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TELECOM Digest Fri, 17 Jun 2005 18:48:00 EDT Volume 24 : Issue 274 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Telecom Update (Canada) #486, June 17, 2005 (John Riddell) California AG Settles Norvergence Cases (Lisa Minter) Minnesota AG Settles With AT&T (Lisa Minter) Re: Your ISP as Net Watchdog (Danny Burstein) Re: Send Text Message to a Russian Cell Phone (Isaiah Beard) For a Brief Shining Moment: The Lorimer Brothers Invention (Lisa Minter) Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Telecom Update (Canada) #486, June 17, 2005 Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2005 15:13:42 -0400 From: John Riddell <jriddell@angustel.ca> ************************************************************ TELECOM UPDATE ************************************************************ published weekly by Angus TeleManagement Group http://www.angustel.ca Number 486: June 17, 2005 Publication of Telecom Update is made possible by generous financial support from: ** ALLSTREAM: www.allstream.com ** AVAYA: www.avaya.ca/en/ ** BELL CANADA: www.bell.ca ** CISCO SYSTEMS CANADA: www.cisco.com/ca/ ** ERICSSON: www.ericsson.ca ** MITEL NETWORKS: www.mitel.com/ ** SPRINT CANADA: www.sprint.ca ** UTC CANADA: www.canada.utc.org/ ************************************************************ IN THIS ISSUE: ** CRTC Okays Bell VoIP Tariff ** Telcos Apply to Appeal VoIP Winback Rules ** Feds Issue RFI for Dark Fibre ** BT Offers Fusion Phone ** Avaya, Nokia Trial Dual-Mode Handsets ** RIM Faces New Suit ** National Supercomputing Net Launched ** Consumer Guide to Local Phone Competition Posted ** Navigata Names New CEO ** Ericsson, Napster Plan Wireless Music Service ** CRTC Sets Scope of Local Forbearance Proceeding ** Allstream Wins Ruling on Edmonton LRT Lands ** CATA Forms Committee for Telecom Policy Submission ** Broadcasters Challenge Mobile TV Plans ** Research Centre Opened in Saint John ** Videotron, Unions Extend Contracts ** Telus Union Bans Overtime ** Nortel Intros Mobile Security ** Skype Offers Voicemail ** ORION Award Winners Named CRTC OKAYS BELL VoIP TARIFF: The CRTC has given interim approval to Bell Canada's proposed tariffs for its IP-based Digital Voice service, effective June 14. The Commission says it will issue a Public Notice in the near future to give parties an opportunity to comment on the tariff (TN 6874). ** Unlimited calling within a province is $35/month; unlimited calling to Canada and the U.S. is $44/month. The previously announced Unlimited Canada plan is no longer available for new installations. ** The tariffs also include columns for "Minimum Rate" and "Maximum Rate," but the CRTC has allowed those rates to remain confidential. ** Equal access to competitors' long distance services, required by CRTC Telecom Decision 2005-28, is not included. (See Telecom Update #481) www.crtc.gc.ca/8740/eng/2005/b2.htm TELCOS APPLY TO APPEAL VoIP WINBACK RULES: On June 13, Bell Canada, SaskTel, and Telus jointly asked the Federal Court for leave to appeal the "winback rules" component of the CRTC's recent VoIP decision (see Telecom Update #481). The telcos say the ban on calls to customers who switch to other carriers violates their right to freedom of expression under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. ** Rogers, Shaw, Cogeco, EastLink, and the Canadian Cable Television Association have asked to be added to the application as respondents, so that they can file opposing arguments. ** Bell Canada says it plans to appeal the whole decision to Cabinet but has not announced timing. FEDS ISSUE RFI FOR DARK FIBRE: The Department of Public Works has issued a Request for Information "to inform Industry of its intention to develop Shared Fibre Infrastructure" linking government facilities in the Ottawa-Gatineau area, and requesting feedback on architecture, technology, operation, and budgetary costs. The deadline for responses is July 25. See Solicitation EN716-050001/A at www.merx.com. BT OFFERS FUSION PHONE: The UK's BT Group has launched BT Fusion, a wireless phone that automatically switches between the public cellphone network and a home wireless hub that transmits calls over a BT broadband (DSL) connection. The Motorola-built phone uses Bluetooth technology to detect and transmit to the home network hub. ** In a recent interview with Business Communications Review, the CEO of BT Wholesale, Paul Reynolds, said that BT plans to be "the first telco to switch off the PSTN," replacing it with an IP-MPLS backbone connected to all end locations by DSL. AVAYA, NOKIA TRIAL DUAL-MODE HANDSETS: Customer trials are under way for Nokia cellular phones equipped with Avaya software that enables them to access corporate WLANs and utilize corporate PBX features. RIM FACES NEW SUIT: A British court has allowed Research In Motion to fast-track its legal challenge against a patent held by Luxembourg-based Inpro Licensing Sarl. In December, Inpro filed suit to halt BlackBerry sales by RIM's major German distributor, claiming that BlackBerry infringes on Inpro's British patent. NATIONAL SUPERCOMPUTING