davidb@pacer.com (David Barts) (06/06/90)
Well, it's not all *that* strange, but it does deviate considerably from any other CO I've used in the Southwest. The CO serves White Rock, New Mexico (505-672), and was installed in 1976 or 1977 (more on this later). White Rock itself is a strange place, in that it has has a population somewhere between 6500 and 7000, which makes it a sizable city by New Mexico standards, yet has no post office and does not appear on most maps of New Mexico. The reason for this is the unique way that Los Alamos County is set up -- the city and county governments are the same, thus the whole county (about 112 square miles) is also an incorporated city, and White Rock is technically just a neighborhood of Los Alamos, even though 10 miles of mesas and canyons separate it from what most people think of as "Los Alamos." Although it is not a distinct governmental entity, White Rock's physical separation warrants its own CO, and LD calls to WR show up as "WHITE ROCK, NM". The local phone company is US West (formerly Mountain Bell). I just got back from a brief trip home, and found out some more odd things about the CO that serves my parents' house (White Rock, New Mexico, 505-672). Ever since they installed the new CO in White Rock (sometime back in 1976 or 1977), it has been the *slowest* switch to disconnect a call that I have ever used. When you're finished talking, hang up the phone and wait *five or ten seconds* before taking the phone off hook or you will never get dial tone. I just learned that my sister uses this slow-disconnect feature to her advantage. If she answers the phone in the family room, and finds out it is a personal call for her and wants to talk in privacy, she can hang up, run into another room, take the phone off hook, and the calling party is still there! Getting a dial tone is also slow. Whenever I use my parents' phone, I have to get used to picking up the receiver, *waiting five seconds or so for dial tone*, and then dialing the number. Kinda hard to break the habit of automatically starting to dial as soon as the phone is off hook, which works on normal CO's that return dial tone almost instantly. I have never used a CO anywhere that is as slow as this. Before the CO was `upgraded' (ha!) I remember getting almost instant dial tone and disconnects. (I think the old CO was an SXS CDO). Despite its slowness, the CO is relatively modern; White Rock was (and is) always one of the first areas in the state to get any new service US West offers (measured service, custom ringing, alternative LD carriers, direct international dialing, etc.) Another strangeness: from every other semi-modern US West CO in NM I have tried, you can get ringback by dialing 59y-xxxx, where y is some digit (usually 3, 4, or 5) and xxxx is the last 4 digits of the phone number. Not in White Rock. Before you ask, my parents are stingy when it comes to phone service, so their line has *no* special features (CLASS, speed dialing, etc.) They also refuse to pay extra for Touch-Tone, and DTMF will not break dial tone. However, pulsing is recognized at high speeds, and most of their phones can be (and are) set to pulse at the fastest rate the phone send out. Back in '76 or '77, I remember the Los Alamos Monitor (the local paper) doing a special article on White Rock's new CO. Mountain Bell was using an experimental new technique called `hot slide in' to install the new hardware, which (I think) entailed activating the new CO, removing the old CO from the building, and sliding the new CO hardware into the building *while it was in use*. I remember something about a compressed air system (like hovercraft) being used to levitate the new hardware so it could be gently moved into place. I believe the article stated White Rock was the first place in Mountain Bell territory (or the country) where this technique was used. From what I have learned by reading this newsgroup and books on telecom, I would guess that White Rock has a No. 2 (or is it 3?) ESS with older, slower hardware than most 2ESS CO's. You do hear clunking sounds as it returns dial tone and as you are connected to a party. Picking up the phone too fast after hanging up from a previous call results in a mostly quiet line with a faint, erratic clicking in the background. Eventually, you get the loud signal that means `you left the phone off hook, dum-dum!'. I could speculate more, but this article is longer than I'd like already and I'd rather turn this over to the net for comments. David Barts Pacer Corporation davidb@pacer.uucp ...!uunet!pilchuck!pacer!davidb
thomas%mvac23.uucp@udel.edu (Thomas Lapp) (06/07/90)
> Back in '76 or '77, I remember the Los Alamos Monitor (the local > paper) doing a special article on White Rock's new CO. Mountain Bell > was using an experimental new technique called `hot slide in' to > install the new hardware, which (I think) entailed activating the new > CO, removing the old CO from the building, and sliding the new CO > hardware into the building *while it was in use*. I remember The time frame sounds about right. In the local CO which covered the area where I grew up (Morgantown, WV), they replaced a large SxS switch (which took up the whole inside of a brick building) with a new ESS switch. The new switch was much smaller than the old, but there was still no room in the building for the new switch. So they built a separate out-building which was butted up against the old one and installed the new switch in it. They then cut over to the new switch, which was still located outside of the old building, and when they had cleared enough of the old SxS system out, they did a 'hot slide' as you describe, to put the new switch into the old building (after knocking out the wall that separated the two buildings). If I recall correctly, the new switch had long enough cables so that it could indeed be moved on compressed air while in use. - tom internet : mvac23!thomas@udel.edu or thomas%mvac23@udel.edu uucp : {ucbvax,mcvax,psuvax1,uunet}!udel!mvac23!thomas Europe Bitnet: THOMAS1@GRATHUN1 Location: Newark, DE, USA
Dick Jackson <jackson@ttidca.tti.com> (06/07/90)
In article <8691@accuvax.nwu.edu> davidb@pacer.com (David Barts) writes: >From what I have learned by reading this newsgroup and books on >telecom, I would guess that White Rock has a No. 2 (or is it 3?) ESS >with older, slower hardware than most 2ESS CO's. You do hear clunking That reminds of a question that sometimes nags at me. Why don't we hear about the 2ESS and 3ESS? Were they superceded by the 1A? Or what? Dick Jackson