send before tel set is taken off hooky Does it
recognize dial tone'? Time out'? Other start dial signal'?
With phone on hook, can you hear ring'? Answer'? What if you
don't pick up'?
-
How do
you store numbers in system'?
-
Can
stored numbers be changed easily'?
-
Can
number identification be changed easily'?
-
Call
stored number with single button'? Abbreviated dialing?
Other'?
-
Can
stored numbers be kept secret from user'? Is number being
dialed displayed to user'?
-
Has
system other displays'? What'?
-
How is
machine powered'?
-
Are
stored numbers lost when power fails'?
-
Special
provisions to save memory when power fails or is unplugged'?
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