Another Newbie Question

[trangfarang]

Again I apologise for the elementary nature of this question. I recently purchased a notebook computer which came with the follow caution with regard to connectivity; Warning this modem port is not compatible with a digital phone lines. Plugging this modem into a digital phone line will damage the modem.

I have read that analog lines are the ones you will find in most households and businesses. Also that it is impossible to tell if a phone line is digital just from appearances. Is it safe to assume that any apartment in Thailand would have just an analog line? Are digital phone lines to become the standard in the future and therefore one should be aware of this when moving into a new apartment? Does anyone know about the situation in Japan?

Thanks.

[huski]

Also that it is impossible to tell if a phone line is digital just from appearances.

most lines are still analog unless the previous apartment renter had DSL. here is a tester if you just have to know...

TELcheck Pro Telephone Analog or Digital line checker with RFI Filter

[camerata]

I have read that analog lines are the ones you will find in most households and businesses. Also that it is impossible to tell if a phone line is digital just from appearances. Is it safe to assume that any apartment in Thailand would have just an analog line? Are digital phone lines to become the standard in the future and therefore one should be aware of this when moving into a new apartment? Does anyone know about the situation in Japan?

Unfortunately, there's no way to tell a digital line from an analog line by looking at the socket or phone. A direct line is likely to be analog, but it could be an ISDN line. However, modern PABX's use digital lines, and they are pretty widely used in hotels, company offices and some serviced apartments.

My Palm modem has a similar warning about digital lines, so I never plug it into a hotel PABX socket in Japan. Some hotels have a free LAN socket for using the Internet. Most small business hotels have pay phones in the lobby and one is usually of the IC type. With these you buy a pre-paid card for 1000 yen and plug your telephone cable into the RJ-11 socket. Instructions either appear on the screen or are blared out in a robot-like female voice.

You can find these pay phones in hotels, in stations, along main roads or at tourist spots. There's another type operated by NTT which use coins instead of a card. So generally you aren't far from a socket when travelling.

There's some info on the digital/analog problem at http://www.cit.cornell.edu/helpdesk/win/mo...ital_lines.html

[exchange1973]

Hi there,

DSL is a dataservice not a voiceservice. It is wrong to assume that if you have an DSL-line there is automatically a digital voiceservice, because DSL uses a different frequency-spectrum than the voiceservices.

So it is possible to combine an analog voiceservice with a digital dataservice. But in MOST cases DSL is combined with digital voiceservice(ISDN).

But you can answer the question yourself. What telephoneequipment do you use? ISDN-equipment or analog-equipment? There you will find the answer!

Hope this help a little.

Regards and greetings from cold Berlin!

exchange1973.

[huski]

But you can answer the question yourself. What telephoneequipment do you use? ISDN-equipment or analog-equipment? There you will find the answer!

the user bought a new notebook and can't plug into a digital line, that's because it must be an internal 56k modem . the question was determining if the apartment line was digital or analog. i still think you should use a line tester or you could fry your modem.

TownNews.com Travel: Tips and Advice - Using Modems Abroad