Can a Rotary Phone Still Work?

[@linamarie84]

Rotary phones do work!! When calling certain numbers they ask if youre dialing from a rotary phone!❤ thank you for doing this! So cool!

[@heroknaderi]

This is very cool

[@MaximRecoil]

That's not a true rotary phone. It's a modern imitation of a rotary phone that actually sends DTMF tones (AKA: touch tones), which is why it works on any modern phone line. To see if a rotary phone will work on your phone line (if it's VoIP rather than a traditional landline then you probably won't be able to dial out with it), you need a true rotary phone, like the Western Electric model 500 (which was released in 1949/1950 and is the type of phone that yours is imitating). You'll also notice how much higher quality it looks and feels compared to that modern imitation, especially with regard to the dial mechanism.

[@linamarie84]

I don't like this comment. You come off as arrogant and a know it all. I don't understand why people come to videos just to critique. If you're informative make your own video:)

[@MaximRecoil]

@@linamarie84 "I don't like this comment." Gee, that's too bad. "You come off as arrogant and a know it all." Your non sequitur is dismissed. The phone he used in this video is a touch-tone phone, manufactured recently in China to resemble an old rotary phone (but it functions completely differently). Of course a touch-tone phone still works, because touch-tone is still the current dialing standard. The latest iPhone or whatever is also a touch-tone phone. Would it make any sense to make a video asking if the latest iPhone still works just because it has an "app" that shows an animation of a rotary dial on the screen? "I don't understand why people come to videos just to critique. If you're informative make your own video:)" Your non sequitur is dismissed.

[@mariellopez4126]

yep very true and now a days im not familiar with any actual landlines besides voIP except the city of atherton CA . i have 2 a imattion rotary and an actual rotary and you can not call out with the real rotary phone 😢because of voIP

[@jonquils1]

@@MaximRecoil I thought your comment was informative and helpful. I appreciate it, thank you.

[@MaximRecoil]

​@@jonquils1 You're welcome, and that's why I posted. If someone with VoIP phone service goes out and buys a real rotary phone thinking it will be able to dial out with it on their line because they watched this video, they're almost certainly going to be disappointed. There are workarounds, such as small pulse-to-DTMF converters that you can install inside the rotary phone, or PBX systems that can convert pulse dialing to DTMF (the Panasonic 308 or 616 is often used by vintage phone collectors for that purpose), but the chances of a real rotary phone being able to dial out as-is on a VoIP line is very slim. It would only work if the VoIP company designed / set up their system to allow it to work, and very few, if any, of them do that, because there's not much customer demand for it. On the other hand, if you have a traditional copper phone line through a real phone company like I do, which is increasingly rare these days, it will probably still work as-is (it does for me). My local central office, which is just up the street from me, still uses switching equipment that was introduced in 1982 (Western Electric 5ESS), so it understands both pulse (rotary) and DTMF dialing, since rotary phones were still in common use at the time.