OT Incoming phone service only

[Metspitzer]

I went to visit my aunt in the convalescent center. She has dementia. She seems very sharp minded, but sometimes she talks about things you know are just not true.

Anyway, her children won't let her have a phone because she has been known to call the local sheriff's office to complain about a relative stealing from her (which no one else believes is true).

I was wondering, and will check Monday, if the phone company offers a service where she would be able to receive calls, but not be able to make them. I am sure there would be a way to disable the phone to prevent her from making calls, but it would seem to me that if the phone company offered such a service it might also be a lower cost.

[hallerb]

you could probably disconnet the touch pad to prevent outgoing calls, think inside the phone. there are outgoing call restrictors but most permt 911 calls

call your phone company but i bet they will charge a lot per month

[clare]

Being inside a convalescent center they LIKELY have their own PBX system - MOST of which can be programmed not to accept outgoing calls without a special code - or at all. SOME can even be programed to allow only calls to specified numbers from a given extention.

[gfretwell]

Buy an old Western Electric touch tone phone and hook it up backward (swap red and green). That renders the touch tone pad dead but it will still ring and you can talk. You can save a few bucks on the bill by not buying a long distance carrier since she won't be calling out.

[aemeijers]

And we have a winner! Other than places with independent apartments with call buttons, most 'homes' do not have private lines, just extensions of a PBX, as an 'optional' (aka profit center) extra. (Lotsa hospitals now charge extra for a phone as well.) Talk to the manager there.

[Roger Shoaf]

If your original question does not get a reply, you can easily disable any push button phone from making outgoing calls by simply reversing polarity. By this I mean that you usually have a red and a green wire that are in a typical phone jack and if these leads are reversed, then the phone can ring, it will give you a dial tone but the push buttons on the phone will not work.

[ransley]

I wish I knew that 40 years ago, I hooked up extra phones and a few I now know were backwards

[aemeijers]

At least in this part of the country, only true for early Ma Bell touch-tone. More modern ones don't care. Don't think it has ever been true for the cheap throw-away phones like you buy at Wally World, since all their brains are on a chip.

And even if the TT pad is disabled, you can still dial by using the hook lever as a telegraph key....

[Frank]

I went through this with my father years ago. We took away his phone as he could not differentiate between day and night and called at all hours. Afterwords he used phones in facility and we even started call blocking numbers. Somehow numbers rotated so even blocking 10 numbers did not prevent calls. I wish I knew of this solution but doubt it would have completely stopped the problem.

[George]

That won't accomplish anything. TT phones will work normally if you swap tip and ring.

[gfretwell]

Notice I said "old Western Electric" phone. The original touch tone phone WAS polarity sensitive.

You can find them pretty cheap on Ebay or in a garage sale. They are bullet proof.

[Kurt Ullman]

I never thought it hyperbole when they used to say Western Electric telephones and cockroaches were the only things likely to survive a nuclear war.

[Andy]

Andy comments: Yes, I did that a lot as a kid. However, I was under the impression that if "tone" service is the one provided by the company, then pulse calling can't be done. Damn, I only have one phone line and am now using the puter on it, so I can't go and test this before I send this. But I'm going to try in a few minutes. I just haven't done that in 40 years......

I don't have a single phone, or modem, in my house that won't work properly if the wires are reversed. In fact, I've never seen or used one that required definite polarity for operation, and I've been tapping, installing, wiring, and messing with phones since I was 10 years old --- a long long long time...... that being said, I haven't tried them all, so it might be accurate for specific systems....... somewhere.

Anyway, I'm off to see if my phone here can access the line with pulses. I suggest that others who endorse this method actually try it for themselves , as there may be differences in the phone services......

However, even if it can, I doubt that a senile old lady in a nursing home would be able to figure it out.

Andy in Eureka, Texas

Eureka, where local law requires all foreclosed houses to be towed back to the lot withing 30 days.

[Jon Danniken]

Used to be able to get the Operator that way, at least. Now you can't even get the Operator by hitting '0'.

And they call it progress.

Jon

[gfretwell]

I am sure you will be able to break dial tone and you may eventually call someone ("Moa'ula Iki Beach Side"?) but it takes a lot of practice to actually dial a particular number with the switch hooks.

[clare]

I just finally switched my line from pulse service to tone - and pulse phones still work just fine.

MANY electronic phones will not work with tip and ring reversed.

[hrhofmann]

As an AT+T retired employee, I can guarantee that the early Touch-Tone telephones were polarity sensitive as far as generating signals to go to the central office. Newer telephones have a diode bridge that overcomes the polarity sensitivity problem.

[Jon Danniken]

Oh man, I always wondered what they were saying in that commercial.

Thank!

Jon

[Lee B]

Does it have to be a land line? What about a children's cell phone like Firefly? I don't know much about kids' cell phones, but apparently they have "parental controls" that would allow her kids to restrict outgoing calls to certain numbers, like theirs.

[Art Todesco]

Many nursing homes will not allow cell phones because of loss and "theft" .... theft being loss by a resident, but telling that it was stolen. There are probably 2 reasons for the no cell phones, bother to the staff and as someone mentioned, their phone is a profit center for them. When my mother was in a nursing home a few years ago, they charged $25 per month for a phone and you provide the phone. And, the $25 is whether the resident used it or not.