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Message Digest Volume 28 : Issue 15 : "text" Format Messages in this Issue: Steve Jobs medical leave of absence Re: AT&T drops Appleton, WI time/temp service - local guy picks it up Re: AT&T drops Appleton, WI time/temp service - local guy picks it up Re: AT&T drops Appleton, WI time/temp service - local guy picks it up Re: Nortel files for bankruptcy protection Re: AT&T drops Appleton, WI time/temp service - local guy picks it up ====== 27 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ====== 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, and other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2009 22:57:37 -0500 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Steve Jobs medical leave of absence Message-ID: <p06240802c594645d0240@[10.0.1.6]> http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2009/01/14advisory.html January 14, 2009 Apple Media Advisory Apple CEO Steve Jobs today sent the following email to all Apple employees: Team, I am sure all of you saw my letter last week sharing something very personal with the Apple community. Unfortunately, the curiosity over my personal health continues to be a distraction not only for me and my family, but everyone else at Apple as well. In addition, during the past week I have learned that my health-related issues are more complex than I originally thought. In order to take myself out of the limelight and focus on my health, and to allow everyone at Apple to focus on delivering extraordinary products, I have decided to take a medical leave of absence until the end of June. I have asked Tim Cook to be responsible for Apple's day to day operations, and I know he and the rest of the executive management team will do a great job. As CEO, I plan to remain involved in major strategic decisions while I am out. Our board of directors fully supports this plan. I look forward to seeing all of you this summer. Steve ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2009 05:26:40 -0800 (PST) From: David Kaye <sfdavidkaye2@yahoo.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: AT&T drops Appleton, WI time/temp service - local guy picks it up Message-ID: <014f6346-a08b-4703-abf6-2012be086b39@g3g2000pre.googlegroups.com> On Jan 14, 2:40 pm, "Michael G. Koerner" <mgk...@dataex.com> wrote: > > A Darboy businessman saved a 59-year-old Appleton institution. This is so funny. Ever since AT&T dropped both the time and the weather services (here in San Francisco they were POPCORN and WE6-1212, I've had a hankering for time and temp. Time, especially. Unless one is near a computer it's hard to get good time. My cell phone resolves to the minute, and radio and TV stations have so much digital delay built into them that they can be off 10-20 seconds! So I wrote some time/temp software and now I'm looking for equipment to handle it. Heck, I used to have a 5-line POTS line broadcaster but no longer have it. I shouldn't have tossed it. Anybody have leads to a fairly inexpensive multi-line POTS broadcaster? ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2009 06:53:23 -0800 (PST) From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: AT&T drops Appleton, WI time/temp service - local guy picks it up Message-ID: <93a67f08-dfcd-4f71-b8af-88429d76a0ec@n2g2000vbl.googlegroups.com> On Jan 14, 5:40 pm, "Michael G. Koerner" <mgk...@dataex.com> wrote: > A Darboy businessman saved a 59-year-old Appleton institution. Would anyone know of such time/temp services still available elsewhere in the U.S.? Bell made a half-hearted effort to standardize them at 936-1212 but many places had their own number. Later, some companies charged extra for it and it was a 976 number. > Man, that line was in service since 1950 - (memory flow alert!) dial > telephone service was cut in in Appleton in 1949 and from that time > until about 1968 or 1969, one only needed to dial the last five > digits of the number to connect a local call dialed from Appleton > (733 or 734 numbers). Made it easier for SxS exchanges so new levels and expensive switches didn't need to be added. I believe in such cases if someone dialed a 7 first it was simply absorbed (ignored). > That, too, will end in a couple of years when NPA 274 comes to the > 920 area, requiring that all ten digits of the number be dialed on > all calls. Hard to believe a small town in Wisconsin will require ten digits when not that long ago five were plenty. ------------------------------ Date: 15 Jan 2009 23:37:45 -0000 From: John Levine <johnl@iecc.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: AT&T drops Appleton, WI time/temp service - local guy picks it up Message-ID: <20090115233745.8360.qmail@simone.iecc.com> >Would anyone know of such time/temp services still available elsewhere >in the U.S.? Bell made a half-hearted effort to standardize them at >936-1212 but many places had their own number. In Boston, time is 617-637-xxxx and weather is 617-936-xxxx, for any xxxx. I just called them, both say they're Verizon. R's, John ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2009 05:32:46 -0800 (PST) From: David Kaye <sfdavidkaye2@yahoo.