American Telephone & Telegraph Co., At&t Bell Laboratories

Kenneth L Brooks

Jerry G Miller

David George Mihal

Paul R Bufkin

When a floating battery feed circuit is used to power telephone lines, it is desirable to provide an anti-corrosion biasing circuit to keep the voltage on the tip and ring conductors from becoming positive. This can be done using an anit-corrosion circuit that sinks a dynamic amount of current from the tip conductor. A line circuit including such biasing is, however, incompatible with special lines such as PBX lines that rely on a grounded tip conductor in the talk state. In accordance with the present invention, a constant current is supplied from a ground reference circuit to the ring conductor of such special lines only when loop current is flowing. The magnitude of this supplied current is such that the anti-corrosion circuit holds the tip conductor sufficiently close to ground potential to allow the proper operation of circuits connected to the special lines.

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Naperville, IL, United States of America

Kenneth L Brooks