larry@uunet.uu.net (Larry Lippman) (09/12/89)
In article <telecom-v09i0361m03@vector.dallas.tx.us> myerston@cts.sri.com writes: > At least >some< of GTE's service problems are the result of > equipment provided (foisted?) by the infamous Automatic Electric and > its successors. While I have great respect for the quality of Western Electric apparatus, I have an equal degree of respect for the quality of apparatus manufactured by the various GTE operations, having had firsthand experience with the products of both organizations. In particular, I take exception to your use of the term "infamous" as applied to Automatic Electric. I will provide a bit of historical perspective before delving into more contemporary issues. First, I would like to point out that the Automatic Electric Co. (A.E.Co.) started out in 1901 as the successor to the Strowger Automatic Telephone Exchange Co., which was formed in 1891 by Almon B. Strowger. Strowger was the inventor of the first practicable telephone switching system, commonly referred to as step-by-step (SxS). The Bell System and Western Electric (WECO) had no automatic switching apparatus to speak of until they _literally_ learned the art from A.E.Co. Beginning shortly after World War I, AT&T (i.e., the Bell System and WECO) began a major effort to install SxS systems designed and manufactured by A.E.Co. A.E.Co. began a major training program for AT&T personnel, starting with 40 Bell System engineers in Chicago in 1919. While WECO did introduce the panel switching system during the mid-1920's, panel was never economically viable for central offices of less than 3,000 lines. There are also many qualified people (especially within the Bell System!) who will state that the panel CO was the most mechanically complex and unreliable switching apparatus ever built. A.E.Co. later licensed various patents to WECO, which then began manufacturing SxS apparatus on its own beginning in the 1920's. However, at various times right up to and including the 1950's, the Bell System purchased SxS apparatus directly from A.E.Co. There were a significant number of SxS CO's installed by the Bell System in small communities following World War II which utilized A.E.Co. apparatus, most commonly the A.E.Co. 35E97 SxS system. The central office area where I live, Clarence Center, NY, was first installed by New York Telephone as an A.E.Co. 35E97 office. So, the point is: before one blatantly bashes GTE/A.E.Co. on the quality of their switching apparatus, don't forget they were in the automatic telephone switching business long before WECO! 1/2 :-) If one were to compare SxS apparatus manufactured by A.E.Co. and WECO, they would be virtually indistinguishable - both from an appearance and from a quality standpoint. The only significant difference between the two manufacturers is in the supporting trunk circuits which are mounted in 19 or 23 inch wide apparatus frames. A.E.Co. apparatus has always used round coil, flat-spring relays for both switching and trunk apparatus, whereas WECO used round coil, flat-spring relays (220-series) just for SxS switches, with trunk apparatus originally using U- and Y-series flat spring relays, followed by introduction of wire-spring relays in the mid-1950's. WECO also introduced wire-wrap terminals on relays, other components and terminal blocks during the 1950's, which was several years before A.E.Co. introduced the same style connections. From an overall quality standpoint, in my humble opinion A.E.Co. SxS apparatus is on par with that of WECO. Period. With respect to overall quality of CO switching apparatus newer than SxS, in my humble opinion GTE/A.E.Co. has been on par with that of WECO. In particular, I refer to A.E.Co. apparatus such as the analog No. 1 EAX and No. 2 EAX, and the digital GTD-3 EAX and GTD-5 EAX. The first electronic switching product of WECO was the 1ESS, first installed at Morris, IL from 1960 to 1962, and made commercially available in 1965. The first electronic switching product of A.E.Co. was the No. 1 EAX first installed at Portage, IN in 1965 and made commercially available with an installation in St. Petersburg, FL in 1972. The No. 1 EAX used integrated circuits and was a generation newer than 1ESS when it was made commercially available in 1972. The first WECO apparatus to make extensive use of integrated circuits