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Message Digest
Volume 29 : Issue 27 : "text" Format
Messages in this Issue:
Re: at&t vs. Verizon TV ad campaign?
Re: at&t vs. Verizon TV ad campaign?
Lucent MLX phone behavior
Re: at&t vs. Verizon TV ad campaign?
Re: at&t vs. Verizon TV ad campaign?
Re: at&t vs. Verizon TV ad campaign?
Re: at&t vs. Verizon TV ad campaign?
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Date: Tue, 26 Jan 2010 07:38:37 -0800
From: Sam Spade <sam@coldmail.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: at&t vs. Verizon TV ad campaign?
Message-ID: <20E7n.3617$aU4.2180@newsfe13.iad>
Wesrock@aol.com wrote:
>
> In Tulsa because of W.E. backlogs, W.E. arranged to get a badly needed
> 5XB machine for an overloaded end office and the Oklahoma Chief
> Engineer said the only difference between it and W.E. equipment was
> the Northern Electric gear was painted beige instead of the dull blue
> of W.E. equipment.
>
> Wes Leatherock
> wesrock@aol.com
> wleathus@yahoo.com
>
There is not a lot of similarity between a 5ESS and a DMS-100, other
than they are both time-division end office switches.
Both the hardware and the software of the 5ESS were far superior in the
early days when a lot of this stuff was being installed. The 5ESS
Centrex platform was the finest to ever come out of W.E./Lucent. The
DMS-100 Centrex platform had programming errors and didn't meet specs.
The porting capability of the 5ESS was far superior to the DMS-100 and,
for that matter, the 1AESS.
The single problem with the 5ESS is that it cost significantly more
than the DMS-100.
But, the two switches were really the only game in town for a metro
switch that could field all the services and also be a host to remote
switches, where necessary.
When the money was still flowing I recall Rochester Telephone installing
only 5ESSes. They stated at the time that the extra cost was worth it,
especially for a smallish independent that could focus on one deployment
and maintence plan, and provide uniformly superior local exchange
service, especially to their corporate accounts.
I guess hardly anyone buys Centrex these days.
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 2010 11:09:28 -0800
From: Thad Floryan <thad@thadlabs.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: at&t vs. Verizon TV ad campaign?
Message-ID: <4B5F3DE8.6040104@thadlabs.com>
On 1/26/2010 7:38 AM, Sam Spade wrote:
> [...]
> I guess hardly anyone buys Centrex these days.
I wonder why?
For a small company it was a very effective choice. I
ordered a Centrex system for a 20-person startup in 2000
and it served and scaled well until the company reached
100 people at which time I ordered/switched to a Nortel
BCM system (a PBX).
The BCM was really nice, had the best voice mail system
I had ever seen and used up to that time, and would have
continued to serve that company except for the fact the
10th CEO (in 6 years) ordered me to remove it and replace
it with his crap VoIP company's service and that was the
downfall of that company. Yes, he (the CEO) was part-owner
of some crap VoIP outfit in Georgia IIRC and the changeover
in phone service was only one symptom of the problems leading
to that company's downfall; the other major symptom was tech
and QA outsourcing to India -- B-I-G misteak (sic).
>From that point on (2006), I only installed and setup Asterisk
VoIP systems and those were/are the best systems I've ever had
the pleasure of using though the equipment was pricey (mostly
the Cisco 7960 telephones and, when required, PoE-capable LAN
switches (even the used/refurbished ones I'd buy/install)).
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 2010 09:55:48 -0600
From: Michael Grigoni <michael.grigoni@cybertheque.org>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Lucent MLX phone behavior
Message-ID: <4B5F1084.3040502@cybertheque.org>
I just acquired a Lucent MLX-10DP phone but don't have a compatible
Merlin system; I plugged it into a Merlin Plus (820D) and subsequently
found a description of the RJ-45 pin assignments which showed that
power (-48VDC) is on pair 4 for MLX as opposed to pair 3 for ATL
phones. Later I supplied -48VDC to the correct pair to the MLX phone
but even though internally I can read 5VDC on various parts, the LCD
remains blank and no LEDs light. Should there be any sign of life with
just DC applied? I have a suspicion that the phone was defective
beforehand but would like to know how a good one should behave with
only DC and no other signals applied to it.
