Tones
Preceding, during, and after a traditional telephone call is placed, certain tones signify the progress and status of the telephone call:
- a dial tone signifying that the system is ready to accept a telephone number and connect the call
- either:
- a ringing tone signifying that the calling party has yet to answer the telephone
- a busy signal (or engaged tone) signifying that the calling party's telephone is being used in a telephone call to another person (or is "off the hook" though no number has been dialled, i.e. the customer does not want to be disturbed)
- a fast busy signal (also called reorder tone or overflow busy tone) signifying that there is congestion in the telephone network, or possibly that the calling subscriber has delayed too long in dialling all the necessary digits. The fast busy signal is generally twice as fast as the normal busy signal.
- status tones such as STD notification tones (to inform the caller that the telephone call is being trunk dialled at a greater cost to the calling party), minute minder beeps (to inform the caller of the relative duration of the telephone call on calls that are charged on a time basis), and others
- a tone (sometimes the busy signal, often the dial tone) to signify that the called party has hung up.
- tones used by earlier inband telephone switching systems were simulated by a Red box or a blue box used by "phone phreaks" to illegally make or receive free trunk/toll calls.
Read more about this topic: Telephone Call
Famous quotes containing the word tones:
“‘Tis not that thy mien is stately,
‘Tis not that thy tones are soft;”
—Charles Stuart Calverley (1831–1884)
“And this mighty master of the organ of language, who knew its every stop and pipe, who could awaken at will the thin silver tones of its slenderest reeds or the solemn cadence of its deepest thunder, who could make it sing like a flute or roar like a cataract, he was born into a country without literature.”
—Willa Cather (1873–1947)
“This was Venice, the flattering and suspect beauty—this city, half fairy tale and half tourist trap, in whose insalubrious air the arts once rankly and voluptuously blossomed, where composers have been inspired to lulling tones of somniferous eroticism.”
—Thomas Mann (1875–1955)