was the 2ESS, which was not made commercially available until 1973 (it was first field tested in Oswego, IL in late 1970). > When I worked at Western Electric it seemed like the most > satisfying jobs were those where we replaced AE equipment with ESS > machines (1A ESS at that time) for GTE of California. We did several > in Southern California (Long Beach, LA-Stadium) and the immediate > improvements brought in commendations, editorials etc. By contrast > PacBell jobs (usually X-Bar replacements) went largely unnoticed. I rather doubt that replacement of A.E.Co. SxS apparatus with ESS was any more "satisfying" than replacing WECO 350 or 355A SxS with ESS. There is no comparison between the lack of SxS features when compared to those available with ESS. With respect to the replacement of crossbar apparatus with ESS, most crossbar CO's (even No. 1 crossbar) were already modified for DTMF service by the early 1970's. The offering of previously unavailable DTMF service would probably be most noticeable to any customer following an ESS conversion. With respect to other GTE manufacturing organizations, GTE/Lenkurt is probably the largest single manufacturer of microwave, FDM multiplex, T1 and fiber optic apparatus in the U.S., with the possible exception of WECO. I am not certain why GTE operating companies have been singled out for bashing in this forum, but I suspect that IN TRUTH their problems are no worse than those of any Bell operating companies. GTE, as an overall operating telephone company, is as well organized as AT&T, and maintains uniform standards, practices and procedures as well as AT&T. Now, in my opinion, if you want to see telephone central office which is real trash, just look at some of the apparatus that has been turned out by Stromberg-Carlson (like X-Y, their original progressive switching apparatus, some of which is still in service), or that turned out by ITT (their Pentaconta crossbar switching office, as an example). In closing I would like to point out that I own no stock in GTE, and I am not their spokesperson. I am simply trying to give matters some perspective and to be fair. <> Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp. - Uniquex Corp. - Viatran Corp. <> UUCP {allegra|boulder|decvax|rutgers|watmath}!sunybcs!kitty!larry <> TEL 716/688-1231 | 716/773-1700 {hplabs|utzoo|uunet}!/ \uniquex!larry <> FAX 716/741-9635 | 716/773-2488 "Have you hugged your cat today?" [Moderator's Note: Well Larry, your history is right on the mark. Many people are amazed to find out that Automatic Electric -- and not Bell -- 'invented' the dial phone system. And an old story has it that the inventor did so because he was paranoid about the operators diverting profitable business calls from him to one of his competitors. Any truth to that? PT]
goldstein@delni.enet.dec.com (09/12/89)
I rather enjoyed Larry Lippman's defense of GTE and AECo. It's good to
refresh the memory. And yes, it is widely believed that Strowger the
undertaker was upset that his competitor's wife was the local
telephone operator. I don't doubt it -- it's a gruesome business to
think about though.
GTE-Pacific has had some particular problems, though. It's not
apocryphal that many (many!) of their customers are very upset. I
once spoke to the mayor of Santa Monica, who was quite upset about it
too, like most of her townspeople. So why is this true?
I don't blame entirely blame GTE Corp. for this. California's
regulatory system has at times been just plain nuts. All states
regulate local telcos based on Return on Investment. All investments
go into a Rate Base, against which all revenues minus expenses are
compared. That provides an ROI figure. If it's too low, the telco
gets a rate increase. If it's high, they cut rates. Most of rate
hearings are devoted to determining the "right" ROI, comparing stock
market expectations of return on equity along with money market debt
costs. Telco capitalization is a mix of the two; it's all bundled
into ROI calculations.
The California PUC historically has given GTE (and the old PacTel)
very low ROI, often a couple of percentage points or more below
everybody else. When most states were allowing 13% and California was
allowing 10%, which state would YOU invest in? To make matters worse,
C-PUC would penalize GTE for its poor performance by lowering its ROI
even more.
