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No,
there hasn't been a lot of research in the area of digital modems for the
AccuVote. I don't think anyone thought that any site in the country (let
alone California) would be converting fax lines to digital.
We've
been trying to design a new internal modem for the AccuVote-OS. We
are trying to design it for worldwide telephone systems (or the ability to
be built for either N. American or European systems), but there has been no
movement towards creating a digital modem.
Right
now, there are converter boxes on the market. If you saw Guy's
previous email, then you would have seen my write-up on the PORTS Surelink
Adapter. It works, but it needs initial setup for each site (trial
and error type of setup) to match the idiosyncrasies of the specific digital
system installed in the building (they aren't all created equal). But even
that device can or can't do auto-dial (again depending on the digital system in
the building).
The
Surelink is something we found three years ago. There's probably others on
the market but I haven't spent any time looking for them. I'll discuss
this with Jeff Dean to see where he wants to go with it.
Ian
Today I received call from Spokane WA. They have been
out looking at polling locations (RFP to follow).
They are asking what AccuVote capability exists for their
schools (they have alot of school polling locations) and many of the distrits
have converted all phone lines (including fax - does that make sense - is
their "digital faxes"?). They want to know our plan for several years
down the line as more and more locations go digital.
Guy said "No, we haven't made
any enhancements and at this point we know of none that we could
make." Does anyone know of a "converter box" or something that
can be attached to AccuVote?? or phone line to make AV modem work with digital
lines? "Ian has done a little research in this area
but I haven't heard of much success." Ian, can you report on
this? Is it a question of having done our homework and there is no
solution, or we haven't really done too much research?
Comments.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, February 06, 2001 3:16
PM
Subject: Re: FW: Accu-vote &
digital phones
As our polling sites keep changing their analog
phone lines over to
digital, our election workers are having more
difficulty in transmitting
the information from the accu-vote machines
to the regional offices.
Has Global made any enhancements to
accommodate these changes in
telecommunications? No,
we haven't made any enhancements and at this point we know of none that we
could make. As far as I know, there are at least several different
types of digital lines. Therefore we would require either a universal
adaptor, separate adaptors for each type, a universal external modem, or
separate modems for each type of digital line. Ian has done a little
research in this area but I haven't heard of much success.
Unfortunately we don't have the latest discussion on this in our
archives (July 1998) so I'll append the messages here.
Guy
---
Subject: Digital phone lines and Accuvotes
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1998
14:44:50 -0700
Tari Runyan wrote:
Just a curious question... I know that most of the
telephone technology
is heading toward digital lines - many of our
customers already have
them -
Is this going to phase out analog
lines and thus force us to modify or
change completely the way the
Accuvotes communicate using analog lines
now- and force us to
accomodate the digital phone lines?
Is anyone getting any
grumbling ( besides me) from clients regarding the
ability (currently
the lack of ) to use digital phone lines?
Guy Lancaster wrote:
Okay, here's my 2 bits on the
subject. As far as I know, phone lines are
inherently
analog. By phone lines, I mean the lines running from the office
to the local telephone switching station. They require repeaters
to be
installed about every 2 kilometers and with these they install
low pass
filters to cut high frequency noise that listeners find very
annoying. The
Accu-Vote, like personal computers, use modems to
perform digital
communications over these analog phone lines.
So what do people mean by digital phone lines? They could
mean any one of
a multitude of options. ISDN, xDSL (including
HDSL, SDSL, ADSL, and VDSL),
ATM, and Frame Relay are all digital
transmission protocols designed to
carry both voice and data
digitally. These are carried on STD (Standard
Twisted Pair -
i.e. normal phone lines), and coax and fiber optic cable.
The
combinations are enormous and at this point, there is no clear leader in
any particular application area. All of these techologies
require special
black boxes on the local end of the line(s) to convert
these protocols to
something the customer can use. Which leads
to what I am guessing people
mean by digital lines...
