Edward_Greenberg@cso.3mail.3com.com (11/11/89)
Back on a ranch driveway off a twisty backroad highway in Northern
California, you'll find the Pinnacles Telephone Company. Here owner Rex
Bryan and his assistant, Janice Moses provide a mixture of private and
party line service to 150 subscribers over a sixty mile strip of Highway
25, south of Paicines, California.
I visited the Pinnacles National Monument this weekend, and when I
checked out the pay phone up in the monument, I found the strangest set
of dialing instructions I had ever seen. This led me to investigate,
with the hopes of reporting to Telecom Digest. I asked at the Park
Ranger station, "excuse me, who provides your telephone service?" I was
told, "Rex -- If you want to talk to him, just dial operator, he'll come
on if he's around." Well, I couldn't find Rex, but I found Janice
Moses, his trusty assistant, and she invited me (well, I asked) to come
by and hear all about it.
Pinnacles Telephone Company was acquired by Rex Bryan about 45 years ago
when he made the mistake of complaining about the quality of the phone
service at his ranch. He was told that if he thought he could do
better, he should buy the company, so he did.
Rex and Janice do all the maintenance and installation work in this
valley, working in the CO and in the field. This includes such things
as telephone poles!
Readers of the Digest will likely be most interested in the way calls
are handled, and I'll try to describe what I learned.
There are two central offices, both step by step. Touch Tone service is
provided by a bank of tone to pulse converters.
The exchanges are numbered 408-389 (Pinnacles) and 408-693 (Idria.) For
your info, the service area abuts Pacific Bell's Monterey
LATA. Local calls are made by dialing the three final digits of the
number. Thus there seems to be a shelf of line finders, ONE
shelf of selectors instead of the more traditional two, and a shelf of
connectors. In the 389 CO, numbers are in the range of 400 to 599. All
numbers are preceded by 4 in the outside world, thus, the phone number
appearing on the switch as 419 would be reached by dialing 408-389-4419.
Calls between 389 and 693 are handled by some dedicated trunks
between the offices. The full seven digits are dialed, although it's
not clear to me how many digits are absorbed. All local service within
and between the two Pinnacles CO's is flat rate.
Calls outside of the Pinnacles and Idria service area are handled by
Pacific Bell, which also serves to connect out of LATA calls to AT&T.
There is no opportunity to select a carrier, and I'm not sure whether
one can dial 10xxx codes into the Pacific Bell trunks.
When a subscriber wants to dial outside of the local area, he dials
1+<ID code>+number. The first 1 connects the call to Pacific Bell via
a CAMA card. Then the ID code identifies which subscriber on a party
line is calling. Private line subscribers must still dial 1 as a party
code. After the CAMA card repeats the subscribers pulses , it provides
the originating phone number in MF tones. Pacific Bell then routes the
call and makes a billing record.
Once a month, Pacific Bell provides a tape with the billing record on
it. Pinnacles Telephone contracts with another telephone company (one
that has a computer, according to Janice) to print the bills and provide
both a printout summary and a microfiche permanent record.
Operator service is provided by Pacific Bell or AT&T for third party
billed calls. There is no cord board or other operator position
associated with the Pinnacles system. When I made an out of lata call,
I dialed (according to instructions) 0+0+Number. An AT&T operator came
on, asked me the number I was calling FROM and my billing, and told me
she'd put the call up at the direct dial rate. It'll be interesting to
see the placename that comes up on my bill as the source of the call. I
won't be disappointed if it's Salinas, but I'll be pleased if it's
Pinnacles.
Pinnacles Telephone Company has two public phones. One is up at the
monument, the one I found, and another is at the Thousand Trails
Campground. Local calls are free, and AT&T or Pacific Bell calling
cards work just fine. I don't know if they handle coin deposited long
distance calls.
The physical plant for the Pinnacles CO is typical. A brick building
with a stout metal door. Only difference between this and your more
mainstream CO is that the building is only 8 by 10. Outside the
building is a small green cabinet with a generator. During the recent
earthquake, the generator worked fine. About a minute after the quake
hit, Mr. Onan came on line and service was restored. Naturally the CO
was overloaded, but it came back as people calmed down.
