Yeah, but Bell South (AKA at&t) has been anti-Bell standards and practices for decades. I'll bet that they are using some no-name pair gain hardware that barely drags up more than about 50VAC.
Most telcos with this mindset (well, actually all of them) have become complacent with today's dime-store telephones. They are capable of ringing on just about any AC voltage. They've gotten away with that for so long that they've forgotten about the original FCC mandates for ringing voltages/capacity.
