On Mon, Dec 07, 2015 at 11:54:17AM -0600, Larry Sheldon wrote:
I'll join the confusion--I thought the OP wanted to test for power availability at the distant site by seeing if a modem there would answer the phone there. That it HAD to be a modem in that case makes no sense to me.
I'm of the line now and have been for a while and maybe y'all don't do things the way we did--we always had an answering machine (two or three in some places*) that always answered on the first ring and gave some kind of status report that was updated hourly on on event). If it did not answer, the power was out.
At a client wiring closet, the super-conscientious rack maintainer one day decided that it was good practice to replace consumer-standard batteries during his quarterly cleaning rounds. Answering machines have replaceable batteries. Modems do not. -- Henry Yen <Henry.Yen@Aegis00.com> Aegis Information Systems, Inc. Senior Systems Programmer Hicksville, New York (800) AEGIS-00 x949 1-800-AEGIS-00 (800-234-4700)