covert@covert.enet.dec.com (John R. Covert 15-Aug-1989 2255) (08/16/89)
Like Cincinnati Bell, and is not really affected by the consent decree except for market pressure to support what its customers want. Phone companies are, of course, amazingly immune to market pressure. >Basically if the toll tandem in your area doesn't support Equal Access >(and for much of the state that is true), then you don't get 00. All tandems in SNET-land support equal access by now. Some end offices still don't, notably No. 5 XBars, but No. 5 XBars can do "00" even when they can't do Equal Access, when needed if the local operating company has its own operators. >In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if SNET is refusing to convert their #1 ESS's >to #1A or #5 so they can implement this. Number 1 ESSs have equal access. Every Baby Bell has converted all No 1 ESSs to Equal Access by now, but again, SNET doesn't have to if they don't want to. It's not even an issue of whether SNET wants to pay for the new software; the equal access upgrades were required to be free of charge. >Newington runs a ess 2B switch (John Covert, correct me if I am really talking >about a 2A -- I can never remember which of them are a local switch and which >are a toll tandem). Newington is, indeed a 2B. There's no such thing as a 2A, but there is a No 2. Both are end offices. There's really no way to tell the difference from the outside except to note that Newington is probably too big for a No 2. >This switch is partly digital and partly analog. You hear loud clunks when you >connect, but I digress. Well, not really. The entire switching matrix is analog; the only digital part is the computer providing the stored program control. The same is also true of both No 1 and No 1A ESS. >On the other hand, places like Canton, Simsbury, Enfield, Winsted, >Columbia, Norwich (maybe), and all those other still-step or >newly-converted-to-DMS or something exchanges will never have equal >access. These towns are so small that they don't fill a prefix. Not really true. They'll become equal access when a carrier says that they want to provide Feature Group D trunks. >The summation of all this jibberish and reminiscing about CT is that >203-684 won't be converted for some time, and when they do convert it >will likely be *after* the Willimantic toll center goes equal access, Both Stafford Springs and Willimantic are served by a DMS digital toll center, which certainly can handle equal access. BTW, the same machine serves the 203-456 code in Willimantic. >The New Haven tandem is still crossbar. You can hear the in-band signalling >as the call is placed. Being able to hear the in-band signalling is not an indication of a XBar. It used to imply XBar Tandem with RST loop supervision trunks. In the case of New Haven it's probably a DMS200 with DCMs which connect the receive path while they're outpulsing, so if it's a 2-wire office you're going to, you'll hear the reflection during pulsing. >I don't even know where the ATT point of presence is. I think it's in >Hartford. There are certainly a large number of AT&T PoPs in CT, not just Hartford. /john