AM Amateurs in Telcom Industry

[W9GT]

I retired from telcom 6 years ago.

Yeah, me too, twice!  But I'm back again with another telco and still working.  

The "digital communications world" was started much earlier than the general public is aware.  We were doing digital switching in the early/mid sixties!  T-carrier systems were prevalent by the early 70's, and fiber transmission systems were gaining a foothold by the early eighties.  The reality of politics being intimately intertwined with the whole telecommunications realm cannot be denied.  Look what has happened to the whole industry as a result of government "meddling".  It has been turned upside down and "reinvented" many times over.

What most people probably don't realize is that the so-called monopoly was always very heavily controlled and regulated by the government.  Regardless of the past, it really doesn't exist any more.  Competition now is pretty much the rule, not the exception.  But the perception remains that the big bad telephone company is still in control.

It can certainly be argued that the needs and demands of the masses will trump the needs of small special interest hobby groups every time.  BPL, and the way the FCC is promoting it under the table, is just plain wrong when measured by traditional standards of fairness. However, in today's world, the PC and the internet rule!  The general public, unfortunately, does not care about maintaining the legacy and/or  amateur radio's right to exist just because we are existing licensees.
Reality might dictate that we actively work to justify our existence as a "service" by demonstrating our value as a back-up emergency communications provider and by our provision of an arena for encouragement of experimentation and development of new communications techniques.  

73,  Jack, W9GT

[Pete, WA2CWA]

Pete, it's about the same time frame here. I think we escaped just in time! I don't think I'd enjoy still being there.

Mack

I don't call it escape; I call it opportunity!

[Pete, WA2CWA]

My old company wore the ringers out here for about 2-3 years after I retired, wanting me to come back as a 'contract employee'!? Paid me big time to leave and then wanted to pay me more than I made to begin with to come back!? I still can't conceive what 'financial genius' came up with that idea. It kind of had the smell of legalized 'corporate theft' about it.

Mack 

When you worked as an employee, you had allocated a loaded salary (actual salary, benefits, space, etc. - all cost items). As a contract employee, you are an expense item. Expenses are deductible as part of running the business. An ideal business model would be little to no employees drawing a salary and only contract people. Your skills have the value not the person.

With over 1700 members now registered on amfone.net, I'm sure there are more telcom people out there.

[W9GT]

With over 1700 members now registered on amfone.net, I'm sure there are more telcom people out there.
[/quote]

Maybe Pete........but I will bet that we have views that are light years apart in some respects!  It depends on where you were, what you did, and how well you fared when the ?+=**&^*% hit the mixmaster.  I think that my opinions and reflections as an ex-telco engineer and management person might be significantly different than those of a craft person.  It has been a painful revolution for many of us, perhaps for various reasons, but none-the-less a life changing experience.  I often sense a certain aloofness from those who drew the long straws.  Many people, however, have had to deal with not so great consequences of the telco industry's reinvention through no fault of their own.  But.....life is not always fair and certainly has no guarantees!
Lets see...tip, ring, & sleeve.........blast!   where am I??

73,  Jack, W9GT

[Pete, WA2CWA]

Never was a craft person but I have been "crafty" at times in my career.

Did hardware and circuit design work for 13 years when I started; then went to the other side; clean suit, clean/unspotted ties, and single malt scotch at 5 PM with the team. Never looked back. Reinvention was the name of the game. There were times throughout the 80's and early 90's when I wasn't sure which Division I was working for until I received check stub. "Time of your life"

[W9GT]

At the risk of digging up old bones...I think it might be interesting to discuss the evolution/reinvention/process re-engineered/reorganized /de-regulated/re-regulated/downsized/re-sized/merged/consolidated/re-evaluated/introduced to the competitive arena/divested/reinvested/and generally gutted telecom industry.

How about a new thread?

73,  Jack, W9GT

[Pete, WA2CWA]

Jack: I was splitting the other thread while you were posting this as a new topic. I removed your thread and put it here. At least we won't have two threads going at the same time.

W9GT said:
At the risk of digging up old bones...I think it might be interesting to discuss the evolution/reinvention/process re-engineered/reorganized /de-regulated/re-regulated/downsized/re-sized/merged/consolidated/re-evaluated/introduced to the competitive arena/divested/reinvested/and generally gutted telecom industry.