AT&T was too proud of its "Bell System" reputation to let PacTel go
down the tubes, so they dumped money into CA even with a cruddy rate
of return. But GTE had other fish to fry with its cash, so they gave
the state pretty much what it paid for. It looked bad, because it was
bad, but it was a sound business decision. I don't know the current
authorized ROI in CA, but I suspect it's higher, and GTE service
should improve over time as a result.
BTW this ties in to Steve Elias' distrust of DA charging. ALL such
expenses are counted in computing rates. If telco saves money, it
raises their ROI, which is made up for by lowering other rates
(usually at the time of the next general rate case). They don't get
to "keep" the savings. They still benefit but it's not the ripoff
that the Mass. legislature pretends it is.
freddesnoyer@apple.com (Peter Desnoyers) (09/13/89)
In article <telecom-v09i0367m01@vector.dallas.tx.us> our humble moderator writes: > [Moderator's Note: Well Larry, your history is right on the mark. Many > people are amazed to find out that Automatic Electric -- and not Bell > -- 'invented' the dial phone system. And an old story has it that the > inventor did so because he was paranoid about the operators diverting > profitable business calls from him to one of his competitors. Any > truth to that? PT] I have heard (and read) this story in enough places that I believe it to be true: Charles Strowger, back in 1891 (I think) was an undertaker somewhere in the depths of small-town America, in a town with two undertakers. His competitor's wife was an operator, and by virtue of her job was able to provide her husband information on practically every death in town (or at least anyone wealthy enough to have a phone). It is also alleged that she would route all calls to an undertaker to her husband. In his determination to eliminate the job of telephone operator, and thus remedy this injustice, Mr. Strowger went out and invented the Strowger switch, otherwise known as the step-by-step. Each switch has ten tiers, each tier a semi-circle of ten contacts. One solenoid hits the contact arm (or whatever the proper term is) once for each dial pulse in the first digit, and it ratchets up. The second solenoid handles the next digit, and turns the contact arm over to the proper contact. And now you know the origin of pulse dialing. As a side note, I must say that the MIT dormline system is one of my most favorable memories of MIT. The service was sh*tty, and the lines were rotting, but it was worth it to be able to go down to the basement of Walker or Ashdown and watch the calls come in at 11 pm. You could track the wave of calls coming in from the trunks on one side of the room, through the various (meticulously soldered) racks, and out to the dorms. It was a mechanical system that was beautiful in its simplicity - for instance, the power supply in Walker used two relays that would trip on high or low voltage, turning the knob on a variac to compensate. With a few part-time students to burnish contacts and replace them when they wore out, and modern insulation on the underground wiring to the dorms, it could have lasted well into the next century. Not bad, when you consider that (I think) it was built a bit before WWII and installed soon after the war, and was in continuous operation since then. So much for nostalgia. I have to admit that the phone service provided by this antique was lousy. Peter Desnoyers Apple ATG (408) 974-4469
john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) (09/13/89)
I was fascinated by Mr. Lippman's interesting history and spirited
defense of GTE. Unfortunately it doesn't explain away reality. I
remember growing up in Oakland. Our telephone was connected to one of
those "unreliable" panel offices, which seemed to work pretty much
100% of the time.
We moved to southern California and in GTE land we were shocked. We
learned what it's like to not have calls routinely completed. We even
complained to repair and were told, "Oh, that's normal. You know,
we're so heavily overloaded." Interesting that neighboring areas
served by Pacific Telephone didn't have those problems.
Ask anyone who has had any *real experience* and they will tell you
the truth about AE directorized SXS. I sat in Los Gatos for several
hours one day and determined that AE step has about an 80% call
completion average. Not really impressive. When I called to complain I
was told that the problem was with the "old" equipment that would soon
be replaced.
When they installed their highly-touted 1EAX we were all told, as Mr.
Lippman pointed out, that this equipment was more advanced than the ESS
being used by Bell in the surrounding areas. Why then did it routinely
crash, not offer most features available in Pac*Bell, and find itself
already on the replacement list if it was so wonderful?
