[UCIMC-Tech] IMC Telephone system in the basement

[Chris Ritzo]

Thanks Mike. I wouldn't have known about this if you hadn't mentioned it,
but it might be worthwhile at some point to get that information from the
post office. I know I've looked at the POTs switchers in the basement &
wondered about what's actually connected there. My best guess is that you're
right about the boiler room- there's a POTS patch panel there that's
certainly not in use by us as far as I can tell, so documenting what is
theirs is a good idea.

I've been proceeding slowly, focusing mostly on documenting what our
infrastructure is and where it runs. I'd like to get it to the point where
it's clearly labeled also. We'll get there.

I did double check my phone system documentation from this past March. The
second number is indeed WRFUs, and my next steps on this will be to trace
the lines from both the booth and the finance office, so we know where all
the lines are run. That's about all I'm promising at this point, although my
geeky side wants to install an Asterix server and set up a PBX for the IMC.
I have a friend who did this at his house and it would be pretty rad. Each
number could have a configurable message, voicemail, etc. If we were to then
run more line extensions to different areas of the building, we could have
something like - press 1 for books to prisoners, press 2 for Makerspace
Urbana, etc.

Dream big, proceed in small steps.

-Chris

On Sun, Sep 11, 2011 at 2:41 PM, Mike Lehman <rebelmike at earthlink.net>wrote:

> I'm sure Chris already knows this, but it occurred to me that others
> getting involved may not be, and should be.
>
> Since the post office is a secure federal facility, it has its own alarms.
> Not sure exactly where it all is and it's the sort of thing that's rather
> much "don't touch, don't tell" anyway.
>
> So use caution and common sense in digging into the phone circuits in the
> basement. Otherwise, the cops may show up wondering what's going on if
> you're working after hours.
>
> It's been too long since I dug into them myself for me to be much help, but
> I think they're obvious once you're oriented -- and Chris has the basics I'm
> certain. It may be that the PO stuff is all confined to the special PBX box
> in the boiler room where the alarms are, but I can't say for sure.
> Mike
>
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