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Nortel files for bankruptcy protection Message-ID: <281b445a-4255-43cf-a5fd-bc1c0d69b470@l33g2000pri.googlegroups.com> How the mighty have fallen. Nortel was once Northern Telecom, aka Northern Electric, the equipment supplier of Bell Canada in earlier days, the Canadian equivalent of what Western Electric was to the U.S. Bell System. ***** Moderator's Note ***** It's a sad day, to be sure. The "old world" wireline monopolies could afford the best, and they were willing to pay for it, because it meant less maintenance, more reliability, and a lot less training required for the union work force (1). They got what they paid for; gold-plated reliability that is, to this day, the standard for all the world: the United States and Canada are the only places I've ever been where customers pick up a telephone and dial a call without bothering to listen for a dial tone. N.E.T. once conducted an experiment: it installed a switch made by a third vendor in a Boston-area location, to evaluate the cost/performance ratio. The exchange was plagued with problems throughout its lifetime, with everyone involved pointing fingers at everyone else. Although the executives liked having a third name they could drop during negotiations with Western Electric and Nortel, the citizens who used the exchange were much less enthusiastic, and eventually preasure from the PUC forced the transition to a Nortel remote. Suffice to say that the Baby Bells learned the hard way that the Frying Pan you know is better than the Fire you don't: they stuck with the Weco/Nortel duopoly thereafter. All would have been fine, except for Nicholas Negroponte and his prophecy about the crossover of wire and wireless. Cellular penetration continues to erode the wireline customer base, and cellular carriers contine to rake it in with bundles that include long distance (it's cheaper to include it rather than bill for it), while wireline competitors creek along with antiquated billing systems, an expensive work force (cellular is pretty much all non-union), and "big iron" exchanges that cost millions but can't attract customers who have other choices. Bill Horne Temporary Moderator 1.) There is, of course, the sleight-of-hand game which AT&T played to maximize profits, pre-1984. Prior to the breakup, when AT&T owned the Bell System, Western Electric was a major profit center which could, given the margin-of-return regulatory environments AT&T's subsidiaries worked in, charge pretty much whatever it wanted for its switches. AT&T would enjoy the profits from Weco, while the operating companies told regulators they had no choice. That's another story, for another time: suffice to say that Nortel had 20+ years to deal with the change, and the company didn't keep up. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2009 08:37:22 -0800 (PST) From: Wes Leatherock <wleathus@yahoo.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: AT&T drops Appleton, WI time/temp service - local guy picks it up Message-ID: <527487.97356.qm@web112217.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> On Thursday, January 15, 2009 8:53 AM hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote: > On Jan 14, 5:40 pm, "Michael G. Koerner" <mgk...@dataex.com> wrote: > >> A Darboy businessman saved a 59-year-old Appleton institution. > > Would anyone know of such time/temp services still available > elsewhere in the U.S.? Bell made a half-hearted effort to > standardize them at 936-1212 but many places had their own number. > Later, some companies charged extra for it and it was a 976 number. In flat-rate cities Southwestern Bell never provided free time service. That was practically all, maybe all, of Southwestern Bell exchanges. Time service was available in most cities of any size in SWBT territory, sponsored by some local company which probided an advertising message along with it. In Oklahoma City, the Audichron machine was on the main banking floor of the First National Bank and Trust Company, with blinking lights to show which lines were in use and handsets so customers and visitors to the bank could pick up on the spot and listen to the message. The bank was, of course, the advertiser sponsoring the service. Before divestiture the telco leased or purchased the machine from the Audichron Company and furnished it to the customer as a tariff item or special assembly. In flat-rate exchanges, there is no revenue stream to the telco for providing the service on its own behalf. There are five time services listed in the telephone directory for the Oklahoma City metropolitan exchange. Four of them are in smaller cities included in the metro exchange, presumably provided by local advertisers in the respective areas, but of course available to any costomers in the metro exchange. >> Man, that line was in service since 1950 - (memory flow alert!) dial >> telephone service was cut in in Appleton in 1949 and from that time >> until about 1968 or 1969, one only needed to dial the last five >> digits of the number to connect a local call dialed from Appleton >> (733 or 734 numbers). > > Made it easier for SxS exchanges so new levels and expensive switches > didn't need to be added. I believe in such cases if someone dialed a > 7 first it was simply absorbed (ignored). As I recall, any of the SxS selectors could be arranged to absorb, trunk or cut through on any specified digit. Not used just in small towns but in mtero cities which were SxS. >> That, too, will end in a couple of years when NPA 274 comes to the >> 920 area, requiring that all ten digits of the number be dialed on >> all calls. > > Hard to believe a small town in Wisconsin will require ten digits when > not that long ago five were plenty. Wes Leatherock wleathus@yahoo.com wesrock@aol.com ***** Moderator's Note ***** Even in flat-rate environments, the telco could earn money from the time signal: it was allways leased to the FAA, police, fire, etc., for use as an independent log signal that was recorded under airport tower transmissions, police dispatchers, etc. I don't know how much they charged for the service. Bill Horne Temporary Moderator ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications topics. 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