NET LAUNCHED: Two of Canada's most powerful research computing nets are now connected by a dedicated lightpath, the first step in creating a pan- Canadian High-Performance Computing facility. The link, operated by CANARIE, connects SHARCNET in Southern Ontario to WestGrid in B.C. and Alberta. ** Future plans call for optical connections to academic networks in Eastern Ontario, Quebec, and Atlantic Canada. CONSUMER GUIDE TO LOCAL PHONE COMPETITION POSTED: The CRTC website now provides a consumer guide to competition in the residential telephone market. The guide does not deal with VoIP or with business phone service. www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/INFO_SHT/t1023.htm NAVIGATA NAMES NEW CEO: James Pitt, formerly a VP for Group Telecom and Shaw, has been named CEO of Navigata, a SaskTel subsidiary that provides business telecom services in British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, and Quebec. ERICSSON, NAPSTER PLAN WIRELESS MUSIC SERVICE: Ericsson and Napster have formed a global alliance to offer "the first complete, fully integrated digital music service" for cellular carriers. The service, compatible with current handset models, is to be launched in Europe by mid-2006. CRTC SETS SCOPE OF LOCAL FORBEARANCE PROCEEDING: In Telecom Decision 2005-35, the CRTC announces which services offered by the incumbent telcos will be included in the proceeding on local phone service forbearance (see Telecom Update #479). www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/ENG/Decisions/2005/dt2005-35.htm ALLSTREAM WINS RULING ON EDMONTON LRT LANDS: Resolving a 2003 dispute, CRTC Telecom Decision 2005-36 rules that Edmonton's light rail transit lands are an "other public place" under the Telecom Act, and directs the City and Allstream to negotiate a cost-based fee for Allstream's continued use of conduit in LRT tunnels.(see Telecom Update #393) www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/ENG/Decisions/2005/dt2005-36.htm CATA FORMS COMMITTEE FOR TELECOM POLICY SUBMISSION: The Canadian Advanced Technology Alliance has formed a TelecomACT Working Group to develop a telecom industry submission to the Telecom Policy Review (see Telecom Update #485). www.cata.ca/Media_and_Events/Press_Releases/cata_pr06130501.html BROADCASTERS CHALLENGE MOBILE TV PLANS: The Canadian Association of Broadcasters has asked the CRTC to regulate mobile TV offerings by Rogers, Bell, and Look under the Broadcasting Act. Rogers, which plans to launch mobile TV within weeks, claims the service is exempt from regulation under the New Media Exemption Act, adopted in 1999. RESEARCH CENTRE OPENED IN SAINT JOHN: The Bell-Aliant SMB Innovation Centre in Saint John, N.B., was launched June 13. The centre will develop IP-based applications for small and medium businesses. VIDEOTRON, UNIONS EXTEND CONTRACTS: Videotron's unionized employees have accepted an agreement to extend existing contracts to 2009, 2010, and 2011, with 2.5%/year salary increases in the last three years. TELUS UNION BANS OVERTIME: On June 16, the Telecommunications Workers Union banned overtime by its members at Telus as a protest against the telco's failure to engage in "real bargaining." (See Telecom Update #480) ** The following day, Telus made several improvements to its offer of settlement, including increased pension plan and wage payments, creation of a Common Interest Forum for dialogue with union leaders, and a promise to reinvest savings from outsourcing. NORTEL INTROS MOBILE SECURITY: Nortel Networks says its new Secure Information Access and Secure Multimedia enables enterprises to protect information and communications regardless of whether users are outside or inside their offices. SKYPE OFFERS VOICEMAIL: Skype, which provides free worldwide Internet telephony, now offers a voicemail service for $23/year. The service can also send voice messages to any Skype user. ORION AWARD WINNERS NAMED: The Ontario Research and Innovation Optical Network announced its first awards honouring research and education network pioneers. The ORION Award recipients were: ** Dr. Ross H. Paul, President of the University of Windsor and founding Chair of ORION. ** Andy Bjerring, President CANARIE. ** Robert Chambers and Eugene Siciunas of the University of Toronto, John Drake of McMaster University, and Roger Watt of the University of Waterloo. ** Joan McCalla, the Government of Ontario's Corporate Chief Strategist. ** Warren C. Jackson, retired advanced networking leader. ** Roger Taylor former executive director of ORION's predecessor, ONet Networking. HOW TO SUBMIT ITEMS FOR TELECOM UPDATE E-MAIL: editors@angustel.ca FAX: 905-686-2655 MAIL: TELECOM UPDATE=20 Angus TeleManagement Group 8 Old Kingston Road Ajax, Ontario Canada L1T 2Z7 HOW TO SUBSCRIBE (OR UNSUBSCRIBE) TELECOM UPDATE is provided in electronic form only. There are two formats available: 1. The fully-formatted edition is posted on the World Wide Web late Friday afternoon each week at www.angustel.ca 2. The e-mail edition is distributed free of charge. To subscribe, send an e-mail message to: join-telecom_update@nova.sparklist.com