RE: Customer-friendly word for "landline"

[David Neeley <dbneeley -at- gmail -dot- com>]

Fred,

Not all "house phones" were unable to dial outside lines. For instance, 
in a hospital setting house phones could often dial outside to answer 
pages.

The distinction normally seems to have been a phone that is part of an 
internal PBX system, available to the public, that may or may not be 
enabled to dial outside--generally with the most common instruction 
"Dial 9 for an outside line."

In many settings, these phones could also be used to access a PA system, 
usually by dialing a specific prefix. This is commonly found in "house 
phones" in large stores, for example.

(For those unused to phone jargon, "PBX" stands for "private branch 
exchange."

When I did a gig at Nortel in Richardson, the various groups were 
divided into "wireline" and "wireless"--a useful distinction there.

Someone also mentioned "POTS"--which has long been used in the industry 
to differentiate also between other services such as the many primary 
lines which can carry a multitude of voice or data streams. The "plain 
old telephone service" was the single line, dual wire circuit.

Today, I think the most widely understood term would still be "landline" 
to differentiate it from wireless service.

David

> From:
> Fred Ridder <docudoc -at- hotmail -dot- com>
>
> "House phone" used to be used in a different, specific sense to refer 
> to a phone that could not dial an outside line, such as one that could 
> only dial other extensions within a PBX. A common example was a house 
> phone in a hotel lobby that could only dial guest rooms.
>
> -FR
>
>    

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