Installation manual
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I am a telephone hobbyist. My professional work is not related to telephone
installation. In my spare time, I have tinkered with telephones for the last 40
years.
In the 1990, AT&T introduced the Partner phone system, aimed at small
business and upscale residential markets. The Merlin phone system
introduced a half-dozen years prior was evolving to larger sizes and more
complex systems, leaving a gap at the small end. Since 1990, Partner has
evolved to be a simple yet powerful system handling small and medium
offices, yet still targeting the upscale residence. Perhaps because of the later
start, Partner systems tend to have more user features than Merlin.
There is an active market in buying/selling used Partner equipment. Because
older models are not now manufactured, there is a dearth of information
available to hobbyists.
Avaya, successor to AT&T, makes a current line of equipment, the Partner
ACS, which is extremely capable, and suitable for modern office telecom
applications. By no means should this document dissuade anyone from
considering purchase of new equipment from Avaya or its distributors.
Should you be interested in understanding the older systems, read further
here. This is not an effort to dissuade you from purchasing a new Avaya
Partner ACS system. New Partner ACS customers may also benefit from
reading this guide.
It is not the intention of this guide to replace the documentation originally
written for Partner systems. If you want to know how to install and program
these systems, find the documentation elsewhere (see “Available
Documentation,” on page 5.)
This guide will help you understand the different models of phones and
systems, and compare them. It may also include obscure technical
documentation not easily found elsewhere. I encourage those with additional
knowledge to send me updates.
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With Partner, AT&T introduced the concept of an electronic key telephone
system that supported both a range of System phones plus low-cost standard
telephones. Unique to Partner, all System phones allowed connecting an
adjunct standard telephone. This capability made it possible to attach
standard telephone accessories, such as faxes, modems, credit-card-dialers, to
any system phone, or hook them to the system directly.