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Just found out dial-up tones were legally required in some countries
I was digging through old FCC filings from 1994 and found a rule that modems sold in the US had to have that screechy handshake sound audible for call monitoring. I always thought it was just a design quirk, but it was an actual regulation. Did anyone else think those tones were purely for ambiance back then?
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michaelrodriguez1mo ago
Wait, so the phone companies actually wanted to hear that noise? That seems weird when you think about it. If the point was call monitoring, did they need the full screech or just some kind of signal that a modem was on the line? And how did they enforce something like that, did someone actually go around testing modems to make sure they were loud enough? I remember reading that some places had rules about the volume of the dial tone too, which makes you wonder how much of what we heard back then was just leftover phone company rules instead of actual tech needs.
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