[VoIP] The Mighty Comdial

[Greg Blakely]

Well, I'm impressed.

 

About 12 years ago, I installed a Comdial Impact key system in my house.  It
was cutting edge at the time; it had caller ID, and it ran on a single pair
of wires.  (My old Comdial Key system used two pairs:  one for voice, and
one for data)

 

This past weekend, my son came bounding up the stairs to tell me that things
were flooding in the basement.  After running down there, I saw that the
pipe that went to the outside faucet was spraying water all over the furnace
room - spraying right into my Comdial key system, as well as an Ethernet
switch, and all the "valuable" stuff we had in boxes along the walls.

 

I yanked the power cord into the electronics, hoping against hope that I'd
gotten there in time to avoid permanent damage.

 

I've replaced my share of Mitel SX20 or SX100 consoles because a careless
desk clerk spilled coffee or pop into them.  Opening them up, there was
always a green trace of oxidized copper following along the route of the
spilled liquid.  And I was able to salvage darn few of them.

 

Back to this past weekend.  After four hours of a fan blowing into the KSU,
I powered it up, and was dismayed to see every one of my key sets displaying
the message "No Communication."  I unplugged it again, and left the fan
going over night.  I was astonished to see that, in the morning, every phone
except one was fully functional, and, by noon, there was nothing at all that
wasn't functioning.

 

So, 12 years old.  Is this descendant of the Stromberg Carlson telephone a
"legacy" system yet?  Maybe not, but, as well as it has performed in a
pinch, I have no doubt that it will one day pass whatever line exists that
we use to designate a phone or phone system as a piece of history.