Author: clickfo

Ugliest Attendant Consoles, part five

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NOT MY OWN PHOTO. No URL to trace where I found this around 2010.

Of the worst attendant consoles to exist on this planet, the vintage Northern Telecom would win hands down.

Joe the UCX Guy had featured this console and used it during his days while he attended Purdue.

These switchboards or consoles were tied behind a central office switch such as DMS series or the carrier grade PBX – the SL100 (which I believe is different than the original SL1.)

In short, central office services are much less feature rich and thats why it has little functionality.

But why in the hell it’s so honking big is beyond me. It’s one of the many consoles of those days that required a 25 pair Amphenol cable to function.

Ugliest Operator Consoles, part three

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(I guess I stay up late looking at my own screengrabs)

The Japanese are no angels ether. I guess since digital PBX systems were derivatives of the design of mainframes, the consoles that used to manage mainframes, were not based on CRT in the beginning. Heck even the first PC – the Altair, was filled of complicated LEDs and switches.

This console most likely is used for the NEAX PBX system (the equivalent to the M1, the G3, or SX systems.)

In the late 90s, early 2000s, they too got their act together, and had a sleek console with the user in mind.

Again not my pictures, was taken from an eBay listing.

Phone of the Day: Cisco 7841 – Local School

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In 2025 I stand corrected. It’s the 7841 series set. In 2016, there was no 6841 yet. The following year. Cisco opened up their fancy phones to customers who had no intentions to use it against a CUCM. The 6800s was planned to replace the SPA series VOIP phones and fully deprecated the SPA by 2020. 

But then the 7800s were open too. Cisco would then market both the key based 7800 and 8800 screen phones for Third Party Call Control or 3PCC or now it’s called something like Multiplatform Phones or MPP.  Forgot Aruba was the brand for HP’s networking at that time. 

I spotted this overpriced telephone in an elementary school during a late fall craft fair. It had a nice turnout, to the point I want to be a vendor and sell geeky fashion items! I say overpriced because this is located in a community where it’s ultra-conservative. The town I live in is extremely frugal in finances and keeps the government small. On the town government, the board would zero-out any proposals to their IT department, which is lead by a “coordinator” that grew up in the days before IP, Windows Servers, etc. In the world of compliance and technical adherence, they run the town side like a mum and pop shop.

The school district’s offices (a seperate agency) is housed in two ranch houses, near the local high school that are commercially zoned. This is most likely where their CallMangler (I can’t help to resist) is located. I’ve spotted a 7900 series in one of the offices when I walked by in that same school.

I’ve seen on the town side using Cisco 7940 sets and 7960 sets since I moved in 2010. The town to kinda leak my location is the largest single voting place that got national attention during the primaries last winter  if people who don’t know where I live.

I do not follow municipal matters as much anymore, but a cutover to VOIP in the school system occurred sometime in the range of fiscal years 2011 to 2013 because the previous phone systems were end of life. I do not know the systems prior to because I didn’t attend school here. What’s ironic is there is an Aruba wireless access point shown here plugged on the PC jack. The town’s fire department had a consumer grade Linksys plugged into their PC port on their Cisco sets…

In the town I did grow up, we had TIE systems in the late 1980s-late 90s then went to Telrad in the school district. The elementary school that I went to got their Telrad in 2002. The Telrads were still there when I moved out of town in 2010.

Review: Polycom VVX 310 IP Phone

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Happy Thanksgiving! I’m recovering from my dinner, and thought some updates were in order. Today I’m doing a review of these free to me Polycom VVX IP sets.

I found them at a local business that apparently moved. They were outside for “Free” so hey, why not?

These phones are an improvement from the SoundPoint IP sets that I still loathe to this day. Such improvements: you can adjust the set using a plastic thing on the back to three levels; second there is a tuck in space for the handset or headset cable. And BLFs most likely use the AUX jack and doesn’t do that infrared thing that I had doubted the reliability for a long time. Also in this range features wideband calling or high dynamic (HD) voice quality; and a backlit display (seen here) and a single LED with multi colors to show lamp status (or should I say in IT-speak “presence”?) and supports nearly 24 unique lines (or should I say “SIP sessions”?) It has cute screensavers too. If you want to see it, I have posted on my friends-only Instagram feed from mid October.

