TELECOM@Usc-Eclb (06/08/82)
TELECOM AM Digest Saturday, 5 June 1982 Volume 2 : Issue 73
Today's Topics: Ma Bell In Playboy
Leased Line Problems - What TPC Will And Will Not Provide
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Date: 7 Jun 1982 02:46:14-PDT
From: pur-ee!davy at Berkeley
Subject: Ma Bell
In the July issue of Playboy, there is an intersting little
pictorial/article entitled "The Girls of Ma Bell". This is along the
lines of "The Women of the Armed Forces" stuff, etc . Take a look, see
if one of them is from your local office!
Anyway, in the article accompanying the pictures, the writer presents
some rather interesting trivia, which I thought I'd share:
- Operators are encouraged to answer your call within three
seconds, and say goodbye within 29.
- AT&T employs over 1,000,000 people, it is the world's
largest corporation.
- AT&T makes $11,000 a minute.
- They spin out enough copper wire every year to wrap around
the world 2300 times.
- They operate 138,000,000 phones, 25,000 of them in the
Pentagon (with a monthly bill of $725,000, even with a
discount).
- 12 cities in the country, including Washington D.C. and
Skokie, Ill. have more phones than people.
- AT&T publishes 120,000,000 phone books a year, on almost
1 billion pounds of paper.
--Dave Curry
decvax!pur-ee!davy
ucbvax!pur-ee!davy
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Date: 7 Jun 1982 0934-MDT
From: Randy Frank <FRANK at UTAH-20>
Subject: high speed limited distance modems
For about two years we have been fighting with the local telco (Mtn
Bell) trying to get them to offer unloaded (metallic) circuits between
locations in Salt Lake City that are not serviced by the same central
office. We have been singularly unsucessful. We have tried special
assembly tarriffs, appeals to the public service commision, etc., all
with no luck.
As the situation now stands, if you are serviced by the same CO as the
University, you can get a leased metallic (unloaded) 43401 circuit at
very reasonable prices (often less than a second DDD phone in your
home), which we then use inexpensive limited distance modems in order
to get you 9600 bps access to systems in the University (actually, the
LDM at the Univ end usually connects to our Sytek LocalNet, so you can
conveniently access any system on the LocalNet).
However, if you aren't serviced by the same CO as the University,
you're stuck with 1200 baud dial-up.
My questions are therefore:
1) has anyone been able to get their local operating co to offer
unloaded 43401 circuits betweens COs, and, if so, how?
2) given that 1) just isn't possible, what options are available
for REASONABLE cost higher speeds over 3002 circuits.
With respect to 2), we have just noticed that Astrocom has announced a
4800 baud Metromodem that will operate sync at 4800 baud up to 50
miles over 3002 circuits. Adding in the cost of async to sync
converters, a pair of these comes in at about $2,800. Not cheap, but
then again, the cost of a pair of Vadic's is $1,500, so one gets 4
times the speed for less than double the price. Does anyone know of
any other similarly priced/performanced options? Ideally we'd like to
get 9600 bps asynch over 3002 circuits for the same kind of money
($2,500 - $3,000 per pair), but I may be dreaming.
Randy
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End of TELECOM Digest
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