How about a new thread?

We unintentionally hijacked another thread that was addressing wireless internet stuff.  Thought we could continue discussion and "reunion" of sorts of old telco guys/gals??

As for myself....spent 33 years of my life with GTE/Verizon mostly as a transmission/radio/video engineer.  The last 12 years , or so as a project/proposal manager.  Retired (twice) Went back to what I have known the best.   Presently...still working for another telco in a totally unrelated capacity.  How about you ?

73,  Jack, W9GT

[W9GT]

Jack: I was splitting the other thread while you were posting this as a new topic. I removed your thread and put it here. At least we won't have two threads going at the same time.

Hey Pete....this works fine.  Sorry that we apparently had the same idea at the same time.

73,  Jack, W9GT

[WA1GFZ]

I was lucky to escape from a short time at motorola when they sold the service shops.
my motto for the idiot I worked for: a crappy install guarantees many a service call.
What a change from the mil world. Every time I have a bad day I think back to the beeper leash and dealing with idiots and thank God.

[KB2WIG]

            "   Every time I have a bad day I think back to the beeper leash and dealing with idiots and thank God. "


                      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IU66eUMdttI&mode=related&search=

[AJ1G]

blue orange green brown slate...forget the rest...

(Spent one summer as a college summer hire in prewire and disconnect at the NY Telco Greenburgh NY garage near White Plains.  My dad and my grandfather (who got me into radio) were both NY Telco Pioneers.  My grandad started with NY Telco just in time to be drafted with the rest of his gang into the Signal Corps and spent WW1  doing land line work in France.

Met my grandmother through NY Telco, where she was one a switchboard operator in the early 1920s.

Dad started out as a splicers helper - went into the line gang, then installer, then inside installer on big jobs like IBM and Coca Cola corporate offices, then went into management.  Retired and hired back as a contract guy.  Ended up at West Street down near the WTC before he finally fully retired.

73, Chris, AJ1G
      Stonington CT

[flintstone mop]

Bell Operators Give Better Service
The USA HAD the best telephone system in the World!! Then the Gummint stepped in.
The Utilities should be monopolies. What's all this BULL about buying electric power from another generating plant!!!! It's still going over the same 50 year old wires and transformers to your house!! And all of these plants are linked together to boot!
Fred

[W4EWH]

I'm not sure amfone.net can survive 3 old telco guys on here. Who knows, there could be more lurking in the shadows.

Nah, we're all right here in broad daylight!

I was at Verizon, I took the offer in 2002, and I've been running my own computer business since. It sure is different on the outside!

73, Bill W1AC
Rated CO Tech (Toll)
Rated CO Tech (SARTS)

[Pete, WA2CWA]

My perceived view of the “old days” was this. Research and Development (Bell Labs) was a cost center (made no profits). Western Electric was a cost center (made no profits). AT&T sold WECo. Products to the 7 Regional Bells at price (cost plus profit margin) and dictated how much they would buy each year based on some hand-waving predications and negotiations. It was up to the 7 Bells to disperse the purchased goods. If at the beginning of the next year, Bells still had not dispersed the previous year’s purchase, too bad; ya got to buy, and/or negotiate to buy, this much this year. If WECo had 10,000 parts to build stuff, they would build them all even if only 100 per year were needed. And all 10,000 finished goods would be “sold” to the Bells. Inventories had to be mounting everywhere. It was easy to keep things running great since you had tons of new inventory, that you paid for, and was stocked all over the place. SC’s and MSL’s were probably like telcom candy shops. If the activity of product junking was considered, which probably wasn’t often, the Bells had to bear the entire junking cost, which obviously would affect their bottom line. It probably was easier and less costly just to throw the defective stuff on the internal junk pile. It’s hard to believe the Bells actually made money, but when you’re the only telephone company in town, it probably was easy to do.

But, de-regulation and newly emerging competing products and technologies, entering the marketplace, changed the entire business model. Like many “top-heavy” old Companies, they were slow to react to change, and in some cases, probably didn’t recognize that change was even necessary. Technology was moving faster and customers and businesses wanted more than “plain old telephone service”. The business model was old and no amount of band-aids could keep it all together.

