TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Re: Bell Divestiture

Re: Bell Divestiture

Tony P. (kd1s@nospamplease.cox.reallynospam.net)
Tue, 21 Jun 2005 21:38:50 -0400

In article <telecom24.283.7@telecom-digest.org>, Wesrock@aol.com says:

> In a message dated Tue, 21 Jun 2005 01:07:05 -0000,
> bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) writes:

>> Repeating for the illiterate:

>> 'native' touch-tone operation was substantially cheaper for the telco
>> than was 'native' pulse dialing.

>> They retrofitted dial-to-pulse conversion on SxS switches so that they
>> could 'pre-convert' customers to touch-tone before the switch was
>> converted to native touch-tone dialing.

>> This was a "short-term" expenditure of money now, to maximize
>> "long-term" benefits. By having a significant "installed base" of
>> touch-tone users *already*in*place* when the C.O. was converted to
>> _native_touch-tone_ handling, they could get by with far fewer sets of
>> digit decoders (dial or pulse). With 'pulse' tieing up the decoders
>> for average more than five times as long as touch-tone, there _was_
>> significant benefit to be obtained. getting even 20% of the calls on
>> touch-tone, meant a _halving_ of the number of decoder elements
>> required.

> What was the cost of the touch-tone oscillator for a telephone set,
> vs. the cost of a rotary dial? There were millions of telephone sets
> out there, and at the time that was introduced the phones were
> installed, owned and maintained by the telco. The cost of the
> oscillators (key pads) would be considerable expense, particularly if
> the cost was significantly higher than a rotary dial.

Considering that a rotary dial was nothing but springs and gears,
while a DTMF pad had coils (Bell loved those ferrous cup cores!),
resistors, transistors, specially plated contacts, etc.

But the basics of the phone were just a 500 set with updated housing.
All that really changed was the dial.

But then I stop and think how much effort went into making reliable
rotary dials. They were probably roughly equal in cost using adjusted
dollar amounts.

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