The phone system is actually located inside your elevator. No point in picking around in the elevator machine room, we just patch the line through to the cab there. As I stated, very clearly, ask your elevator contractor about your phones. There ARE systems that can take VOIP. Rath Microtech V and above I believe have this ability. They may be forced to take an alteration permit out though, and upgrade to the newest code, which will have phone fault requirements, so it could be expensive.
As for the 16 dollar phone line, last project manager I discussed this with told me that number. For a simple POTS line it ran him 16 bucks a month, per line.
Our industry overall is not very fond of cutting corners, as you may or may not understand. The very best of us, wants the very best equipment, for you as an owner to have. Again I do not want to imply I would tell you how to run a building, as I am not familiar with it, just remember cheaper is very often times just that, cheaper. It is not as good, not as reliable, and you usually end up paying for it in the end.
Also probably best not to start a conversation about money saving exercises with the sentence " when I'm out on my yacht...." . Just a thought.
There was another member on here who told me that OTIS had something like I was talking about in the early 2000 however it was abandoned since it did not work that well.
It was reasonable to think that something with an antenna might also have the same feature that OTIS had but maybe something perfected.
I was really trying to expand on what other member posted
Also, it was not really a yacht but more of a regular size boat with a cabin inside. Very expensive upkeep and I sold it.
However, the point remains that I had a device that allowed you to send a distress call to the coastguard and have them locate the device. I don't know if it used satellite or pings like the Blackbox on airplanes. All I knew if it the boat was sinking, you grabbed the bag with the device in it and inflated the life raft and hoped the coastguard could find you.
Seem like that might be a good idea as a plan B for these elevators.
Thank you once again for explaining and answering my quesiton.
Actually my point was Otis had a 'functional' connection back to base, purely so base can monitor when elevators broke down. It had 'no' cellular functionality and in 'no' was a replacement for the emergency phone. My post was only within that context.
Snap.
Thank you for the response.
I suggested that other person may just cut the lines however I am trying to do the right thing and asking questions on this forum to setup an alternative method.
The building is not 100% abandoned. There is still a small company on the ground level however I do understand what you are saying.
Thanks.