[W4EWH]

My perceived view of the “old days” was this. Research and Development (Bell Labs) was a cost center (made no profits). Western Electric was a cost center (made no profits). [snip]

I'll have to disagree: let's remember that Wester Electric was a major U.S. company in its own right.

• Western Electric owned the Teletype Corporation, the pre-eminent supplier of "digital" communicaitons equipment for most of the 20th century.
• WeCo owned Bell Labs, and the revenue from patent licenses was a major item in its balance sheet.
• WeCo provided telephone CO and ancillary equipment to Bell-Canada until it was divested and Northern Telecom diverged.
• WeCo's project management and production supervision services were very sought after by both government and private companies: WeCo managed production of the United States' Nuclear weapons program for many years, and might still have some classified involvement.

I could go on, but you get the idea: AT&T didn't dictate that the "Baby Bells" buy anything from WeCo, it just set revenue targets and exercised management control over them. Since telephone use expanded both dramatically and continuously throughout the 20th century, WeCo had no problem making a profit.

I think that AT&T was divested because the government became afraid of the political influence it was gathering: since AT&T was the classic "Window & Orphan" stock, its advice to its many shareholders carried a lot of clout, and Washington got nervous about the company having too much influence in such a critical area of national growth and infrastructure.

But, my crystal ball is as cloudy as anyone else's .

73, Bill W1AC

[KB2WIG]

We Don’t Care.    We Don’t Have To.    We’re the Phone Company.

[WD8BIL]

Pete, I'm sure there was a valid accounting reason for the 'pay them big to go and pay them more to come back' approach.

Mack; When you consider the entire cost a company has when employing someone, wages, health care plan, SSI, workman's comp., maybe a 401K or other EIP, it becomes very easy to understand why they play the retire/contract game. We have a few contractors here doing just the same thing. But they are responsible for all the extras. The company cost lands somewhere between base salary and the full blown package. So bottom line is smaller.

I've been here at Lorain Power since '92. Have worked for 4 companies and ain't moved my desk yet !!! Presently employed by Emerson Network Power.

Doing global EMC compliance testing since '99.

[W9GT]

At the risk of digging up old bones...I think it might be interesting to discuss the evolution/reinvention/process re-engineered/reorganized /de-regulated/re-regulated/downsized/re-sized/merged/consolidated/re-evaluated/introduced to the competitive arena/divested/reinvested/and generally gutted telecom industry.

How about a new thread?

73,  Jack, W9GT

Jack, I'd have to take a few days in MS Word to do a good response on this one! Let me just hit the high points of the reasons the old AT&T/Bell monopoly existed. The legal monopoly of the AT&T/Bell operating companies was indeed approved by the U.S. Government and for very sound reasons. Standardized service, tight regulatory control was easier, the mandated totally free to all nature of Bell Labs research & development of new technologies (there's not another company on the face of the earth that would have discovered the transistor/semiconductor technology and not been in the old patent office the same day), etc. and the plain old fact that Americans enjoyed the highest standard of telephone service ever seen in the world during this monopoly period. AT&T/Bell was also the largest private employer in U.S. history, pretty darned good for the old economy in general and provided all land based comms. for the entire U.S. Government, easier and cheaper to deal with one company for all needs (tax savings!).

Mack       

Hey Mack, et al.... it is good to see these things discussed anyway.  I could also write a book on my reflections and opinions about the whole divestiture thing and the telecom revolution.  Probably not much point in beating a dead horse...and probably no one really gives a #$%^&@&*.
I guess my thoughts could be summarized by saying that, in spite of obvious technology advances that may have been encouraged by competition and an "open market", I'm not really sure that the average consumer is all that better off.  Many folks can't even decipher their own telephone bill. 

The "big telcos" were certainly their own worst enemies in that they didn't listen to their customers until it was too late.  There was certainly a "we are the only game in town" attitude, even with the independent telcos.  In spite of that, however, we built the greatest communications infrastructure in the world.  What we have now, however, are lots and lots of choices, and as you pointed out, a large number of "paper tiger" competitors of questionable reliability.  The pie has been divided into more and more pieces.