To stop receiving the e-mail edition, send an e-mail message to: leave-telecom_update@nova.sparklist.com Sending e-mail to these addresses will automatically add or remove the sender's e-mail address from the list. Leave subject line and message area blank. We do not give Telecom Update subscribers' e-mail addresses to any third party. For more information, see www.angustel.ca/update/privacy.html. COPYRIGHT AND CONDITIONS OF USE: All contents copyright 2005 Angus TeleManagement Group Inc. All rights reserved. For further information, including permission to reprint or reproduce, please e-mail rosita@angustel.ca or phone 905-686-5050 ext 500. The information and data included has been obtained from sources which we believe to be reliable, but Angus TeleManagement makes no warranties or representations whatsoever regarding accuracy, completeness, or adequacy. Opinions expressed are based on interpretation of available information, and are subject to change. If expert advice on the subject matter is required, the services of a competent professional should be obtained. ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter <lisa_minter2001@yahoo.com> Subject: California AG Settles Norevergence Cases Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2005 15:59:50 -0500 California Settles with NorVergence Leasing Co. California businesses will receive up to $2.6 million in financial benefits under an agreement between Attorney General Bill Lockyer and U.S. Bancorp (USB), resolving a case connected to a consumer fraud perpetrated by NorVergence, Inc., a bankrupt New Jersey-based telecommunications company. "NorVergence scammed nearly 1,000 California small businesses," said Lockyer. "And when it went under, NorVergence left its victims on the hook to pay thousands of dollars for nonexistent service and high-priced equipment. This agreement with U.S. Bancorp provides a much-deserved remedy to defrauded California companies." Under the agreement approved by the San Diego County Superior Court, USB subsidiary Lyon Financial Services (Lyon), Inc. will forego collecting on potential rental contract obligations totaling approximately $2.6 million. USB is one of the finance companies that bought rental contracts from NorVergence. Starting in 2002 until its bankruptcy in July 2004, NorVergence defrauded small businesses across the country in marketing and selling telecommunications services and equipment. NorVergence promised victims multi-year savings of up to 30 percent on their phone, cellular and Internet bills. The savings would be produced, NorVergence told customers, by a "Matrix" black box installed on businesses' premises that would allow customers to integrate their telecommunications systems. The Matrix services cost businesses between $500 and $2,000 a month under rental contracts that typically lasted five-years. For fast cash, NorVergence sold the contracts at a discount to about 40 finance companies, including USB. Contrary to NorVergence's representations, there was nothing special about the Matrix black box. It was nothing more than standard routing equipment that had no value without a connection to phone carriers' networks. NorVergence had no means to guarantee the long-term savings it promised because it had no long-term contracts with carriers. NorVergence's victims totaled an estimated 11,000 nationwide, including about 1,000 in California. When NorVergence filed for bankruptcy, USB and other finance companies that bought the rental contracts demanded that businesses continue making payments under their five-year agreements, even though the businesses were not receiving the promised services. The contracts purported to require customers to pay in full even if they received no services. Additionally, customers often found it difficult to challenge charges because the contracts allowed the finance companies to pursue collection lawsuits in venues far from customers' locations. USB's venue of choice was its home state of Minnesota, an extremely inconvenient forum for California businesses. Under the settlement, customers will have the opportunity to bring their contract current through January 31, 2005, and will have the option of making such payments in installments. In return, USB will forgive the balance of the contract obligations. If all California customers accept, USB will forgive about $2.6 million in payments. USB will mail to eligible customers a notice advising them of the opportunity to participate in the settlement, with instructions on how to participate. As part of the settlement, USB has agreed to not enforce the provision of the rental contracts that purportedly allows USB to choose the venue to resolve disputes. Copyright 2003-2005 ConsumerAffairs.Com Inc. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter <lisa_minter2001@yahoo.com> Subject: Minnesota AG Settles With AT&T Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2005 16:01:59 -0500 The state of Minnesota and AT&T have reached an agreement that resolves the consumer protection lawsuit filed against the long distance carrier. AT&T Billing . AT&T Settles Minnesota Suit . AT&T to Pay Missouri $50,000 for Improper Billing . AT&T Will Pay FCC $500,000 . Judge Allows Florida Case to Proceed . Florida Orders Refunds . AT&T Agrees to Pay Refunds to New Yorkers . Class Action Charges AT&T Slammed Non-Customers . MA, NY Complaints . Minnesota Sues AT&T The agreement settles the state's claim that AT&T erroneously billed some 25,939 Minnesota citizens in 2004 for services never ordered or provided. Under the terms of the settlement, AT&T has refunded or credited Minnesotans who were wrongly billed and has agreed to provide 300-minute long distance calling cards to Minnesotans adversely affected by its erroneous billing and to make a $200,000 payment to the State. The State's final settlement with AT&T specifically includes the following: . AT&T agreed to credit and refund all Minnesotans incorrectly assessed calling plan charges and to stop marketing to callers who had been billed in error. Over 25,000 Minnesotans have received credits to date for a total of $308,000. . In addition, the 25,000-plus Minnesotans who received credits are also eligible for a 300-minute calling card. Eligible citizens will receive a letter in the mail detailing how to submit an application for a calling card. The consumer calling card restitution has a retail value of up to $780,000. . AT&T will make a $200,000 payment to the State of Minnesota. The state's lawsuit was the result of an investigation that revealed that over 25,000 Minnesotans were erroneously billed on their local phone bill for long distance calling plan charges by AT&T beginning in January 2004. When the company started assessing a $3.95 monthly charge to its long distance "Basic Rate Plan" customers, AT&T billed not only customers on its "Basic Rate Plan" for the $3.95 and other associated fees, but also an additional 25,939 Minnesotans who did not order services from AT&T or who had other AT&T calling plans. In addition, when those citizens called AT&T to inquire about the charges, rather than helping consumers, AT&T placed Minnesotans on hold for extensive periods of time, transferred them to customer service representatives who tried to "hard sell" AT&T services, and, in some cases, the company told consumers they would had to sign up for an AT&T calling plan to get their money back or charges credited. A letter is being sent to those Minnesotans who were incorrectly billed by AT&T, directing those citizens how to receive their calling card. Eligible consumers will simply have to check a box on a claim form, fill in the claim number found on the letter, sign and mail the form back to the Minnesota Attorney General's Office by August 15, 2005, or send an email to the Office at phonecard.settlement@state.mn.us. The email must include the customer's name, address, the reason for requesting the calling card, and the claim number on the letter. Copyright 2003-2005 ConsumerAffairs.Com Inc. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. (Also see the far left column on the above page for all the ConsumerAffairs.com recent stories.) ------------------------------ From: Danny Burstein <dannyb@panix.com> Subject: Re: Your ISP as Net Watchdog Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2005 19:37:32 UTC Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC ( snip of the latest gov't trial balloon about mandatory ISP logging ) With the very strong emphasis that I'm not speaking for any ISP with which I'm connected: The problem here is the clear and evident slippery slope. To carry this to an extreme example: Office bathrooms with video cameras. If a bomb went off in the building, most (although not all) people would accept having Eliot Ness looking through the tapes to see if there's any footage of the person putting it together. The Big Problem is that everyone is well aware that once those cameras are around, it won't just be Mr. Ness having access to them after a bombing. Same thing with ISP records. Most (not all, of course) would agree to hand over material for use in tracking (or stopping) Timothy McVeigh. But everyone is well aware that once these records are available, they'll be used for lots and lots of other things. And not just gov't witch hunts. Throw in more or less routine crimes (certainly of concern to the victims) and then move sideways to civil litigation, divorces, etc. _____________________________________________________ Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key dannyb@panix.com [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded] ------------------------------ From: Isaiah Beard <sacredpoet@sacredpoet.com> Subject: Re: Send Text Message to a Russian Cell Phone Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2005 16:47:43 -0400 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com cronept wrote: > Hi, > I have a friend who is in Russia. I am in the states. She is using a > GSM cell phone. I am wondering if I can send text message to her from > the Internet? I tried AIM but I do not know how to send to a cellphone > outside the US. Does anybody know any websites or any software can do > that? Thanks alot. I appciate it. It would most likely depend on waht kind of cell phone you have. If you have a GSM phone, I would try +[country code] [number]. If a CDMA, phone try 011 [country code] [number]. E-mail fudged to thwart spammers. Transpose the c's and a's in my e-mail address to reply. ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter <lisa_minter2001@yahoo.com> Subject: For a Brief Shining Moment: The Lorimer Brothers; Machine Telephony Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2005 12:10:57 -0500 For some special reading this weekend, I have selected -- not from our own Archives -- but from _Telecom History_ in 1995, a story I thought you might be interested in. Lisa M. ======================================= For A Brief Shining Moment: The Lorimer Brothers and Machine Telephony By Jean-Guy Rens Published in Telecom History, 1995 - 1. Before the separation of Northern Telecom (then Northern Electric) from Western Electric following the Consent Decree between American Telephone & Telegraph (AT&T) and the Justice Department in 1956, Canada was a technological wasteland from a telecommunications standpoint. All innovation was imported from the U.S. by Canadian companies that simply manufactured the new products under license. But there was one notable exception: the Lorimer brothers' commercially brief but technologically shining adventure with switching at the turn of the century. Following invention of the step-by-step switch by Almon B. Strowger in 1889, the U.S. telecommunications industry went into technological overdrive. Unfortunately, all the switching systems developed at that time, including step-by-step, had one common drawback: they grew ever more complex as the number of subscribers required ever more wires, posing an insurmountable problem not only for manufacturers but above all for system operators. Callender the Pioneer The most significant alternative to step-by-step came from Canada. The first of the Canadian competitors, Romaine Callender, was closely associated with Alexander Graham Bell. Callender taught music and manufactured organs in Brantford, Ontario, and his main claim to fame was having built an automatic organ player. Then he founded the Callender Telephone Exchange Company, a modest undertaking which, at the height of its activities, employed 14 people, among them two young brothers, George William and James Hoyt Lorimer, from the nearby village of St. George. Their father had died at an early age, and the eldest brother, George, went to work as a telephone operator. Hoyt had begun his law studies, but then became fascinated with the telephone and convinced his older brother to get involved in research work under Callender. Between 1892 and 1896, Callender took out three series of patents. His first two switches, tested in Brantford, were such complete failures that he had to try and raise money in New York, where he opened a new shop in the spring of 1894. The Lorimer brothers followed him there, and work began again, under slightly more auspicious conditions. Notwithstanding Hoyt's frail health due to bouts of typhoid, the first successful experiment took place in New York in January 1895 using a wooden model known alternately as the Brantford Exchange or the Callender Exchange. A dozen calls were put through automatically which, for the time, was considered an amazing phenomenon. The little team then returned to Brantford at the request of their Canadian backers. It is not entirely clear why Callender gave up his research activities, but he left Canada for England in July or August 1896 where he formed a company under the name Callender Rapid Telephone Company, of which all trace has been lost. The Lorimer brothers carried on his research work and, after considerable financial difficulties, they opened their own company, Canadian Machine Telephone, in Peterborough, Ontario, in March 1897. There they produced the first commercial version of the Callender Exchange, which was put into service by an independent telephone company in Troy, Ohio, in 1897. The system the Lorimers sold to the American company was so rudimentary that it still needed major development, and a workshop was set up in nearby Piqua to handle the work. An experimental switching system built in the Piqua shop was used as an internal switchboard in the shop. The Lorimer brothers continued to work on their system, to the point where it bore no further resemblance to the one developed by their former boss Callender. By the end of 1899, a definitive commercial model of the switchboard was finally ready. Shortly after this, the Lorimers enlarged their Piqua shop into a true production facility, which they named the American Machine Telephone, and it was this name they used in their international activities. They took out their own patent in the U.S. in 1900 and the following year in Canada, and launched a brisk marketing program for their new switches; too brisk, perhaps, as the systems were never completely satisfactory. The Lorimer Brothers Launch a Canadian Switching System The "mechanical genius" of the Lorimer family, as the newspapers of the time had christened him, was