Also how likely are the station ports on the 820D into which the MLX
was plugged to have been damaged by it? It would seem unlikely unless
48V were somehow looped back to the control pair.
TIA,
Michael
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 2010 08:45:19 GMT
From: sfdavidkaye2@yahoo.com (David Kaye)
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: at&t vs. Verizon TV ad campaign?
Message-ID: <hjma2v$n1s$3@news.eternal-september.org>
pv+usenet@pobox.com (PV) wrote:
>I think it's much more likely they confuse the "new AT&T" with what was
>a not-so-popular cable, long distance, and mobility company. Nobody really
>thinks about ma bell anymore. As someone else said, AT&T pre merger was a
>pale shadow of itself, having sold off most of the good bits years prior. *
Likewise, Verizon Wireless is not Verizon. They are two separate companies,
VZW being 50% owned by Vodafone, which is a successor in interest to the old
Pacific Bell Wireless (aka Airtouch). This probably accounts for the vast
difference in service levels between VZ and VZW. I love VZW but I'd never
have a landline phone with VZ.
Date: 26 Jan 2010 17:34:06 -0000
From: John Levine <johnl@iecc.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: at&t vs. Verizon TV ad campaign?
Message-ID: <20100126173406.89949.qmail@simone.iecc.com>
>Likewise, Verizon Wireless is not Verizon. They are two separate companies,
>VZW being 50% owned by Vodafone
Only 45%, which means they don't get to tell VZ what to do, unlike I
think every other Vodafone wireless property in the world. Every few
months there's an article in the financial press about how much they
dislike each other. There's constant speculation that Vodafone might
sell, although there's no plausible buyer other than VZ who has no
incentive to offer a good price.
R's,
John
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 2010 08:32:48 -0800
From: "Jack Myers" <jmyers@n6wuz.net>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: at&t vs. Verizon TV ad campaign?
Message-ID: <g2i337-bjh.ln1@n6wuz.net>
Wesrock@aol.com wrote:
> In a message dated 1/25/2010 9:09:23 AM Central Standard Time,
> jmyers@n6wuz.net writes
>
>> ... Initially [Western Electric / Lucent] received a windfall
>> because each new LATA required a brand-new "equal access" tandem
>> switch.
> Certainly in Oklahoma it did not require new tandems - the Tulsa and
> Oklahoma City 4A machines did the job. ... adding equal access
> capabilities was indeed something new, but soluble.
Point taken, and now I'm curious. What was the criterion for deciding
whether to install a new #4ESS equal access tandem in a peer relation
to existing metropolitan tandem switches?
> They had to divest W.E., too.
There was no legal requirement, was there? I seem to recall that there
was a restriction prohibiting the local operating companies from
manufacturing. In the late eighties they (the Baby Bells) started
chafing at the bit, arguing that individually they each represented a
small fraction of the local market so no harm would result if they got
back into manufacturing.
> By that time the Bell Companies were buying from various vendors
> with a bid process, and with a slight anti-W.E. bias.
What was the source of that bias?
> Anyway, they made it work.
Indeed.
--
Jack Myers / Westminster, California, USA
Postfix...a computer term meaning "sendmail is too hard for me"
***** Moderator's Note *****
Exim ... a computer term meaning "He got it right the first time"
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 2010 14:03:01 -0800 (PST)
From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: at&t vs. Verizon TV ad campaign?
Message-ID: <155ee372-c15d-4bdc-b767-50f5b56ef191@e37g2000yqn.googlegroups.com>
On Jan 24, 10:46 pm, "Jack Myers" <jmy...@n6wuz.net> wrote:
> Is it true that AT&T management had the opportunity to decide
> whether to retain the local operating companies or everything else?
It was a complicated situation.
The old AT&T/Bell System was under attack from several quarters for a
variety of reasons (many merely for self-interest):
--Newcomer long distance carriers had no ability to offer superior
service or price to AT&T long distance, which is the normal way a
newcomer breaks into a marketplace. Still, they wanted to get into
the market in a big way, so they forced the issue through the courts
(which is ironic considering they claimed they wanted a 'free
market').