Has this resulted in lower prices?  Well, maybe in some respects, but if you added up all the various separate items, maybe not so.  Lots of  duplication of facilities and capabilities exist...but to what end?  Inefficient at best, and perhaps wasteful of resources
 
I was intimately involved with the advent of the wireless industry.  I worked on national task forces that established one of the big cellular carriers and we applied for FCC licenses for the top 100 markets.  I vividly remember saying back then (early 80's) that sooner or later the land-line telephone system would be largely replaced with wireless phones.  Look around...that is happening more and more....and many people are getting rid of their land-line phones in favor of just having a cellphone.  The other really big change that we have observed in the past 5-6 years is the entry of cable companies and internet based companies into the provision of telephone service.  The traditional wireline companies are really having to reinvent themselves to stay alive, all the time having to compete with one hand tied behind their backs while selling access to their networks to their competitors at, or nearly at cost.  The illustrious federal government has had much to do with this.....interesting to see how the politicians, with little or no technical knowledge or understanding can really screw-up the works.

Well anyway...enough rant for now.  It will certainly be interesting to see how all of this shakes out in the next decade or so.

73,  Jack, W9GT

[WU2D]

blue orange green brown slate...forget the rest...

73, Chris, AJ1G
      Stonington CT

White, red, black, yellow and violet or 'why run backwards you varmint'.

Mack

The rhyme for the second is:

Boys on Girls Bring Surprises

Mike WU2D

[W9GT]

Jack, the cellular side of the house confuses me more than ever now. I got off the interstate to gas up in rural KY a couple of years back. While just looking around, I was somewhat awe struck by what I saw on the landscape. There were 3 hills around me and all 3 were decorated with tall multiple towers and all the towers were holding 2-6 bays of antenna. So I started to be a little more observant and discovered this was common everywhere. Something is just plain wrong about the architecture of the cellular network in America! What a waste of money, material and manpower!

Even the financial side of the Telco industry is confusing today. Let's take the recent so-called acquisition of BellSouth by AT&T, sounds simple. Only problem is that AT&T COULD NOT afford to buy BellSouth. So a little digging in the financial websites points out that indeed BellSouth was financing their own sale to AT&T for AT&T!? Man how I wish my local Mercedes dealer would adopt this plan, I get the car and the dealer pays me to take it!




Mack     

Yes!! My point exactly!  With reference to wasted resources and unnecessary duplication of service, how ridiculous this appears.  It would make far more sense for the the various carriers to build and operate a shared network with shared cell sites and possibly even divided or shared responsibilities for serving designated areas and providing mutual access to network elements.  Everybody is trying to do their own thing and they are competing for the same finite customer base.  I know there is a certain amount of site sharing and even some sharing of network elements now, but it needs to be really widely implemented to start making a difference.  It is no wonder that the public's perception is that the world is being overrun with cell towers.
Think of how much more cost efficient it would be...and could result in much lower pricing for service and greater market penetration.



Yeah....but I think it really went something like this:  SBC took over what was left of the old AT&T which was largely gutted, but still had the famous name.  Then they took over(merged with) BellSouth and the whole conglomerate became the "new AT&T".  Then.....since SBC and BellSouth jointly owned Cingular Wireless, it became AT&T Mobility.  Interesting to note also that sometime previously Cingular had bought out AT&T Wireless......so does that mean that the new AT&T Mobility is really AT&T squared? or should it be cubed?

73,  Jack, W9GT

[KB2WIG]

                        " Has this resulted in lower prices? "

Fer me and the wife the cell phune werks FB OM ; unlimited local & long distance in the US, w/ text mesage (don't use, voice mail is easier) voice mail, forwarding, caller Id,  fer total of $ 73.... AT&T  or whatever its called this week.
I'm satisfied...

klc

[Pete, WA2CWA]

My comments in blue.
Pete

I'll have to disagree: let's remember that Wester Electric was a major U.S. company in its own right.

• Western Electric owned the Teletype Corporation, the pre-eminent supplier of "digital" communicaitons equipment for most of the 20th century.

Teletype entered the Bell System in 1930. From that point on, advances in the Teletype product can be considered the result of the pooled efforts of the AT&T, Western Electric, and the Teletype Corporation. Teletype Corporation, was the holder of the basic patents and expert in the art, and was the chief contributor. I can find no references that Teletype was owned only by WECo.

