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Northern Telecom DV-1 Teleconference Bridge

herenow

New Member
Joined
Nov 30, 2009
Messages
2
Location
Toronto, Canada
I have Northern Telecom Meridian MS-1 system in my basement.

Meridian MS-1 is a digital teleconference bridge and belongs to the the Meridian DV-1 family of products.
Manufactured in 1987 it is still in working condition, so you can hold own teleconference if you wish. It is a timeless technological keepsake that comes with its own set of unique bragging rights.

My system is made of four DV-1 towers, filled with DV-1 modules and two M4020 terminals.
I also have plenty of spare modules.

I bought the system in 1991, paid a small fortune for it, but it is time for it to find a better home. I am looking to sell it.

I live in a suburb of Toronto, Canada.
 

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I'm having a tough time figuring out just how tall it is but if I still lived east of Kitchener I would snap that up in an instant for sheer meridian badassery (and so I could run meridian phones in the house)
Dumb question but what kind of line does it require? I doubt you can just wire on an RJ-11 phone cable and plug it into the wall.
 
Thank you for the vote of confidence. Badassery of the Merdian DV-1 product line equates this MS-1 to a vintage Harley Davidson.

The question is not so dumb. The DV-1 system was build around a PBX, and so as the result, you can in fact use it as an onsite telephone switch, and connect, oh, I can't remember now, but at least 50 digital phones to it, each with its own 4-digit extension number. In addition, each M4020 terminal is equipped with a phone and telephony display. I have two or three of those.
The CO connection is supported by your average line cards (24 in total) or/and a T1 trunk module. So can you bring up to 48 concurrent external and as many internal callers and hold a teleconference party. Speaking of badassery!

IMHO, most of the cool factor emanates from the look and the feel of the system. Twenty years later I still get that exhilarating spur each time I power the system up, the terminals come alive and prompt me to login. It could be just me, of course.
 
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Hi...I found this post doing an internet search. I actually worked on these things when I worked for BNR and Northern Telecom back in the late 80s, early 90s. It was cool technology, but technology in search of a market. That's not a good formula for success.
 
I also worked at Northern Telecom, specifically on the DV-1.

From my perspective, it didn't suffer from technology looking for a market. Certainly, it was over-engineered in terms of using the BNR-provided XMS that was bloated, slow, and costly; however, that still was not its major failing. The device was able to run Unix software and lots of third-party software products using a Unix card plugged into the device's backplane.

The real problem was that NT was not a strong marketing company. It saw the DV-1 as capable of eating into its significantly more expensive SL-1 PX system market. So, instead of proceeding with DV-1, it for example crippled the DV-1 by not allowing the DV-1 to use the digital phone switch card that had been created and tested. This combo, which fit into an office closet and had Hot-swappable components, stood to cannibalize the SL-1.

What NT failed to understand is that if could cannibalize the SL-1, so could competitors. Might take time, but would be possible. In the end, that is what happened and y'all probably know the rest of NT's history.
 
I never got a chance to get hands on with a DV-1, closest I came was I saw a half dozen MS-1 behind glass once. I have to agree with you @BobK, at a time when CTI (computer telephony integration) was becoming a hot topic the DV-1 was an amazing product. Things could have been very different if that product had been allowed to thrive.
 
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