An apparatus (40) and method for switching a customer-premises telephone
line (36) between a plurality of local telephone networks (35). The local
telephone networks may have different electrical and operational
characteristics. Using less than 100 micro-amperes of current from the
telephone networks, the apparatus (40) requires no external power and
performs its tasks without interfering with the normal operation of the
telephone networks including test equipment, terminal equipment, data
transmission on the telephone line and test equipment.The method involves
monitoring electrical signals on both local telephone networks (35) and
using this information to assign a weight to each network. The
customer-premises telephone line (36) is switched to the telephone
network having the highest weight. The advantages are the elimination of
a service call by a technician to manually switch the customer premises
telephone line (36), equal access by both service providers to the switch
and a seamless interface to the telephone networks.