Hoyt. He died of typhoid fever on November 6, 1901, at the age of 25, completely exhausted from overwork. The youngest Lorimer brother, Egbert, then joined the company, but the creative spark was lost, and there were no further advances. And yet, the Lorimer brothers seem to have been effective salesmen. They had a switching system with several hundred lines on display for two months in Ottawa. The leading Canadian telecommunications consultant at the time, engineer Francis Dagger, made a report to the Toronto City Hall with a strong recommendation to test the Lorimer technology: "Those who have been privileged to see this system in operation and to inspect the manufacturing plant at Piqua, Ohio, are forced to admit that, as far as human intelligence is competent to pass judgment in such matters, the problem of machine telephony is solved, and a result, a new era is about to open in which the largest exchanges will be able to give service at rates which, with manual systems, would never have been possible." It even appears that Canadian Machine Telephone moved its plant from Peterborough to Toronto in hopes of winning a city contract for a 6,000-line switching system with the capacity to expand to 10,000 lines. But City Hall gave up its telephone service plans and the Lorimer brothers had to fall back on small independent companies in Ontario. In 1905, Lorimer switches went into operation in Peterborough, where the Canadian manufacturing plant was located, and in Brantford, home of the former Callender plant. By 1908, other systems were installed in Burford, Saint George and Lindsay, all in Ontario. But the biggest Lorimer switchboard ever installed, with 500 lines, appears to have been in Augusta, Georgia. What Canadian Machine Telephone needed was a major client to act as a technological showcase. When the Edmonton Telephone Department placed an order with the Lorimers in 1906, the brothers thought their day had finally come. But they were unable to produce a model to suit the customer's requirements, and the cutover was delayed from month to month. After waiting for two years, Edmonton turned to the Strowger solution, depriving the Lorimer brothers of the chance to provide service to the Alberta capital. Automatic Electric got the contract and installed a step-by-step switching system in two months flat. Compared to the Strowger professionals, the Lorimer brothers looked like rank amateurs. The three reasons for Edmonton's initial choice are, however, of interest: the cost of a Lorimer line was only $34, compared to $40 for a Strowger line; the system took up only half as much space, and its centralized technology seemed more simple and elegant than the competitor, even if connection time was slightly longer. Apart from these unpromising "sales", this Canadian technology met with some successf overseas. The European rights were transferred to a French concern that in May 1908 set up the Société Internationale de l'Autocommutateur Lorimer, with European headquarters in the Galerie Vivienne in Paris. France purchased two switching systems, Britain another two, and Italy one. Despite all these efforts, the system was not adopted by the Post, Telegraph and Telephone (PTT) organizations in these countries, since it consistently failed to prove sufficiently reliable. Also lacking was the polish that could only have been provided by the type of powerful research team that produced the Strowger system. To make things worse, Canadian Machine Telephone never seemed to be able to deliver in any reasonable length of time, as shown in the Edmonton example. The company finally declared bankruptcy in 1923 and was placed in receivership. Bell acquired the company two years later. The Callender-Lorimer Technology If the Lorimer brothers deserve mention in the history of telecommunications, it is much more for their theoretical contribution than for their business sense. Their principles have influenced the entire process of electromechanical switch development, in particular the AT&T systems. When that company went automatic, it adopted technology derived from the Lorimer principles. International switching specialist Robert J. Chapuis enthusiastically recounts this little-known historical fact: "Onto the vigorous and resilient sapling planted by the Lorimer brothers, Western Electric engineers proceeded to graft the shoot that would turn it into a healthy and productive fruit tree." The great innovation of the Lorimer switch is in fact a Callender concept, the principle of preselection. Instead of having as many connection mechanisms as there are subscriber lines, the Callender system is based on the principle that people do not all make calls at the same time and thus use only a small percentage of connection mechanisms. This results in the use of about 90% less mechanical equipment. As well, the great challenge in the early days of automatic switching was speed, so that customers would not have to wait too long for a dial tone. Introduced by Callender in 1893, this innovation was later adopted by all switch manufacturers, including Strowger. More generally, the