Phone Call Recorder

dual-tone multi-frequency

Dual Tone, Multi-Frequency. The set of dual tones generated by a typical "touch-tone" telephone keypad. See Dual-tone Multifrequency. Dual-tone multifrequency (dtmf). A way of signaling consisting of a push-button or touch tone dial that sends out a sound consisting of two discrete tones that are picked up and interpreted by telephone switches (either PBXs or central offices). Dual-tone multifrequency (DTMF), also known as Touch Tone or Tone Dialing, is used for telephone signaling over the line in the voice frequency band to the call switching center. DTMF is an example of a multifrequency shift keying (MFSK) system. Today DTMF is used for most call setup to the telephone exchange, at least in the Western world, and trunk signalling is now done out of band using the SS7 signaling system. The in band trunk signalling tones were different from the tones known as touch tone with a triangular matrix being used rather than a square matrix. See: blue box for more details on the switching tones. Prior to DTMF the phone systems had used a system known as pulse or loop disconnect (LD) signalling to dial numbers, which works by rapidly disconnecting and connecting the calling party's phone line, like flicking a light switch on and off. The repeated connection and disconnection sounds like a series of clicks. The LD range was restricted for technical reasons, and placing calls over longer distances required either operator assistance or the provision of subscriber trunk dialling equipment. DTMF was developed at Bell Labs in order to allow dialing signals to dial long-distance numbers, potentially over nonwire links such as microwave links or satellites. Encoder/decoders were added at the end offices that would convert the standard pulse signals into DTMF tones and play them down the line to the remote end office. At the remote site another encoder/decoder would decode the tones and perform pulse dialing. It was as if you were connected directly to that end office, yet the signaling would work over any sort of link. This idea of using the existing network for signaling as well as the message is known as in-band signaling. It was clear even in the late 1950s when DTMF was being developed that the future of switching lay in electronic switches, as opposed to the mechanical crossbar systems then in use. In this case pulse dialing made no sense at any point in the circuit, and plans were made to roll DTMF out to end users as soon as possible. Various tests of the system occurred throughout the 1960s where DTMF became known as Touch Tone. The Touch Tone system also introduced a standardized keypad layout. After testing 18 different layouts, they eventually chose the one familiar to us today, with 1 in the upper-left and 0 at the bottom. The adding-machine layout, with 1 in the lower-left was also tried, but at that time few people used adding machines, and having the 1 at the "start" (in European language reading order) led to fewer typing errors. In retrospect, many people consider that this was a mistake. With the widespread introduction of computers and bank machines, the phone keyboard has become "oddball", causing mistakes. The engineers had also envisioned phones being used to access computers, and surveyed a number of companies to see what they would need for this role. This led to the addition of the number sign (#) and star (*) keys, as well as a group of keys for menu selection, A, B, C and D. In the end the lettered keys were dropped from most phones, and it was many years before the # and * keys became widely used, primarily for certain vertical service codes such as *67 in the United States to suppress caller ID. Many non-telephone applications still use the alphabetic keys, such as amateur radio repeater signaling and control (see also autopatch). Public payphones that accept credit cards use these additional codes to send the information from the magnetic strip. The U.S. Military also used the letters, relabeled, in their now defunct Autovon phone system. Here they were used before dialing the phone in order to give some calls priority, cutting in over existing calls if need be. The idea was to allow important traffic to get through every time. The levels of priority available were Flash Override (A), Flash (B), Immediate (C), and Priority (D), with Flash Override being the highest priority. Pressing one of these keys gave your call priority, overriding other conversations on the network. Pressing C, Immediate, before dialing would make the switch first look for any free lines, and if all lines were in use, it would hang up any non-priority calls, and then any priority calls. Present-day uses of the A, B, C and D keys on telephone networks are few, and exclusive to network control. For example, the A key is used on some networks to cycle through different carriers at will (thereby listening in on calls). Their use is probably prohibited by most carriers.

List of telephony terms:

3gpp - a-law - abbreviated dialing - adsl - ani - answering machine - apn - automatic ring back - b-channel - baud - bell 202 modem - bit rate - bonding - bri - busy signal - cable modem - call-progress tones - call accounting - call capture - call forwarding - call originator - call park - call pick-up - call transfer - call waiting - call waiting deluxe - called party - caller id - caller id spoofing - calling party - carrier wave - cbr - ccitt - cdma - cdma2000 - cellular repeater - celp - channel - clec - clock rate - codec - collect call - conference - conference call - crc - csd - d-channel - data compression - device driver - dial-up - dial - dial tone - direct-inward-dialing - direct distance dialing - distinctive ring - dnis - dsl - dsp - dtmf - dtr - duplex - echo cancellation - edge - extension - fax - fcc - fdma - fidonet - follow-me - g.711 - g.723.1 - g.723 - g.726 - g.lite - gprs - gps - gsm - h.323 - harmonic - headphones - hscsd - hspda - iad - idsn - internet call waiting - isp - ivr - jack plug - local loop - long distance - microcontroller - mobile phone - modem - modulation - mu-law - music-on-hold - night service - off-hook - on-hook - pabx - pager - payphone - pbx - pcm - pots - prank call - precise tone plan - pstn - pulse dialling - push to talk - ring modulation - ring tone - ringback - ringing signal - rj11 - roaming - serial communications - serial port - signal noise - sim - simplex - sit - sms - softmodem - switchboard operator - tapi - tdma - telecommunications - telemarketing - telephone - telephone call - telephone card - telephone company - telephone exchange - telephone line - telephone number - telephone numbering plan - telephone operator - telephone switchboard - telephony - tts - twisted pair - umts - v.32 - v.32bis - v.34 - v.42bis - vbr - vertical service code - voicemail - voip - vox - wap - wav - wi-fi - wimax - wire