covert@covert.enet.dec.com (John R. Covert) (08/03/89)
The concept of Inward is one of the things that modernization of the network has essentially ended. Back in the days when lots of calls were operator handled, the Inward operator was the operator who answered jacks labelled "Inward" on her position. In some towns, this might be the same operator as the "Coin Collect" operator, who would answer jacks labelled "Coin Collect" or as any other operator. In larger towns, there would be switchboards explicitly allocated to these specialized services. In smaller towns, these services would appear on some or all of the positions occupied by other operators. The "numbers" route for non-dialable ring-downs would also have its own set of jacks. But now that modernization has arrived, and operators sit at computer consoles rather than cord boards and are located hundreds of miles from the areas they serve, the whole concept has essentially gone away. For example, New England Telephone serves Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine with operators connected to switching systems in Springfield MA, Cambridge MA, Framingham MA, Hanover MA, Lawrence MA, and Manchester NH. Most operators are not near these switching systems. They are in Fall River MA, Brockton MA, Quincy MA, Keene MA, Newburyport MA, Springfield MA, Marlboro MA, E. Providence RI, Portland ME, Dover NH, Keene NH, and Brattleboro VT. The long distance carriers are also drastically reducing the ubiquity of operators. In testimony before the Mass DPU, a competitor of AT&T claimed that AT&T planned to concentrate its operators in five nationwide operating centers. The operators don't really have any special sort of connection to the central offices except when they are performing coin collect functions or busy number verification. Some reasons a call might go through when placed through an operator when it didn't work when dialled are: 1. You dialled via one carrier and then used an operator from a different carrier. 2. Your local central office has a problem translating the area code or area code and first three digits. 3. Your local operating company has a translation problem in its access tandem. 4. The long distance carrier has a translation problem in the toll switching machine serving your central office, but when you're connected to an operator, you end up using a different toll switching machine for the call. Basically, the only reason the operator gets through when you don't is that the call may be placed through different switching systems along the way. Inward almost doesn't exist any more. Except when calling an area served by one of a very few independent telcos with their own operators, AT&T operators who call Inward are going to reach another AT&T operator. In no case will an AT&T operator calling Inward reach a local Baby Bell operator. Only in the case of the completing calls to non-diallable points (and there are thousands of them left, especially in California), will an AT&T operator end up on a Baby Bell toll board, but this isn't Inward. The Inward route (rather than the proper "numbers" route) for such places would end up on an AT&T board which would have to call the "numbers" route. This means that if I make a call from Boston via the AT&T operator for help in calling Montpelier VT, and the operator tries Inward, this means the AT&T (not New England Telephone) operator for Montpelier, who might be sitting at the operator position right next to her! It also means that if I want to call a pay phone in Montpelier collect, AT&T can't do it anymore, because they can't reach a telco operator. AT&T will call the pay phone and say that someone's trying to call collect and ask the party to call back 1+. /john