WIll this really work?

http://contents.fifthunit.com/html/products.5th/sku.777.html

In theory, yes -- as long as the unit does not take much power.

The down side is that if you use too many of them, your phones may stop working. Also, if too many people use them, the phone company may want to have a talk with you.

Another thing to consider is that when the phone rings, a lot of voltage is generated (over 60V, I believe). So, if you just go around plugging random things into your phone jacks, they may be fried the next time that somebody calls. Whatever you plug in has to be designed to handle these transients.

So, while this unit may work, I rather doubt its usefullness under ordinary circumstances. If it can be powered off of the phone line, you are saving yourself maybe $1 of electricity over using a similar light running off of 120V.

I would also not buy more than one of them. For emergency use, one of them may be quite useful. But as you plug more in, the more you load down the phone power supply.

Yes, it should. The phone line carries a small amount of current and should be enough to power an LED lamp. I wouldn't use this in anything but an emergency situation and then only sparingly. The system wasn't designed for constant draw of power, but instead has power in order to send it's signal and to ring you. I'm guessing that it degrades the quality of the line just by being turned on, and may prevent inbound calls from reaching you.

Here's a follow up question. I don't have a home phone any longer, just a cell. Would there still be power coming into my place?

Um. Is it just me or is this really a bad idea? I've got a cell phone also, but I happily pay the 20 bucks/month to have a landline coming into the house. Besides the warm, reassuring hum of a dial-tone, there are a lot of cases where your landline will be working long after the cell phone has become a paperweight. Especially if you live in an area with buried, as opposed to overhead, wires back to the central office. Even if the power goes out, your phone is powered from the CO (obviously) and they have both battery and generator backup systems to keep their (and your) equipment going.

$20 per month is a complete waste of money for me. The land line was never used once my daughter moved out. I have an inverter to recharge my cell as long as there is service, and my HAM radios when there isn't.

O.k. the cell phone's dead. How fast can you get to your HAM equipment and dial 911? Just sayin'.

I don't dial 911. But to answer your question, I can get out on my HAM radio at least as fast as on a telephone. In an disaster situation, there are numerous nets running, at least in my area.

Hmmm.. From the last time I looked at HAMs, they all required power or battery.. If there is no electricity for a week or a month, will your HAM still work?

I pay $5 a month for my landline, no long distance, nothing, just the dial tone.. I only use it for toll free calls when I need to talk to my bank, or any other institution that requires me to "authenticate" myself. For all other calls, I use my VoIP or my cellular.

First, if there's no electricity for a week or a month, I'll bet dollars to donuts the land line phones are out as well. That said, I easily have enough battery power for my HAM radios, especially if I'm running low wattage locally. Getting on the HF bands running morse code can be done at very low power as well, and requires very little time operating.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying my HAM radios can substitute for telephone, land or cell, in every case. All I'm saying is that I can spend $240 per year on things that will be better for me than a land line phone in addition to my cell.

Is it just me or is this product one of those "just because you can doesn't mean you should" situations? I don't know if there are any regs that actually outlaw something like this, but even if there aren't, seems like if too many people tapped into the phone lines to draw power with all kinds of phone line-powered gadgets, it could be a rather widespread nuisance or even a real problem for the phone system. Granted, many corded phones are lit by phone line power, but they're not running 8 LED's either. Maybe one day it'll be "Buy my phone line powered alarm clock! Here's a phone line powered air freshener!" <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I don't have home phone service either....just cell. But locally you can plug an phone in and still call 911 or the phone company (to setup service). I assume this is the standard nationally. I keep a regular (non-powered/non-cordless) phone plugged in at all times.....just in case.

Sooo... Let me get this straight. You don't think that a landline is worth any amount of money (and I think in my case I could knock my bill down to around $13/mo. for just a dial tone), but you'd like for the phone company to send you some free power?

<img src="/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> ...now I'm just being nasty. Peace.

LOL! Actually, just the opposite. I was hoping it wouldn't work so there'd be one less thing I should buy!

Seriously, I saw it mentioned on a different survival thread, one where the folks seem less technical than here, so I was just looking for some edumacation.

Well, to get back to your original question:

Will it work if you have service? Certainly.

