Re: Comcast; loss of dial tone

[chasbo@xxxxxxxxx]

On Mon, 27 Aug 2012 15:56:19 -0400, chasbo@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

>Am looking for a wireless device (transceiver) to sit between an Alarm
>Control Panel and a similar wireless device (transceiver) attached to
>the output jack of a Comcast cable box.
>
>The purpose is to take the ACP digital signals that are normally
>transmitted over a land-line to a central station and, instead,
>transmit them to the receiving unit attached to the telephone jack at
>the rear of the Comcast cable box.
>
>This device would solve the following problem:
>
>	Here in the Boston MA area the trend appears that Comcast is
>taking away the land-line business of residential customers from
>Verizon. Comcast installers, rather than placing their cable box
>(containing the dial-tone output jack) in the vicinity of the old
>Verizon interface (punch-down terminals, two-binding-post black
>protector ? where the outside drop meets all the red/green wires),
>typically in the basement, they are taking the route of least
>resistance by bringing their cable in through a 2nd floor window of a
>room where the cable box is to be located.
>
>	The customer's cordless base station is then plugged into the
>output jack at the rear of the cable box, providing dial tone to all
>the cordless house phones  When there is no wall jack in the room,
>there is not even the opportunity to back feed dial tone to the common
>junction point in the basement where the reds and greens are all in
>parallel.  On those occasions when there is a wall jack in the same
>room with the cable box, we can reconfigure the connections in the
>basement to provide line seizure.
>
>	Sometimes Comcast installers will get it right, rarely,
>back-feeding to a wall jack, and in the basement severing the
>4-conductor cable from the remaining group of reds/greens, and
>reconfiguring to provide line-seizure.
>
>	When the cable box resides in a part of the house where it is
>impossible or cost-prohibitive to get dial tone to the alarm system,
>and the customer does not want to pay for a cellular connection, the
>alternative for the customer is to forego the monitoring of the alarm
>system; hence a loss of revenue for us.
>
>It therefore would be nice to employ some type of transceiver to ship
>the alarm signals from the ACP to a similar transceiver that would
>plug into the dial-tone output jack at the rear of the cable box.  It
>would have to be a duplex device, as the ACP needs to receive the
>kiss-off tone from the central station.  It would also be important
>that we be able to access the ACP via telephone line from our office,
>for remote programming.
>
>Any ideas or work-arounds?
>
>Thanks.  Charlie.


	Not a solution, but an example of a device that could work; I
would not want to gerry-rig this animal, but a manufacturer might want
to consider designing one:

	Take an ordinary cordless telephone, add a jack ? positioned
high enough on the phone to allow the phone to sit in its charging
cradle. Connect the ACP to the cordless phone jack. When the ACP is
ready to ship alarm signals, it gets dial tone through the cordless
phone jack.  No line seizure of course, but it does offer exclusive
use of the line, once dial tone is heard.

	Another use of this configuration is a cordless phone
connection to a fax machine that is positioned far from the cable box
or from a wall jack.

	Another use would be in a home office where an ordinary desk
phone might be the phone of choice, rather than the cordless phone -
or several desk phones within an office already connected in parallel
and positioned for convenient use, could be connected in parallel to
the cordless phone.  This would be an advantage for me because I would
not need to exit my chair to retrieve the cordless phone which is
"never" close at hand.

	Hmmmm...  Wonder what other uses there are? Where is my patent
attorney when I need him?

Charlie