PBX (Private Branch Exchange) systems are phone systems
installed in
business environments to take a number of voice and data
"channels" from the
phone company and distribute them to the
telephones and other equipment at
the local site. These PBX's
are accessed through RJ-11 or RJ-45 jacks
installed in office walls,
floors, and utility posts. Since the connectors
may be the same
as those used for "standard" phones, people often think of
the jacks
as "phone lines". However, you cannot just plug a standard phone
into one of these jacks and have it work. That's because some of
the wires
in the connection are used to communicate with the PBX and
without them, you
don't get any services. Unfortunately each PBX
defines its own protocols so
you will not likely be able to plug in
your neighbors PBX handset into your
lines unless you share the same
type.
What this means is that the Accu-Votes telephone line port
cannot be
directly connected to one of the normal jacks in the
office. Instead
customers usually have to borrow a standard
phone line (usually installed
for a fax machine) or have one installed
for Accu-Vote use. People would of
course like to be able to
just plug the Accu-Vote into one of their normal
(PBX) jacks and have
it work. This is what I interpret from the request for
supporting digital phone lines.
It would be very difficult (and expensive) to support this
directly. What
PBX systems would we support? How much
additional hardware would be
required? Are there pocket sized
adaptors available that we could install
in the Accu-Vote instead of a
regular modem? I suspect that serious
investigation of these
questions would lead to the conclusion that it's not
worth it. I
could be wrong...
In the Vancouver office we have a PBX that allows us to in plug
an
Accu-Vote and use it provided that you plug one of the office
handsets into
the telephone handset connector on the Accu-Vote.
Then you use the handset
to select an outside line and then the
Accu-Vote dials normally.
I suspect that other systems wouldn't support this. Ian
has tried to use
a special adaptor at the McKinney office in order to
connect his computer
modem but last I heard he had not been
successful. However, such an adaptor
would seem to be the
logical answer and I'm sure that some telephone
equipment
manufacturers offer them for their PBX systems. I'm afraid that
it will be up to the customer reps to talk to the customer's PBX
supplier to
check in to this. Just explain that you want to be
able to connect a
computer modem to an outside modem through their
PBX. I would be keen to
hear what you find.
"Ian S. Piper" wrote:
Adapters:
I have setup the SureLink Digital Telephone Adapter to gain access to
outside
lines from the MCKinney PBX system. This is how I
currently access my Internet
connection. Unfortunately, the
adapter only supports auto-dial on about 50% of
digital PBX
systems. On the McKinney PBX, I have to let the computer dial its
number (not that it is connected to a dial tone or anything), lift the
handset,
choose an outside line, and then dial the number
manually. There is also a
signal strength switch that must be
set to an optimum position (1 thru 4) for
your telephone system.
The manual does list the auto-dial compatibility of
numerous digital
PBX systems and the signal strength switch recommended initial
setting. Once everything is configured and tested, it works
fine. But without
an auto-dial compatibility, a poll worker
would require special training to use
it.
It's not as simple an operation as you would want for a poll
worker. I
recommend still using an analog fax line at the
precinct site. But if a fax
line cannot be found, then this may
be an alternate solution for you. The
retail cost on these items
will be 180.00 US each. No discounts are available
for this
item.
Ken Clark wrote:
> Is anyone getting any grumbling ( besides me)
from clients regarding the
> ability (currently the lack of ) to
use digital phone lines?
> Tari
Digital phone lines are very cool. Everyone is going to dedicated
T1 lines
for their telco systems. There are systems available
from 3COM and Cisco
systems that give you a bank of modems that can
communicate directly with
their T1. They would be extremely nice
to work with, because there would
not be all the cabling hastle that
we currently have. They also integrate
with TCP/IP protocols,
which is how the the AccuVote 2.0 firmware
communicates. This
would mean, at the end of the day, two cables (T1 in and
ethernet out)
to handle 24 phone lines. The systems are very reliable.
This is
how you local ISP works.
This is all fine and well, but:
- The equipment is very expensive. In a perfect world, the big
counties
will already have the equipment, but since they usually use
their lines
mostly for voice communication, they probably won't.
Very expensive means
$500 per line.
- You need a lot of network training to know how to set these systems
up.
The other route we can go, is to farm out the whole telephone thing to
an
ISP (who already has the equipment) and do everything over the
internet.
This will probably be the way things work in the long
term. With the
internet, what you have to start worrying about
is security.
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