Will it work if you don't have service? Don't know. Plug in a phone, if you get a dial-tone, it will work. What 308holes said about having a "default" service sounds like a really good idea, but I don't think it's universal.

In any event, I agree with what's already been said. It's kinda' gimmicky, doesn't seem to be that particularly useful, and has the potential to cause problems with existing phones. I really hope these devices don't proliferate. The phone system wasn't designed as an alternative power grid. I can see SBC/ATT mailing out letter bombs to people they find doing this sort of thing. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Thread-jack? Maybe, but there was a story in the news some months back about a couple that lost their daughter when they discovered the hard way that their inexpensive VOIP phone service didn't have 911 capability. Since then laws have been passed to make it mandatory.

Thought it might be worth a mention that redundant means of communication "can't hoyt' ".

Dominos pizza!! If it ain't here in 30 minutes, I get it for free right? <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Um, yeah. O.k. -mark

It would definantly reduce your line quality. I wouldn't hazard a guess as to the results of trying it on a VOIP based system. And harrkev raises a good point about peak voltage, but putting in a regulator circuit wouldn't be too terribly difficult.

My big question is, how bright is it really?

It is. The ability to contact the phone company is a simple marketting thing on thier part, and I think that the 911 part is one of the few times that the FCC was willing to play hardball. But even then, it's good marketting- dead customers don't pay.

It's getting harder and harder to find payphones. ANYwhere. When you do, they are vandalized or smell like a nasty truckstop bathroom (often the case when transients are nearby). Phone companies realize that they are a losing proposition except in the most trafficked of areas.

They are usually the last things to get repaired on the worklist, the first things to break or get broken by punks, and don't return nearly enough on the investment if they aren't busy. Funny enough, even those call collect commercials have gone away because of the advent of ubiquitous cellular and VOIP technology and drop in both cost and barriers to entry (such as the pay-per-use phones and widespread broadband). I mean, if Carrot Top can't make a buck anymore on those commercials, how do you think the local Telco thinks about the spraypainted piece of crap payphone with the missing handset?

As a retired communications engineer with over thirty years experience both here and abroad, I must say that not all communications lines are the same even within the same company or area. Part of this is the technology used to provide service. For instance you may be served via land line all the way back to the central switch, by carrier, by fiber optic, or any combination of systems. You may even be on a shared line with other people, i.e. the old party line. Fiber systems cannot transmit power. Glass fiber is an insulator. The small power systems designed for fiber optic systems are supplied by the commercial power company on the subscriber's end. Those remote sites have backup battery systems and contingency dispatched remote generators. But if a large area is without power for very long or if flooded, fiber systems will fail as well as the power to energize remote LED lights.

Most telephone companies pull the heat coils at the Central Switch when a subscriber disconnects their phone service, so no power or dial tone reaches them. If they want service reconnected, they must find another way to reach the phone company. There are not enough lines yet or will there ever be to dedicate to every residence. That is how communication engineers make their money.

Wow, I've never seen them kill the circuit. Tell the computer to mostly ignore it, sure, never completely take it out of service. Does Vermont actually have enough of some kind of infrastructre asset? I'm shocked.

FWIW: I went to the "horses mouth" on the subject and called the ATT/SBC repair dept. Talked to a woman there that seemed knowledgeable on the subject. She said that if one asks to discontinue their phone service, the line is physically disconnected (no dial-tone, no minimal level of service). Of course this practice probably varies among providers and locales. Best to check with your own provider.

Maybe I'm missing something, but I think you were just asking if the technology worked...not if you could get free power from any phone outlet. Yes, technology should work, rotary dial phones get their power from the outlet...so it should work. In a storm, this would be an excellent light source.

If I remember correctly, each phone has a "ringer equivalent". The network will power up to some "ringer equivalent", after that, you will have issues. I believe it was a mostly amperage thing, but since they're all related, you might want to look into that.

I do know from experience if you put more than whatever this magical maximum "ringer" value, the phones will not ring, or very low. Make sure your device is compatible...

Exactly. It's really no different than when I ask "Where do you keep the key to the liquor cabinet?" It just means that I'm intensely curious about such things as the places people find to keep their keys. <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Sheesh, people are just sooo defensive about some things...