From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat May 15 16:29:17 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.3) id i4FKTGQ08487; Sat, 15 May 2004 16:29:17 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sat, 15 May 2004 16:29:17 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200405152029.i4FKTGQ08487@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V23 #242 TELECOM Digest Sat, 15 May 2004 16:29:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 242 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Western Union, Chicago, October, 1871 (TELECOM Digest Editor) Re: NANP Numbering (Michael G. Koerner) Re: Transoceanic Data Communication Cables (Bill Burns) Re: Transoceanic Data Communication Cables (Alan Burkitt-Gray) Phone and DSL Companies Heap on Extra Fees; Look Like Taxes (Karen Witter) Television's 'Bubble' Shows Face Uncertain Future (Monty Solomon) 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 15 May 2004 15:36:56 EDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Western Union, Chicago, October, 1871 Last week in this space, articles appeared regarding the May, 1988 fire in the Illinois Bell Central office in Hindsale, Illinois. But 117 years prior, long before the sophistication of a Hinsdale, Illinois telephone network location and its fire, on October 8, 1871, another fire of disasterous proportions caused havoc on another method of communication, the (then still a new company) Western Union Telegraph Company. There is *so much* documentation on the great fire in Chicago, (use search engines for 'Chicago Fire 1871') that I won't even begin to touch on it here. Instead we will deal in this article with just one aspect of that fire: the destruction of the telegraph office in Chicago. You have probably all heard the famous abbreviation 'TGIF' which means 'Thank God it is Friday', often times said with a sigh of relief at the end of a busy, often times frustrating week. A somewhat lesser known abbreviation is 'OHIM' which stands for 'Oh Hell, it is Monday' for the start of another work week, possibly as frustrating as the week just finished. The Hinsdale fire started Sunday evening, roared on through the late night hours and was finally struck around 11 PM that Sunday night. The Great Fire in Chicago started on Sunday, Oct- ober 8, 1871, and would rage on for two days until burning itself out early Tuesday morning, October 10, 1871, when a driving rain finally extinquished the blaze at Fullerton Avenue on the north side of the city. After the fire started on the west side of the city about 9 PM, people elsewhere in the city watched with much interest. Although it was obviously a 'problem', they were safe since the fire was on the *west* side of the Chicago River; that would surely protect them on the *east* side of the river, they thought. At the telegraph office, on LaSalle Street downtown, the single agent on duty watched it all with interest -- the bright flames in the distance, as he 'chatted' on the wire with other clerks in other cities in his spare time, and this was Sunday night, after all, and not a very busy time, with much free time to listen to the wire as it delivered its soap opera like messages everywhere. Between the various messages, known as 'traffic' in the industry, the various clerks would chat among themselves, and the fire in Chicago, which some predicted would be the worst thing to ever happen was one topic of the chatter. There was a system that they would chat as desired, but if any agent somewhere on the wire had traffic to be sent, that person would 'rattle' or bang the key in such a way to cut into the conversation telling the others to 'shut up for now, I have traffic'. And when the wire quieted down, someone would tap out 'go with your traffic' and the one who had the message between customers would then proceed. Chicago being the center of the United States, the office there has many interconnection lines or circuits between other cities, and mechanical methods of hooking the wires together to pass traffic from, let's say, New York or Washington to St. Louis or Des Moines, via, naturally, Chicago. The trains all came through Chicago, so should, logically, the telegraph wires. The clerk on duty that Sunday night expressed some annoyance that instead of getting off duty at 11 PM as he normally did, the clerk who would have taken over at that time had said he would not be coming into work that night; some other business would keep him away. So our man would be 'stuck there' for a double duty shift until 7 AM Monday morning, when all the regular crew of clerks, telegraphers and message delivery people began their workday. Little did he know that by 7 AM Monday morning the office would be gone, completely burned out. Like a play-by-play radio announcer describing a baseball game or other sporting event, as he listened to the chatter on the wires, which by midnight had largely turned in to gossip about 'that fire they are having in Chicago' he would interuppt now and then to say something of significance about the event, but the biggest and most frightening event came at 1:00 AM Monday morning when the wind came up and blew some smoldering embers *across the river* onto the (had thought to be) 'safe side' (east side of the river), and those embers then ingited. Some of the smoldering scraps blew through the air and landed on the roof of the People's Gas Works on Van Buren Street. After a mighty roar which sounded a lot like an atomic bomb explosion, when a large 'gasometer' (or