atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums Wiring - Telecom Carriers - Trunks & Services Telecom Service & Providers Remote tone on phone line/verify route?

First off, great looking forum! I hope to use and contribute to it more in the future.

I am a field service technician/branch installer for a company with branches all over the US. The local telco is dispatched to new branches with instructions to extend the demarc to within 10' of the branches phone equipment.

In many cases, the telco tech doesn't terminate the cable running from the branch location to the demarc. I have no problem in doing this but, more often than not, I have found that the phone room contains several 66 blocks with VERY FEW lines tagged.

We then have to notify the telco to have someone come out and tag the lines. In some cases, this isn't a big deal as the telco gets out there in a timely manner. In others, it's a problem as the telco won't be out in time and I need to get the branch completed in a certain time frame, which includes getting their phone system up and tested, which isn't going to happen with no phone lines going into it.

My question is this. Another tech from a different service location had the same problem a few days ago and was in the phone room when the telco tech arrived. He said the telco tech had used a phone number that generated a tone to the phone lines remotely so all the telco tech had to do is use his tone probe, verify the line with a ANAC number (which I already have) and tag it accordingly. For instance, the phone number I want to get a tone for is 555-555-5555. I call from my cell phone (444-444-4444) and somehow generate a tone for 555-555-5555. I have phone numbers for putting a tone on the line, but it only does it for the line you’re calling from, which wouldn’t do me any good in this instance.

Of course, my friend never asked the telco tech for number to call to generate this line tone. Does anyone know this number, or how I go about obtaining it? I can't tell you how useful this would be.

I'm located in the Dallas/Ft Worth area, if that makes any difference.

Thank you.

That's what is referred to as "thousand cycle tone" (1004 Hz) that was traditionally used for setting up analog data circuits. Each and every central office in the country has a unique phone number to access it. This number is usually "top secret" for telco personnel use only.

Even if you had the secret number, you have to dial it from the number you are trying to find, so it wouldn't help you at all. I feel your pain, but unfortunately, there is not canned answer or national number that I've ever heard of.

Thank you, Ed! I did some poking around with the info you gave me and I came across this

https://www.sundance-communications.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?/ubb/get_topic/f/19/t/000292.html

What this person was asking about is EXACTLY what I am referring to. Looks like I'm SOL, though.

Thanks again, though!

Actually I think that system has been gone for quite some time in many areas. I haven't seen it used around here in ages. The usual way to handle this now is to go to the cross connect or other point where you know the pairs are identified and hang a toner on them. They could also call in to the CO and bother the frame person to put tone on the pair. But of course that is not something you are going to do.

What you have to do is call for a locate and tag. If it takes time, well so be it.

-Hal

Every CO (at least in NYC and all of GTE) had their own Milliwatt tone. The idea was that you could test the loss on every line in the exchange.

Programming a line for MWT meant that when you dialed into it, it put out a 1004hz tone at 0.0db. You hooked your test set (not a butt set!) to the circuit (at the subscriber end) and read what the loss was.

As I recall -2.5db was optimal and -5.0 was the outside, though some circuits were much worse. Of course you should always read 1004 hz. If you didn't, then the circuit was hosed- big time.

Whenever we got a leased line (CSV circuit) from NY Tel we would test it to see if it met the parameters we were paying for.

Nowadays, I think it's just used for identifying circuits. I don't remember the last time I saw a tech with an analog transmission
test set.

There was also a "silent tone" line, You dialed into it, got 5 seconds of milliwatt and then it went dead quiet. It was perfect for troubleshooting noisy, staticy lines.

Sam

Verizon New England and Fairpoint Communications still have milliwatt tones in their Central Offices. I agree with Sam that, today, they would probably be used by Bell technicians to ID lines and not much else.

The milliwatt tone and quiet battery are still with us here too but that isn't what the OP is asking about. For the milliwatt tone and QB you have to dial into them from the line you want to test, so you obviously have to already have the line identified. It's not going to be of any help finding a pair nor was it meant to be.

Come to think of it I have heard the suggestion to call the line in question and run your probe down the blocks looking for the ringing. I've never tried it so I can't say anything about how it works.

-Hal

I work for a telco, and I know of no feature that will allow you to identify a CO line in the way you are trying to accomplish. We have a "quiet line" that puts a brief tone on the line which is used for measuring loss, noise, etc. on a cable pair, but you have to call on that pair for it to work. Looks like you have to get the telco there to tag, or get out the toner and start sniffing things out.

You're looking for the DATU
https://www.tech-faq.com/datu.shtml

Good luck on getting a number, most have been discontinued due to unauthorized access. Some folks have even been prosecuted for using them.

Was running some Cat-5 at a nursing home a couple of weeks ago. A retired Bell guy came to cross-connect a new resident's phone line. His method of finding the line? Call it from his cell phone, lick his index finger and run the block while it is ringing! Sounds pretty harsh to me.....

If I'm charming enough, I usually don't have a problem getting the telco's business office to share the Binding Post numbers. Just be prepared to answer a few account-specific questions first. They want to know that they're not giving away the farm to a CLEC that's too cheap to formally request a Telco CSR.