If AE equipment is so damn good, then GTE must be completely inept. The
truth of the matter is the service is substandard by any measure. All
service and feature offerings are 5 to 10 years behind Bell, and their
prices are even higher (they have special tarrifs). Pac*Bell has had to
delay implementation of their 900 services in the Los Angeles area for
at least a year while GTE tries to figure out how to set up their
equipment to put the calls through. In the Bay Area and in San Diego,
where there are insignificant amounts of GTE, the 900 service is already
implemented. In area code 714, GTE was responsible for the
implementation of 976. It's the only area code in the state that has no
976 to this date.
Believe me, if there was even the slightest indication that GTE was
pulling its act together, I would be the first to cheer. But you
have much smaller companies like Contel who provide service that runs
rings around GTE. All of my associates have indicated that they would
gladly live in a Contel area before one "served" by GTE. And these
opinions come as a result of actual experience, not just word-of-mouth
reputation.
Glossary term for the day:
subscriber carrier; GTE's answer to undercapitalization
John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395
john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o !klb@lzaz.att.com (K.BLATTER) (09/13/89)
> Telephone Exchange Co., which was formed in 1891 by Almon B. Strowger. > Strowger was the inventor of the first practicable telephone switching > system, commonly referred to as step-by-step (SxS). > > [... And an old story has it that the > inventor did so because he was paranoid about the operators diverting > profitable business calls from him to one of his competitors. Any > truth to that? PT] Yes there is truth to that story. A. B. Strowger was an undertaker in Kansas City, Mo. When a close relative of his chief competitor (I think it was a sister-in-law) became the operator, Mr. Strowger noticed a sharp decline in the calls he received from customers. To combat this, Mr. Strowger invented the SXS switch. Kevin L. Blatter AT&T - Bell Labs Standard Disclaimer
dtroup@uunet.uu.net (Dave Troup) (09/14/89)
One of the interesting operations that GTE participates in when you
have not paid your phone bill is to NOT disconnect your line, but
rather call block OUTGOING calls...except 800's. When they did this to
myself, I didnt care because I almost never made any local calls...one
call to the Sprint # or AT&T Conference and I could make all the lond
distance calls just like usual. After a couple months of this, I
finally got enough $$ to pay my bill. Local service wasnt connected
for ANOTHER 3 WEEKS...but was I bothered? Nope. Thanks GTE :)
"We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, knowin' that ain't allowed"__ _______ _______________ |David C. Troup / Surf Rat
_______)(______ | |dtroup@carroll1.cc.edu : mail
______________________________|414-524-6809____________________________hrs@batavier.att.com (Herman R Silbiger) (09/14/89)
AT&T has taken over the GTE switch business. It is now a joint venture with GTE, and in five years will be fully owned by AT&T. The GTE product will migrate to the 5ESS. Herman Silbiger The preceding facts are generally true, although the details may be inexact.
