I find very useful, a service provided by my local telephone company (and I assume by others) called “Distinctive Ring”. It gives me one telephone line/account but three unique seven digit telephone numbers. If the first number is dialed (xxx-yyy-zzzz) my phone rings normally (one long ring). This is the number I give out for normal contact. If the second number is dialed (xxx-yyy-aaaa) the phone rings “two shorts” and my business partner in another part of the building knows the call is for him. If the third number is dialed (xxx-yyy-bbbb) the phone rings “long-short-long”. This is the number I give out as my fax number because a feature of my fax machine allows it to be set to ignore the first two ring patterns and only pick-up when the “long-short-long” pattern comes through. So far, so good. This arrangement allows me to have the apparent service of three telephone lines at the cost of only one, plus a small monthly surcharge for the Distinctive Ring feature.
Now the problem: I cannot find a telephone answering machine with the same discrimination feature as the fax machine. I need one that will only answer when the “one long” ring comes in, ignoring the other two patterns. It’s not so much of a problem for the fax number because I have it set to pick up on the second occurance of the pattern, however, if my partner does not answer his phone by the fourth occurance of his pattern, then my (present) answering machine picks up with my outgoing message, which is very confusing for the caller. The folks at Office Depot, Staples, Best Buy, etc. all look at me like I want a machine that will turn lead into gold. (Well, that would be nice too.) Surely I can’t be the only person in the world with this need?
Why would the manufacturers apparently overlook the need for a Distinctive Ring-aware answering machine? If there is one I have not been able to find it. TIA for helping me find one or some other work-around for this problem.
Is there a service that your phone company offers to replace the flesh-and-bones answering machine? I’m sure they’d be able to discriminate between numbers and offer you a recording/answering service accordingly.
Failing that, maybe give them a call to see if they have any product recommendations suited to the service they’re offering and tailored to your needs.
Well, I find that indeed, the phone company does offer a “Home Voice Mail” service that will respond only to the primary ring pattern (one long) which is what I want to achieve. (Please deposit $7-9 monthly additional.) However, if my business partner wants to set up his own answering machine, with different outgoing message, etc. (desirable) we are back to the original problem. Besides, I would rather buy a capable answering machine than pay a monthly charge to the already revenue-laden phone company. I’m guessing the identical “chip” that gives the fax machine this capability could be directly incorporated into an answering machine, but nobody does it. Makes no sense from a marketing standpoint (to me anyhow.)
Check out answering machine software for your computer. I don’t have mine close at hand but at least one program I’ve used recognizes distinctive ring.
This does seem to be just the device to do the job, however, for $93 something (plus S&H no doubt) I’d much rather replace my old tape based AM with a nice new slick 5.4 (or is the new standard 5.8?) GHz cordless model with the discrimination feature built in. Besides, another device means another “wall wart” power supply to be accomodated in the computer corner. At last count I already have (including straight AC plugs) 23 gadgets demanding power.
[self-hijack] Is it just me or is SDMB running AWFULLY slow today? In fact it seems noticably slower ever since the paid subscriptions were instituted. [/self-hijack]