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Analog display services interface (ADSI) is a telephony technology that is used in plain old telephone service (POTS) or computer-based private branch exchange (PBX) telephone service. It works in conjunction with a screen-based telephone ("screenphone") or other compatible customer-premises equipment (CPE) to provide the user with softkey access to telephone company or internal PBX custom calling features. It is an analog service because it uses analog frequency-shift keying (FSK) technology to interact with an LCD screen via short, low-baud rate, downloads to refresh and re-program softkeys in real-time.
The technology introduced in the United States and rolled out to Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs) from Bellcore in April 1995, (very soon after the introduction of CLASS-based services through electronic switching system (ESS)), was marketed by the RBOCs who implemented it, as a way to streamline all available custom calling options through the use of a screen-based telephone; giving residential and small business telephone subscribers PBX-like functionality at home or in small office/home office (SOHO) locations at a significantly lower cost. The service debuted before the onslaught of personal communications service (PCS) and voice over Internet protocol (VoIP)-based telephony technologies became available and was originally slated to also work in conjunction with other types of services such as enhanced directory assistance, telephone banking, movie theatre ticket sales, and other services that could interact with an LCD-screen.
Some of those services did become available later, though, not at the dramatic increase the US-based telephone companies had hoped. Canadian telephone companies such as Telus and Bell Canada, however, had much better luck implementing more ADSI-based services with other industries such as banking, and were still marketing the service actively as of 2005.
The service is marketed at telephone customers who subscribe to the majority of custom local area signaling services (CLASS)-based services offered by their local telephone company (such as caller ID, call return, etc.) by the customization of a telephone capable of providing one-touch access to these features. This greatly increases customer usability by alleviating the need to memorize dialing codes such as *69.
Additionally, a few RBOCs introduced new features such as call waiting deluxe and message waiting indicator to work exclusively with ADSI telephones. The former being perhaps the most involved example of ADSI capabilities and the latter being an example of visual FSK; another new technology available through CLASS.
The RBOCs who offer this service also restructured their billing of these services into value-based "packages" to stimulate customer interest.
Compatible equipment
U S West Communications, the first local RBOC to offer this service, marketed it as "Home Receptionist" service. Home Receptionist service included a Nortel Powertouch (or Vista) 350 screen-based telephone and "line-provisioning" service to make it work. This service is still offered by Qwest Communications (the successor to US West), BellSouth and SBC Communications; though the service has different marketing names.
Nortel discontinued the x5x telephone line and introduced a more streamlined version called the 39x-line and then later the 48x-line in 1998. CIDCo and Cybiotronics later introduced their own lines of screenphones after the original Nortel Patent expired.
Nortel sold off its CPE line to Aastra Technologies in 1999 and Aastra continues to market these telephones through various channels.
P100 Screenphone (Swedish version)
Philips Austria manufactured a screen phone model called the P100. It was sold throughout the US and several European countries.
Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson, commonly known as Ericsson, is a Swedish multinational networking and telecommunications company headquartered in Stockholm. The company sells infrastructure, software, and services in information and communications technology for telecommunications service providers and enterprises, including, among others, 3G, 4G, and 5G equipment, and Internet Protocol (IP) and optical transport systems. The company employs around 100,000 people and operates in more than 180 countries. Ericsson has over 57,000 granted patents.
Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) is a set of communication standards for simultaneous digital transmission of voice, video, data, and other network services over the digitalised circuits of the public switched telephone network. Work on the standard began in 1980 at Bell Labs and was formally standardized in 1988 in the CCITT "Red Book". By the time the standard was released, newer networking systems with much greater speeds were available, and ISDN saw relatively little uptake in the wider market. One estimate suggests ISDN use peaked at a worldwide total of 25 million subscribers at a time when 1.3 billion analog lines were in use. ISDN has largely been replaced with digital subscriber line (DSL) systems of much higher performance.
In telecommunications, a customer-premises equipment or customer-provided equipment (CPE) is any terminal and associated equipment located at a subscriber's premises and connected with a carrier's telecommunication circuit at the demarcation point ("demarc"). The demarc is a point established in a building or complex to separate customer equipment from the equipment located in either the distribution infrastructure or central office of the communications service provider.
Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also called IP telephony, is a method and group of technologies for voice calls for the delivery of voice communication sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet.
Computer telephony integration, also called computer–telephone integration or CTI, is a common name for any technology that allows interactions on a telephone and a computer to be coordinated. The term is predominantly used to describe desktop-based interaction for helping users be more efficient, though it can also refer to server-based functionality such as automatic call routing.
Caller identification is a telephone service, available in analog and digital telephone systems, including voice over IP (VoIP), that transmits a caller's telephone number to the called party's telephone equipment when the call is being set up. The caller ID service may include the transmission of a name associated with the calling telephone number, in a service called Calling Name Presentation (CNAM). The service was first defined in 1993 in International Telecommunication Union – Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) Recommendation Q.731.3.
GeoPort is a serial data system used on some models of the Apple Macintosh that could be externally clocked to run at a 2 megabit per second data rate. GeoPort slightly modified the existing Mac serial port pins to allow the computer's internal DSP hardware or software to send data that, when passed to a digital-to-analog converter, emulated various devices such as modems and fax machines. GeoPort could be found on late-model 68K-based machines as well as many pre-USB Power Macintosh models and PiPPiN. Some later Macintosh models also included an internal GeoPort via an internal connector on the Communications Slot. Apple GeoPort technology is now obsolete, and modem support is typically offered through USB.
A voicemail system is a computer-based system that allows users and subscribers to exchange personal voice messages; to select and deliver voice information; and to process transactions relating to individuals, organizations, products, and services, using an ordinary phone. The term is also used more broadly to denote any system of conveying a stored telecommunications voice messages, including using an answering machine. Most cell phone services offer voicemail as a basic feature; many corporate private branch exchanges include versatile internal voice-messaging services, and *98 vertical service code subscription is available to most individual and small business landline subscribers.
Bell-Northern Research (BNR) was a telecommunications research and development company established In 1971 when Bell Canada and Northern Electric combined their R&D organizations. It was jointly owned by Bell Canada and Northern Telecom. BNR was absorbed into Nortel Networks when that company changed its name from Northern Telecom in the mid-1990s.
Aastra Technologies Limited, formerly headquartered in Concord, Ontario, Canada, made products and systems for accessing communication networks, including the Internet. Its products included residential and business telephone terminals, screen telephones, Enterprise private branch exchanges (PBX), network access terminals and high-quality digital video encoders, decoders and gateways. Residential telephone equipment was sold in the United States as Bell equipment by Sonecor brand, which represented Southern New England Telecommunications.
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In telephony, a message-waiting indicator (MWI) is a Telcordia Technologies term for an FSK-based telephone calling feature that illuminates an LED on selected telephones to notify a telephone user of waiting voicemail messages on most North American public telephone networks and PBXs.
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Unified communications (UC) is a business and marketing concept describing the integration of enterprise communication services such as instant messaging (chat), presence information, voice, mobility features, audio, web & video conferencing, fixed-mobile convergence (FMC), desktop sharing, data sharing, call control and speech recognition with non-real-time communication services such as unified messaging. UC is not necessarily a single product, but a set of products that provides a consistent unified user interface and user experience across multiple devices and media types.
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CT Connect is a software product that allows computer applications to monitor and control telephone calls. This monitoring and control is called computer-telephone integration, or CTI. CT Connect implements CTI by providing server software that supports the CTI link protocols used by a range of telephone systems, and client software that provides an application programming interface (API) for telephony functions.
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