klg@dukeac.UUCP (Kim Greer) (09/15/89)
In article <telecom-v09i0367m01@vector.dallas.tx.us> kitty!larry@uunet.uu.net (Larry Lippman) writes: > I am not certain why GTE operating companies have been singled out >for bashing in this forum, but I suspect that IN TRUTH their problems are >no worse than those of any Bell operating companies. You may not be cetain why GTE is "singled out", but I think I understand. For year after year here in Durham I put up with : - noisy lines - wild buzzes and garbage, not just white noise and itsy, bitsy clicks now and then - picking up the phone to dial, only to find other people on the line in the middle of a conversation - getting chewed out at work, while on call, for not answering the phone to come in to do an emergency lung scan. The phone hardly ever rang when someone called me ... lots of people said "Where were you last night? I tried to call, but there was no answer." - "touch tone" that was not buffered well enough and was converted to pulse anyway (Dial "too fast" and you have to start all over.) - dropped connections in the middle of a conversation - wrongly routed calls (several times someone in other cities would have the operator to place a call to the Methodist retirement home, only to *still* have the equipment end up connecting to me) - wrong numbers, much more than I though was reasonable to expect. Why do I say that? Well, how can even the stupidest person continue to dial "8364" instead of "4082"? Wrong numbers were frequently not even remotely similar to my number. The list goes on, but you get the point I hope. And these were not isolated things every couple of months or so --- it was *all the freaking time*. I came very close several times to have the "service" disconnected and save the money and hassle. When I lived in Charlotte (Southern Bell), phone service was just that- a service. It was not a hassle and headache that someone charged you to have. SB was great. GTE _was_ a pain in the ass. To their credit, our exchange (383) was converted to ESS of some sort or other (all I ever heard was "its digital".), and all of the above kind of non-sense has stopped. GTE still charges for dmtf (about $1.50 / month I think). I refuse to pay them for something that is in my opinion to their benefit as much or more than mine to have. Why pay for subsidizing the pulse dial phone users when tone is more efficient from the standpoint of the switch? GTE has a rather large presence here in Durham, though some parts are being moved or have moved to other distant lands (Florida I think). I have several friends who work for GTE, but I never bothered to embarass them with all of the above. I'm sure they knew it all first hand anyway. Kim L. Greer Duke University Medical Center try: klg@orion.mc.duke.edu Div. Nuclear Medicine POB 3949 ...!mcnc!ecsgate!dukeac!klg Durham, NC 27710 919-681-2711x223 fax: 919-681-5636
laba-2ac%web-1f.Berkeley.EDU@ucbvax.berkeley.edu (Na Choon Piaw) (09/16/89)
In article <telecom-v09i0369m02@vector.dallas.tx.us> desnoyer@apple.com (Peter Desnoyers) writes: [...] >As a side note, I must say that the MIT dormline system is one of my most >favorable memories of MIT. The service was sh*tty, and the lines were >rotting, but it was worth it to be able to go down to the basement of >Walker or Ashdown and watch the calls come in at 11 pm......... Very few people know that after SxS's are long gone, Universal/MCA will be preserving a picture of one in operation. All you have to do is rent the movie "Dial M For Murder" (no pun intended....???), and in one of the scenes where Grace Kelly is dialing away, the scene switches to a SxS, grinding away from the pulses. It was a typical Hitchock cliffhanger. I did mention while Ms. Kelly is dialing away, there is a man with a knife moving up right behind her. Robert Gutierrez <laba-2ac@web.berkeley.edu><ranma@cup.portal.com>
john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) (09/17/89)
In article <telecom-v09i0377m02@vector.dallas.tx.us>, goldstein@delni.enet.dec.com writes: > The California PUC historically has given GTE (and the old PacTel) > very low ROI, often a couple of percentage points or more below > everybody else. When most states were allowing 13% and California was > allowing 10%, which state would YOU invest in? To make matters worse, > C-PUC would penalize GTE for its poor performance by lowering its ROI > even more. And what made things REALLY worse was that just when GTE would find itself in a position of lowering its costs (by installing new CO equipment) it screwed itself by not reducing the bloated work force that was previously required to maintain the old steppers. It was not uncommon to find a GTE CO staff exactly the same size with GTD5 or 1AESS that it had before the cut. > AT&T was too proud of its "Bell System" reputation to let PacTel go > down the tubes, so they dumped money into CA even with a cruddy rate > of return. But GTE had other fish to fry with its cash, so they gave > the state pretty much what it paid for. Even so, PacTel was indeed the poor stepchild of AT&T. I remember C&P and Illinois and Southern Bell all having neat stuff while PacTel reps didn't even know what I was talking about. Back in the 70s, I was working with a radio station in a transmitter move in the Jacksonville, FL, area. We needed a pair of 15K equalized lines in a hurry and Southern Bell had them up in twenty-four hours. You were lucky to ever get them with PacTel, and have them right. -- John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o !