Callender-Lorimer system is based on the action of a perpetually turning wheel. Contacts are established by stopping the movement of the wheel at a place that corresponds to each number dialled. Only one motion is needed to select a contact instead of two as in the step-by-step system. The Lorimer switch was also entirely modular, with panels containing 100 lines, making it simple to increase the capacity of a system rather than replacing it as the number of customers grew. Instead of a dial, the Lorimer telephone set itself had a series of levers, one each for units, tens, hundreds and thousands. All the caller had to do was move each of the four levers to the desired figure to make up the telephone number. This process was modelled on systems like those used in railway signals or cash registers. Another advantage was that the telephone set did not need batteries, since it was powered by a central battery system. One of the main criticisms of automatic exchanges was the fact that subscribers were required to perform highly complex operations. This was why it was important to design a telephone that would be as simple as possible to operate. The Lorimer sets seemed to meet this requirement. Historical Impact of the Lorimer Research The Lorimer technology was the last work in automatic switching at the turn of the century. Observers at the time were quick to recognize this Canadian contribution, and the American expert Kempster B. Miller wrote in 1914: "These young men, with no prior training and 'so they say' without ever having seen the inside of a telephone exchange, invented and developed the system in question and put it into operation. Knowing something of their struggles and efforts to achieve their purpose, we find their creation one of the most remarkable we have ever seen, whatever the value of the system." Further proof of this recognition is found in a 1925 opinion expressed by Professor Fritz Lubberger, a German telephone switching specialist: "In Canada towards 1900, the Lorimer brothers invented a system which, although it has not been introduced anywhere, is of such richly inventive design that even today any specialist in automatic systems would benefit from studying it in detail." But the most convincing proof of the value of the Lorimer brothers' research came from AT&T. In 1903, the American giant bought the Lorimer patent and decided to turn what had until then been just another piece of laboratory equipment into a commercially viable product. They put not one, but two research teams on the project, which produced two of the most popular systems in the history of electromechanical switching, the Panel and the Rotary. Both used the Lorimer principle of one-step selection, and the Rotary switch also used the principle of the permanently rotating motor (thus its name). AT&T chose the Panel system and used in the majority of large U.S. cities until the 1950s, when it began to be replaced by the crossbar. It was never used outside the United States. The Rotary system, on the other hand, won the approval of many European telephone administrations, particularly in France. When ITT bought Western Electric's International Division in 1925, it also inherited its Rotary production lines. The principles of the Lorimer system thus passed into international posterity, both in the U.S. and Europe, but the Lorimers themselves won no posthumous fame until the very recent rediscovery of their work by Robert Chapuis. A legitimate question would be why the Lorimer brothers' switching system sank into such total oblivion. Most telephone engineers have never even heard of their technology. Chapuis has an interesting suggestion: "The reason for its posthumous eclipse is that most of the works published on switching describe former or existing systems of telecommunications manufacturing companies that were well established, which ... was soon no longer the position of the Lorimer brothers' company." Whatever the true answer, it is still intriguing to note that Canada's only technological contribution to the development of telecommunications before the contemporary period was in the field of electromechanical switching. Three-quarters of a century later, Northern Telecom was to repeat this exploit with the DMS digital switch, although this time with considerably more commercial success. Switches are the brains of a network. They are the key to its development. The inescapable conclusion, is that Canadians, separated as they are by such vast distances, realized that the mastery of telecommunications was essential to their survival as a society. And the switch, as the key to the system, was also the key to this mastery and thus their survival. Excerpt from Chapter 8 of the - Birth of Northern Telecom and technological progress, in particular sub-chapters: The true inventor of Brantford The Lorimer brothers launch a Canadian switch Outline of Callender-Lorimer technology The Lorimer brothers' work lives on Copyright ScienceTech Communications Inc. Montreal, 1995-2005 ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. 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