distributing system for gas) caught fire and exploded, the gas lamps all over the city went out, and many places were in darkness. At about 3:00 AM, Mayor Mason and four other men rode up to the office on their horses, and the Mayor instructed the clerk to get a message off to (United States) President Grant and others in Washington informing him that in his authority as Mayor of Chicago, he had a few minutes earlier declared a state of Martial Law, and had asked for assistance from the Army and General Sheridan in maintaining order and that he had told his council members of his intention to seize all incoming railroad trains and their supplies to use to feed the people. President Grant answered back a few minutes later saying that General Sheridan and his troops were on the way. (They would actually arrive in mid-day Tuesday, having come from Indianapolis, IN.) About 4:00 AM the Water Works building caught fire and with the cessation of water pressure that was the end of the fire fighting, but not the fire itself. Our clerk watched anxiously as other buildings around his own began to catch fire. (Remember, in those days before elevators the tallest buidings anywhere were only two or three, occassionally four stories tall.) But then it happened: flames jumped from the building next to his, and his roof caught on fire as well. The company has a large, 'walk-in' fire proof safe there in the office, so he walked around the room, gathering up all the ledgers and bookkeeping records, and the cash box, put it all in the safe, which he locked up. Then 'breaking' on the still chattering wire, he said "I think I had better get out of here, our roof just caught on fire also," and he grabbed his personal possessions and walked out the door. It was a good thing he did, I guess, since about a minute later, maybe less, the enflamed roof collapsed in an inferno on the office. What a hell of a way to start Monday and a new work week. The interconnecting apparatus was gone a minute or so later and within five minutes the entire building had collapsed. Within two or three days, the telegraph office was back in service at its temporary location, the US Customs House office on South Canal Street, south of where the fire had been which would eventually, by the time it was extinguished due to the heavy rain on Tuesday morning, claim the lives of three hundred people, destroy over 17,000 buildings, and cause about three million dollars (in 1871 money) damage. How did the fire travel so quickly and do so much damage? **All the buildings were wooden structures**. There were no fire codes in those days requiring brick or metal structures. They had wooden sidewalks everywhere. The newer 'fire-proof' buildings were made out of brick and here and there was a metal structure. The total population of Chicago at that time was 324,000 people. Even the Chicago Tribune and its supposedly 'fire-proof' structure burned to the ground, but a very inspirational story says that Horace White (Tribune editor at the time of the fire -- search for Horace White in the search engines), like the telegraph people, missed a day of business because of the fire. There was no issue of the Tribune published on Monday, October 8, 1871, but White went out and bought the neccessary supplies to start the paper again the next day. He saw a man on the street who had been put out of work by the fire that was still going on, told him "you are hired now to work for me, I just now bought that building over there to be the new office for our newspaper, paint a sign that says 'Chicago Tribune' to hang over the doorway, then go inside and report to Mr. Smithers (the manager) and tell him to find other work for you to do." The telegraph office relocated to the Customs House on Tuesday and by late Wednesday new wires had been installed to replace all the melted wires and charred poles everywhere around town. With the final connection of the wires allowing circuits to be completed, the wires came back to life with their familiar chatter. In 1901, the Chicago Historical Society published a little book which was entitled 'Rememberances of the Great Fire' and the Society said the purpose of the book was "now thirty years later, before the few people left who remember the fire and were in it are dead and no one is left who remembers it, we wanted to get their stories down in writing." Several individuals who lived through the fire contributed to the book. In 1911, on the fortieth anniversary of the Great Fire, the Chicago Tribune in its Sunday magazine section interviewed the fellow who had been employed in the telegraph office on that fateful Sunday night/Monday morning when it had happened. The Western Union Telegraph Company by that point in time had built its modern skyscaper building at 427 South LaSalle Street (LaSalle and Van Buren Streets) on the location where the 1871 building had stood. In 1971, Mayor Daley and the Chicago City Council commemorated the hundreth anniversary of the fire by strengthing and updating the fire safety codes which had been originally put in place after the great fire. To its credit, Chicago has among the most agressive and vigorous fire safety codes in the United States today. Some other references for you to check out: http://www,nationalcenter.org/ChicagoFire.html http://chicagohs.org/fire/intro Next week: A more modern (1950-ish) Western Union Public Office. PAT ------------------------------ From: Michael G. Koerner Subject: Re: NANP Numbering Date: Sat, 15 May 2004 02:20:23 -0500 