Avaya

[Really] Private Systems: Massachusetts State House

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These sets of pictures were taken in 2009 at the Massachusetts State House. The government of Commonwealth of Massachusetts have been long time Avaya users dating back to the late 1980s.  If you are a native to that state, you should be proud that your tax dollars were at work from upgrading to the latest and greatest office telephones. However, as of these exposures, I would highly assume they are still use the 6400 series telephones.

An Avaya 6424 and a 6408 Digital telephone at the House Chambers of the Massachusetts State House.

I do not have any clue what is in the backend of the Boston area telephone network. Its a Definity based system but that’s all I know. I don’t know how many nodes, how many unique PBX systems that are located throughout the Boston area. Unlike the state that borders far west,  the Commonwealth is often tight lipped about telling anyone anything about the government. I do know Massachusetts has a headcount of maybe just north of 50,000 employees – yeah that’s a lot for a government sector.

A lady making a phone call on ether a 7405 or a 7434 terminal with a florescent screen adjunct in 1991. From YouTube user: MSTS1

Another unknown is how their dialing plan works. I remember going into one of the elevators was a 7 digit telephone number to reach the campus security. The  Commonwealth does not publish a government directory, nor do they have an online directory. Nor their western counterpart  publishes even a  guide to learn their telephones. They are very secretive in that state, and there is no such thing as public knowledge (don’t say its a security issue – that’s an excuse!)

Some pictures taken in 2010 when I visited there in October with some better quality of images of their super-private of private systems.

Another shot of the press office with very dated key telephones.

That’s all for now!

My Collection – AT&T (Avaya) 7102 Analog Voice Terminal

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Here is another private collection of another office telephone. It’s an AT&T (now Avaya) 7102 Analog telephone.

These were made by AT&T in the mid to late 80s, sports the “R” handset (Merlin style) while having a basic featureset with a 12 digit dial pad and a “Recall” (read: Flash) to use additional features of the PBX or “Call Waiting” as this terminal can – in fact – be used for residential landline services.

In fact, the ringer is much like the very old AT&T 1810 digital answering machine/house phone I had at my family’s house. It doesn’t have the sound of the digital telephones unfortunately.

I bought this on eBay a while back, and here is the gallery

It was made in Korea, kinda odd for phones to be made out of the States at that time. Maybe this was built in the same plant as the other consumer phones that AT&T continued to produce leading to the spinoff to Lucent in 1996.  I opened the phone and the guts looked like a cheap Asian produced device.

This phone however, is a shell of a BIS-10 (or a 7410 Plus), take the DESI paper off, and you’ll see the empty spots for those buttons. It was kinda surprising to see, but I guess since there was a membrane cover, it didn’t matter. I’ll post that picture (and redo the picture gallery in a neater workspace) at a later time.