Inside the CO were the shelves of Strowger switches, a rack of tone to
pulse converters, a shelf of cards that comprise the Automatic Number
Identification equipment, two shelves of CAMA/TSPS cards to drive the
outgoing trunks, and two shelves of cards that were Rotary Receivers for
incoming trunks. The trunks are divided into groups going to Salinas
(Pacific Bell) and to Idria (the other Pinnacles CO.) There's also a
large power supply device that transforms the incoming power into the
various voltages needed to run the whole affair.
I made a few calls while I was inside the CO, and was able to follow the
progress of the calls through the strowgers, and through the outgoing
CAMA cards. When you pick up the phone, the linefinder finds you, and
then you work the switch train to make the connection.
Janice says that the Idria CO is similar to the Pinnacles installation.
When there is a problem in Idria, Rex makes a 60 mile drive to attend to
it.
The Pinnacles CO building is located on Rex Bryan's ranch. There's also
an office located on a dining room table in one of the houses on the
ranch. Pinnacles Telephone is the only telco I know of with it's own
cat, Tabby, who presides over the operation.
Several alarms are remoted to the house. When the light goes on, Rex or
Janice drive up to the CO and fix whatever problem has arisen.
One problem that might arise is a receiver off hook at one of the
subscriber's premises. Whenever anyone is off hook, one of the lights
goes on at the house. It goes off when the first digit is dialed. If
the light stays on permanently, they need to go up to the CO, find the
offending line and, "put the howler on."
Rex Bryan is 72 years old. He's been doing this for 45 years. One
subscriber raised the fear that, "I don't know what we'd do if anything
happened to him. We don't know if Pacific Bell or AT&T could figure
this out or would try." One thing is for certain, Rex and Janice bring
a personal touch to their utility that you just don't get from Pacific
Bell. As Janice said, "we're a real 'country' telephone company." For
my money, I hope they stay that way.
Ed Greenberg
Phone: 415-694-2952 (w)
408-283-0408 (h)
Usenet: edg@netcom.com
edg@CSO.3mail.3com.com
Compuserve: 76703,1070
Snail Mail: PO Box 28618
San Jose, CA 95159tad@ssc.UUCP (Tad Cook) (11/14/89)
I was AMAZED to read the description of tiny Pinnacles Tel. Co. Thank you! This explains a lot of things I have wondered about when trying to help Rex Bryan troubleshoot his CAMA trunks over the telephone! Tad Cook tad@ssc.UUCP
john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) (11/15/89)
Just for giggles, I did a little experimenting with the Pinnacles
exchange. First, dialing a 10XXX code reveals that it is in the SF
LATA, since I was informed that "a company code is not required for
this call". Second, I dialed a couple of numbers at random and got the
"number you have reached..." recording in a man's voice. Third,
dialing the prefix plus "4411" netted an answer (in the same man's
voice) "Good evening 'Information'. May I help you?" Oops! Sorry wrong
number!
Do you suppose that was Mr. Bryan himself?
John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395
john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o !edg@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Edward Greenberg) (11/21/89)
>........... Second, I dialed a couple of numbers at random and got the >"number you have reached..." recording in a man's voice. Third, >dialing the prefix plus "4411" netted an answer (in the same man's >voice) "Good evening 'Information'. May I help you?" Oops! Sorry wrong >number! >Do you suppose that was Mr. Bryan himself? > > John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 > john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! The intercept recording is definitely Mr. Bryan. I wouldn't be surprised if "information" was too. I have scrupulously resisted the temptation to "experiment" with Mr. Bryan's telephone exchange. Since they were so nice to me, I didn't think it was a "nice." The "test" you chose is precisely the one I would have done though, so I'm kinda glad you did. Now: Please, Kiddies, Please... let's all be adult here (and I don't mean to single you out John. Your experiment was certainly benign) I won't say "Don't call the Pinnacles exchange" since we certainly enjoy freedom of phone service here in the USA. Lets just remember that (a) these are real folks out there. It's not a faceless corporate hierarchy. (b) When I called Pinnacles, they could have as easily told me to go to hell. Instead, they let me into their home and central office. Let's not make them sorry they did. I could have held back the prefix, or even the name of the company, but I have respect for the quality of our readers. Ed Greenberg uunet!apple!netcom!edg