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com ranck@vt.edu wrote: > Paul Robinson wrote: >> All area codes in Virginia are shared on an overlay, so the entire >> Commonwealth of Virginia is mandatory 10 digit dialing for all calls, >> not just the DC suburbs. > Not in the part of Virginia where I live, unless you are talking about > toll calls. Locals are 7 digit, and local is a pretty big area here. > Bill Ranck > Blacksburg, Va. IIRC, in Virginia, mandatory '10D local' dialing only applies to calls placed from the 571/703 area (DC suburbs). ___________________________________________ ____ _______________ Regards, | |\ ____ | | | | |\ Michael G. Koerner May they | | | | | | rise again! Appleton, Wisconsin USA | | | | | | ___________________________________________ | | | | | | _______________ ------------------------------ From: Bill Burns Subject: Re: Transoceanic Data Communication Cables Date: 15 May 2004 11:41:07 GMT Organization: FTL Tony P. wrote: > If you can find it at your library, get "A history of Engineering > and Design in the Bell System: Electronic Technology" > They go into the tube based amplifiers used for the early > sub-oceanic cables. An excellent book, and a good recommendation, but the first tube repeaters came a hundred years after the beginning of undersea cable communications so I don't know if this should be considered "early". Bill Burns, Long Island, NY, USA mailto:billb@ftldesign.com History of Technology Websites: http://ftldesign.com ------------------------------ From: Alan Burkitt-Gray Subject: Re: Transoceanic Data Communication Cables Date: Sat, 15 May 2004 16:04:10 +0100 Claire Schatz wrote: > I'm currently doing a reseach paper on 'Transoceanic data > communication cables: the technology, history and future' for my data > communication concepts class. Claire, a great historical read about the very earliest transoceanic cables is The Victorian Internet, written a couple of years ago by Tom Standage. It's just over $10 from amazon.com Alan Burkitt-Gray Editor, Global Telecoms Business Euromoney Institutional Investor plc, Nestor House, Playhouse Yard, London EC4V 5EX, UK tel +44 20 7779 8518 fax +44 20 7779 8248 email aburkitt@euromoneyplc.com Global Telecoms Business http://www.globaltelecomsbusiness.com is official publication at TeleManagement World, Nice, France, May 17-20 2004, with supplement plus three daily newspapers. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Alan, I am curious, and will ask you since you are in that part of the world. What was the final outcome with the fire in Manchester about a month ago? Has all service finally been restored? Was the blame ever made official? How were you, in your part of UK affected by it? PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 15 May 2004 10:30:08 -0400 From: Karen Witter Subject: Telephone and DSL Companies Heap on Extra Fees That Look Like Taxes Boston Globe/ Associated Press Regulatory Programs Fee. It sure sounds like a government tax. It isn't. The latest addition to T-Mobile's monthly bill is merely the latest example of telephone companies passing their own cost of doing business to their customers with an array of surcharges that one might easily mistake for taxes being collected on behalf of the government. Actually, T-Mobile's monthly charge of 86 cents is among the more clearly labeled. At Verizon Communications Inc., monthly bills for high-speed DSL Internet service will now include a surcharge ranging from $2 to $3 a month called 'Supplier FUSF Recovery,' while DSL bills at SBC Communications Inc. now show an 'FUSF pass-through fee' of $1.86 for new and renewing subscribers. Full Story http://www.boston.com/dailynews/135/economy/ALL_BUSINESS_Telephone_and_DSLP.shtml ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 15 May 2004 15:44:19 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Television's "Bubble" Shows Face Uncertain Future By Steve Gorman LOS ANGELES, May 14 (Reuters) - Will "Arrested Development" come to a premature end? Can "8 Simple Rules" live on for another season without its original star, John Ritter? And just what will become of "Whoopi?" Those are but a few of the more high-profile question marks floating over the heads of network executives as they decide which of this season's ratings misfires deserves one more chance and which ends up on the prime-time chopping block. Their fate will be sealed next week as NBC, ABC, CBS and Fox -- in that order -- unveil their fall 2004 schedules in a series of presentations launching their "upfront" sales of commercial time to advertisers. The upfront market typically accounts for 70 to 80 percent of all ad sales by the networks. And Randy Falco, president of NBC Universal Television Networks Group, has said he expects the entire upfront to reap "a couple of percentage points" above last year's roughly $9 billion total for prime time. Besides deciding which existing shows will be renewed for the upcoming season, the Big Four broadcasters must choose from dozens of new pilots competing to fill the gaps left by current shows that get the ax. This year's crop of likely newcomers is especially heavy on spinoffs, including "Friends" progeny "Joey" and a fourth variation of "Law & Order" on NBC, a new edition to the "CSI" crime drama franchise on CBS and a successor to departing legal drama "The Practice" on ABC. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=41458444 ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. 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