Differences between UK and ROI telephones

[Clive George]

Anybody know the difference?

cheers, clive

[Steve Walker]

Yes, the Irish one have a number Tree ;)

SteveW

[Adrian C]

RJ11 vs. BT Plug? Ringing system? Caller ID? Nicer telephone operator to chat to?

[Clive George]

Ok, electrical differences pertinent to using phones for one country in another :-)

[Adrian Brentnall]

Sigh!

They use a different plug/socket arrangement - smaller than the UK plug. Adapters are available.... so if you have a UK-type system (answering machine / phone etc) you can use it all if you have an adapter to connect to the wall-socket....

Hope this helps Adrian (West Cork)

[Adrian C]

What's now interesting to me, as I've never taken any notice when over there (too much Guiness)

1) Do Irish phones ring like the UK phones, Brr-Brrrr or the US ones - Brrrr 2) Are the DTMF tones the same?

[Adrian Brentnall]

Like the UK

As far as I know - phones that we used in the UK also work over here...

Adrian

[NT]

Ringing voltage spec is different. Otherwise afaik theyre the same

NT

[The Natural Philosopher]

DTMF tones are a worldwide standard IIRC.

Otherwise 'press 1 for sales' wouldn't work if you phoned Alaska etc.

ring tones and engaged tones differ markedly. There is no standard really.

Voltage current and impedance are MORE OR LESS standardised, in that is its possible to build a phone that meets all national standards. There are differences though. US phones are quiet when used here.

Plug standards are almost as many as there are countries, but there is widespread adoption of RJ11 (I Think) on the phones themselves: that means the local socket is covered by a suitable local plug to RJ11 cord.

[Steve Walker]

Sorry, I just had to do that. My wife's family are all from Leitrim and although she was born and brought up in the UK, she spent a lot of time back home and when she gets tired, the accent comes out.

Lucky B - we were looking at moving your way, then it all went on hold when I became ill, by the time I was fully recovered a couple of years later, the economy had collapsed and it all went out of the window.

SteveW

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Clive George saying something like:

UK phones work ok here, just need to swap the cord for an RJ11 one, easily available at many shops. You'll find the majority of handset bases have either RJ11 or a mini-RJ at the desktop end, so an easy swap.

[Adrian Brentnall]

OK - you're excused

Which economy? - UK or IRL.....??

There's a feeling of recovery out here - and a general acceptance that the 'Good Times' (up to 2006 or so) couldn't have continued at that pace. I make stained glass and fused glass (= luxury items) and this year I'm seeing more work in the 'bespoke' end of the business - relatively high-value items - so there's hope.

Adrian

[Dave Liquorice]

Pretty sure the DTMF tone pairs are international. Be a bit tricky navigating one of those pesky press 1 for... menu systems if they where different. B-)

On/off hook line voltages and currents are pretty much the same but signal levels might be different.

Ringing, both voltage range and frequency, varies. The cadence isn't overly relevant in an ordinary phone but might be for something "looking for" ringing to auto answer. Similary busy tones vary.

[Andrew Gabriel]

This was brought home to me programming a Supira VoIP ATA, a sort of mini PBX which interfaces to both an exchange line, and one or more telephones. It has about 700 configuration options, of which probably about half are related to matching the various different country standards for the telephone interface.

[Steve Walker]

Both. The collapse of the UK economy left us with debts to clear (through a complicated set of timings, illnesses and ending of contracts) and less equity in the house. My line of work is in instrumentation and controls engineering, which had limited demand in Ireland compared to the UK even before the crash and at the moment, there has at least been the alternative here of moving out of petrochem and industrial work into nuclear.

Give it a couple of years to pick up and for us to sort out our finances and we'll be ready again.

SteveW

[Rick Hughes]

No difference both ZCO complex impedance phones. But like UK there is a big diff in quality ...

[Rick Hughes]

correct DTMF is an ITU standard ...

Actually that is the difficult bit ... there are many impedances in use, from straight 600 ohm (US) to far more typical European complex impedance. For example ...

UK circuits expect to see 370 ohm is series with a 620 ohm resistor across which is a 0.0312uF capacitor

Switzerland expects 220 ohm in series with 820 ohm across which is a 115nF capacitor

Almost each European country is different ... some have no analogue phones and are digital only.

If impedance is not matched - it may work, but due to mismatch there will be signal losses, and often they either won't ring or ringing cadence is incorrect. It can also seriously degrade REN (i.e. No of phones that will ring if on the line 3-5 is normal REN rating)

It is also illegal to operate a non approved phone on a line ... for example UK t&c's which you sign up to state only approved devices will be connected. I know you can physically plug in what you want ... just mentioning the point ........ if impedance is way out it will fail BT auto line test.

Good article on

[The Natural Philosopher]

Its much worse than that. Ther are non linear and inductive elements in the 'UK standard telephone'

Or were.

When BT went private, the spec was basically 'this is what our current carbon microphone line powered bell telephone looks like, electrically. Any other telephone must look exactly like it or it cant be guaranteed to work, and wont get approvals and cant be sold'.

A friend of mine spent weeks with transformers and diodes and resistors and capacitors trying to design an answering machine/smart phone that would meet the specs.

[Timothy Murphy]

Slightly OT, but why does the UK stick to their phone sockets and plugs. Are they used anywhere else in the world?

[The Natural Philosopher]

Only as landfill.