Back to the past

People who know me know me in meatspace know my phone phreak/phone guy roots - I goofed around in the scene in the late 80s, ran a BBS in the 90s, and ran phone systems full-time from 1991 until 1997 and part-time since then.

I bought a Northern Telecom Option 11c (I refuse to go along with the new marketing lingo, if it looks like a Meridian and dials like a Meridian…) and did my first phone MAC (Move, Add, Change) in a couple of years. We have some new-fangled Windows-based admin tool, but it’s easier for me to dial in to the TTY port and do my work on a command-line interface. CLIs are like riding a bike, you never forget. I went in, checked a line port, made changes, and got a new phone up and running without looking at the book once. The last time I had one of these to manage was 1997.

In a classic case of “it seemed like a good idea at the time”, the phones are cross-connected to RJ-11 patch panels and use RJ-11 phone cords to patch from the phones system to riser cables, and more RJ-11 cables to go from the riser to the premise jack. Obviously, someone who didn’t like punchdown blocks thought it would be easier. In reality…

Typically, you get a jack number, work back to the closet, find the block number, wiggle the twisted cross-connect wire until you find the other end, and move it. Cross-connect wire works great. With phone patch cords, the jackets stick to each other and make it harder to trace.

I’ve got a horrible cable plant; we saved a huge chunk of change by re-using existing cable runs. We’re already paying for it. I wired up the new phone on a riser cable that ended up being dead. I rolled the patch onto a new pair, and that one was mismarked in one of the closets.

I think I’ll be toning out everything from now on.