--Newcomer manufacturers who wanted to sell subscriber (mostly toward
businesses) and central office equipment.
--Large subscribers, such as pipelines and large businesses, who
wanted better discounts for toll service and to own their own
equipment instead of renting it.
--The existing telephone rate model, established by regulators and
Congress long ago, decreed that large users would cross-subsidize
the smallest users in the interest of providing universal service;
that is, a bare-bones telephone line + telephone set would be
available very cheaply. Large users simply didn't want to subsidize
small users anymore. Since regulators and legislators liked the
existing arrangement just fine (they saw cheap universal service it
as being in the public interest), those who wanted change had to
find an alternate way to achieve their purposes.
--Consumer and government activists who merely felt the existing Bell
System was "too big" and "evil" and thought it'd be 'better' to
break it up.
These various groups coalesced around a US Justice Department lawsuit
to break up AT&T.
AT&T eventually realized its chances in a lawsuit were not good and it
would end up being broken up in some way. They decided to cut a deal
with the Justice Dept to break up in the best way possible. But at
the same time, AT&T wanted and received the ability to compete in open
markets, such as computers; this was previously stricted forbidden to
it.
(In previous threads references to various books detailing the breakup
were provided.)
I believe AT&T had some choice in what parts of its business it could
keep and what parts it had to give it up. Certain parts, such as the
monopoly in long distance and ownership in subscriber equipment were
lost.
As mentioned, at the time, in my humble opinion, AT&T saw its long
distance network and Western Electrics as key assets and the operating
companies as not so desirable. At the time there was good reason for
that: Costs to provide long distance service were declining thanks to
new technology and there were new business opportunties thanks to data
communications. However, costs to provide the "last mile" to a
subscriber were not declining but increasing.
Further, AT&T saw its long experience in network management as a key
asset.
One prediction that failed was the value of Western Electric. I
suspect AT&T presumed telephone equipment would continue to be build
super rugged and expensive (as another poster in this thread compared
#5ESS vs DMS), and thus provide nice profits for WE who was an expert
at building things that way. But subscribers focused on price--sure
the WE 2500 set would give decades of trouble free service but it was
expensive and boring while that crappy phone was dirt cheap and maybe
cute. Operating companies were freed from old Bell System high
service standards and cut costs--buying cheaper switches and other
gear. I suspect Western Electric, as it evolved into Lucent, could
not shift into the cheapo crap mode
As an example, after Divesture staff was cut at a critical central
office. The building caught fire, efforts were delayed, and area
service was badly disrupted for some time. (Pat had spoken of this
many times.) IMHO, the staff cutbacks were a direct result of
Divesture, adding to the severity of the fire and service outage.
> AT&T expected computer manufacturing to be the wave of the future,
> and Western Electric was their captive manufacturer. Initially WE
> received a windfall because each new LATA required a brand-new
> "equal access" tandem switch.
Actually, that's not true. Some LATAs did require new switchgear
because the LATA was artificially drawn. But others did not. Equal
access did not happen overnight; it took time to implement.
Also, the cost of electronic equipment dropped tremendously after
1983. My guess is that Western Electric was unable to adopt to a
lower cost model for its telephone or other products.
> That played out and the new computer offerings were
> unimpressive. Meanwhile the Canadian switching manufacturer,
> Northern Telecom, and the competitive long-distance providers, GTE
> Sprint and MCI, proved to be a strong competitors.
Sprint and MCI were not "strong competitors". They did not offer
superior service or a cheaper price. What they were strong at was
litigation and lobbying. They managed to convince regulators and the
court that "free competition" actually meant _restricting_ AT&T from
competing. So MCI and Sprint mounted a cream skimming campaign and
played silly rate games. Thanks to their lobbying efforts, AT&T
remained under strict regulation and could not adjust its rates to
meet competition, and of course had to continue to serve high cost
low- revenue situations that Sprint and MCI just didn't bother with.
As an example, way back then MCI and Sprint sued some govt agencies to
force them to buy their services because "it was in the public
interest".
As mentioned, previously several source books documenting the above
were cited. (If anyone would like to cite a book with a different
point of view, please do so.)
[public replies, please]
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End of The Telecom digest (7 messages)
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