HAVE LAP, WILL TRAVEL
Telephone Tips
by Stefanie Kott

You're on a trip, carrying your trusty portable computer. You've mastered telecommunications at home or in the office and remembered to pack all the paraphernalia (adapters, batteries, cables). You've had a hard day. When you reach your hotel room, the bed looks inviting, but you resist the urge to fall into it long enough to send your boss the work you promised or to check in on your favorite computer conference(s).

There's No Phone Jack!

Ideally, the modem cable plugs into a telephone jack and into your computer. But when you trace the phone wire to the wall of your hotel room, you find there is no jack; the wire is anchored to the wall. What to do?

Since more and more hotels are hard-wiring their phones against theft, and since all telephone booths are hard-wired, you may be out of luck unless you've come prepared: A modem MUST connect somehow to a phone. But if you check the ads in any portable- computer magazine, you will see that there are a number of products that help you handle a hard-wired phone.

One lightweight solution is acoustic cups. After dialing a phone number manually, as you would when calling home, you then place each end of the telephone receiver into a rubber cup. Transmission proceeds as if through a telephone wire.

Since acoustic cups do not work on all portables (for example, the Radio Shack acoustic cups do not work on the NEC 8200 portables, even though the NECs are similar to Model 100s), another possible device is an acoustic modem. Acoustic modems are external to the computer and allow transmission through the phone receiver. Whereas they can be large, heavy and clunky, their proportions are diminishing as new products reach the market.

If the mouthpiece on the phone you're using screws off, you can replace the phone's mouthpiece with a rubber device that looks like, and temporarily replaces, the telephone mouthpiece. This becomes a substitute for a wall jack; snap the clip from your modem wire into a wall-jack-type receptacle in the now-rubber phone mouthpiece.

The cheapest and, some say, most versatile way to make a connection is with a modular cable that has alligator clips at one end. Clip the alligator clips to the contacts inside the mouthpiece or to the wall plate if the phone mouthpiece can't be unscrewed. (Caution: If you connect to the wall plate, make sure one clip connects to the red wire and the other to the green wire.)

Oddities in Placing Outside Calls

Your hotel requires that you dial 9 to get an outside line. Since your modem allows automatic dialing, you add a 9 in front of the phone number. But the call repeatedly (or intermittently) doesn't go through. What to do? Dial 9 a few times to see how quickly (and consistently) you get an outside line. If it takes a few seconds, make sure there's a pause between the 9 and the rest of the number in the autodial script to allow for the lag.

When the software you're using has automatic logon (which automatically sends the commands needed to get to the computer you're dialing, including your Username and Password), you've probably added pauses to allow enough time between the last number dialed and the time your first command is sent. (Different programs have different symbols that represent a pause, such as a "p" or a comma.) A number might wind up looking something like this:

9pp12125551212ppppp or 9,12125551212,,,,

NOTHING Works!

You've done EVERYTHING right. You've got all the right equipment and have checked all the variables. What next?

One unfortunate result of the new free enterprise in the telephone arena (encouraging hotels and businesses to outfit their facilities with phones other than Ma Bell's) is that some of those alternative systems have standards and protocols that differ from Ma Bell's. But computers that speak to each other must be compatible, and data transmissions are standardized on Bell protocols. It is therefore possible that some hotel phones CANNOT be used for transmissions. Period.

What to do? If the hotel phones cannot be used for transmissions, go to the phone booth in the lobby (with whatever acoustic device you have) and place your call from there! And here's a tip for calling from phone booths: If you plan to be on for more than a few minutes, use a credit card so you're not interrupted by the Recorded Operator.

Getting Garbling or Disconnected?

You've made a connection with an acoustic modem or cups, but your transmissions are garbled. What to do? 1) Try (if you're in a hotel room) putting the receiver and coupler under a pillow, or 2) try unscrewing the earpiece to see if the hollow part of the handle of the phone is stuffed with cotton. If it is not, or if there is not much, stuff cotton or tissues in the earpiece to reduce echoing and feedback between it and the microphone.

You're in your hotel room and you've made a connection; suddenly you're disconnected. What to do? Disconnections sometimes occur when someone tries to call you, or if there's a call- waiting beep, or if a message light is placed on your phone. There is no remedy for disconnections, other than to reconnect.

One thing to remember when the complexity of telecommunications seems a little overwhelming: Getting the right balance of variables for successful telecommunications under varying travel conditions can be challenging, but ultimately the new workstyles it offers more than balance its pitfalls. Just remember that we're on the cusp of a new day, and that things are bound to get better/easier/faster. Very Soon Now.

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Author's note: Thanks to Sherwin Levinson, who gave me some
interesting telephone tips. He points out that airline clubs, like the
Delta Crown Rooms, have local phones with modular jacks. It is possible
that airlines' clubs have equipment to suit high-tech travelers. Sherwin
also makes and sells modular clips with complete instructions. He can be
contacted as Sherwin on all public Participate systems, STF003 or BBV976
on The Source, 71745,1257 on Compuserve, SHERWIN on BIX.