digital phone line/analog modem ?

Edwards Finance > Phones

Q. I'm going to be on vacation in a couple weeks, and i need to take my work with me, which means accessing the internet on a daily, hourly basis with my laptop (vaio f-560) but the place im going to be staying at has digital phone lines...now..i heard somewhere that i will need to get some sort of *converter* or something so i dont fizzle out my normal 56k modem? is this true? or is there another fix to it? just seems kinda risky plugging a standard analog modem into a digital phone line...but i could be mistaken...and often i am.

A. If you search for Konexx at http://www.cdw.com/ you could find examples of some devices that can plug directly into digital phone systems. Or an adapter that goes from your RJ11 to the handset jack should be safe with any phone system. Most motels should have a Data port on the phone. If all else fails, you can get online at any Kinkos copy center and have excellent printing as well. I did that to get a 21 page manual I needed by e-mail using their computer and print it up, but they have laptop connections too. On our system, the digital and analog jacks look identical, just like a jack at home. Thee isn't any really foolproof way to ID them, other than to plug a digital phone into the jack and see if it works. An analog phone will hummmm a lot, and if you leave it in long enough you might let the smoke out. Now ISDN and other similar lines have the big RJ-45 type jack and look differetn than a telephone jack. But this can kill, too, of you plug your network cable into it. I have a small APC laptop surge protector for my laptop that also has phone line connections. It is able to detect digital/analog by first connecting the line to it from the wall, then you press a button on the unit and the status light tells you which type is connected. If it indicates analog then there is no problem. I did extensive travelling all over the US over the last couple of years carrying my laptop and had no problem in any hotel. All of the room phones had a data jack that is analog. You'll prove no such thing. If you connect an analog modem directly to a digital line you'll destroy the modem in nearly every instance. The connection speed will be permanently reduced to zero.

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