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POTD: Avaya 6408D+ Digital “Telephone” | Attitash Grand Summit Resort | Bartlett, NH

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I spotted this 6408D+ DCP telset at my last visit to the Attitash Grand Summit Resort in late October. This hotel off US302 is used mostly for conferences and skiers who want a vacation. This set was replaced in between a Labor Day week visit and the visit in late October.  This area is a space for tourist information to help a customer find a place of interest. Previously (and years before) had a generic “trimline” like set. As previously posted, it appeared there was an upgrade of refurbished sets.

What would be nice given the decline of digital office telephony, that maybe digital sets could be seen in more locations in the facility or even in the rooms, despite Avaya and their BPs jacking up the maintenance costs of digital telephones in lieu of going to VOIP for no reason.

The 6400 series sets have been known unofficially to have a “European” look (but never claimed by Lucent or Avaya directly.) While Lucent introduced the line in the late 1990s, mass deployments occurred under Avaya tenure (spun-off late 2000.) The 6400 sets probably had a large friend count with the other models in the line.  What do I mean? 6400 sets were often found in new deployments where a Definity or later MultiVantage systems would be setup. Because the 6400s were made around that time, other models like the 8400 was ether refurbished or not aggressively sold. It was not to say they couldn’t go in existing plants; just you’ll see them more obviously in new deployments after 2001.

These sets also introduced a mandatory two-wired setup (albeit with an RJ 45 jack) where a single pair of tip and ring would run on pins 4 & 5. Aux power would need two pairs with said T&R wire and another pair on pins 7 & 8 on an RJ 45 plug.

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POTD: New Hobby Lobby

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img9912 This newer version of the NEC Electra Key Telephone was found at a local Hobby Lobby that had recently opened. Hobby Lobby is basically the K-Mart of arts and crafts stores. Their footprint is probably quadrupled compared to an AC Moore or Michaels. Coincidentally the stores that Hobby Lobby filled in my area were former KMart stores. Other stores in the area use this system.

Phone of the Day: Nearby Kohls | Undisclosed location

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This was taken at a local Kohls, just a little north of where I live. This is located in massively redeveloped area of box stores when it was just all trees. I can’t remember when it was built, I’m going to bet before the 2009 bankruptcy of Nortel. (Remember a similar post of noticing Mitel sets of their alleged “Do we stand by our man?” post bankruptcy mentality across any former Nortel sites.) Newer stores went with the “screw them” approach of building new stores with Mitel and older stores still run Avaya Blue.

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Phone of the Day: LEGOLAND Discovery Center | Boston, Massachusetts

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Located just north of the Boston city line, in Somerville, Massachusetts, the LEGOLAND Discovery Center is located in the Assembly Row neighborhood. Unlike the LEGOLAND in California, or Florida, this place is an indoors given the climate of Boston, hazy hot summers, and very cold winters (honestly more of the former than the latter in recent years.)

Anyways these sets of pictures is a workspace of lady named Megan, whom builds little things shown in the Miniland section of the attraction. According to their Facebook page, she is a certified through Lego’s Master Builder Academy.  Things such as characters from The Lego Movie, Wally (and his galpal) from the Boston Red Sox, the four colored puzzle Autism Awareness, etc. I actually met this lady at the Red Sox game that was Lego themed on the 31st. See telephony related post. In fact I found out that this was her work space after I snapped the picture of the notorious Cisco 6921. She came up to me about a few minutes later asking if we met at Fenway. I felt somewhat flattered that someone could recognize me among thousands that come there.

As you can tell, sadly Lego is on the “dark side” of telephony…:(

I was only able to come because the indoor park is only open to adults if you have kids. On the third Wednesdays of every month, they open it to adults for only a couple of hours, despite them selling adult beverages and closing time is bedtime for a 10 year old. (Nine o’ clock.)

I had fun regardless and hope I run into these fine folks again next month. The neighborhood is a wonderful attraction with it being setup as an outdoor mall. Click below the phone to see more Lego related pictures of the workspace.

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