Yes, I will agree that WECo was a major manufacturer of digital type equipment for many years including many digtial type products I either designed or managed. However, the bulk of the selling of WECo. products, pre-divestiture, was done by the AT&T Sales & Marketing Organizations.

• WeCo owned Bell Labs, and the revenue from patent licenses was a major item in its balance sheet.

In 1925, Western Electric Research Laboratories and part of the engineering department of AT&T were consolidated to form Bell Telephone Laboratories, Inc. as a separate entity. Ownership of Bell Labs was evenly split between AT&T and Western Electric. Bell Labs principal work was to design and support the equipment Western Electric built for Bell System operating companies. It also carried out consulting work for them, and for the US government. Also in 1984, by divestiture agreement, AT&T Bell Laboratories, Inc., became a wholly owned company of the new AT&T Technologies unit, the former Western Electric. In 1995, a piece of AT&T Technologies, and AT&T Bell Laboratories was spun off to form Lucent Technologies

• WeCo provided telephone CO and ancillary equipment to Bell-Canada until it was divested and Northern Telecom diverged.

No argument here. Bell-Canada ordered equipment from the AT&T Sales Reps. that supported Bell-Canada. AT&T drops the order on WECo; WECo passes the cost to AT&T and ships material to Bell-Canada; AT&T bills Bell-Canada at previous determined pricing structure(cost + discounted mark-up)

• WeCo's project management and production supervision services were very sought after by both government and private companies: WeCo managed production of the United States' Nuclear weapons program for many years, and might still have some classified involvement.

Yep, their standards organization was one of the best in the world. It also had a number of technological innovations and also some seminal developments in industrial management. It had a research facility in Princeton, NJ for many years. In the old days it served as the purchasing agent for the Regional Bells. Actually, in 1984, its name was changed to AT&T Technologies and continued to be the manufacturing arm of AT&T until 1995. After divestiture, it had a large sales and marketing organization.

I could go on, but you get the idea: AT&T didn't dictate that the "Baby Bells" buy anything from WeCo, it just set revenue targets and exercised management control over them. Since telephone use expanded both dramatically and continuously throughout the 20th century, WeCo had no problem making a profit.

I was talking about the "early days" prior to divestiture. After divestiture the baby bells could buy from just about anybody that could supply them with their product requirements. The bulk of pre-divestiture AT&T revenue came from the Bell System regional Bell operating companies(RBOCs).

But, my crystal ball is as cloudy as anyone else's .

73, Bill W1AC

[W9GT]

Ya Know....I thought that we had been down this road before.  I remembered having much the same discussion(s)....and perhaps much the same agreements and disagreements over some of the basic precepts of the whole telecom revolution thing.  Seems that we have dug through this in a previous thread " Ma Bell"  At least I am consistent .  I dug up some of my previous comments:

/quote]
As an old telephone company veteran (GTE/Verizon), I do not disagree with the assessment that things were a little ridiculous back in the days of "no foreign attachments on the line".  I will, however, say that all the changes brought about by de-regulation and re-regulation have certainly not entirely benefited the consumer.  Many of the changes have benefited big business and high volume users, but have had some negative impact on residential customers.  Competition, and resulting cost-cutting have reduced the level of customer service to an alarming level in a number of areas.  Just try talking to a real person sometime, when trying to call-in trouble or inquire about service.  Don't you just love those voice answering systems and accompanying multi-layer menus?  It may be argued that a lot of the advancements that have occurred over that last 22 years since divestiture have certainly improved the options available, but there have been a number of fall-outs as well.  One can't help but wonder if government meddling sometimes does a lot more harm than good.  I still believe that market forces are the best way to regulate any business.  What we did get was thousands of displaced workers in the telecommunications industry and a redistribution of wealth in the name of "competition".  The industry was turned upside down and many suppliers, as well as service providers went "belly-up".

Even more astounding is the fact that all the "baby Bells" created by divestiture in 1984 are now merging and re-combining and creating a reincarnation of MA BELL.  Hmmmmm.......what is wrong with this picture?  Why did the government force the split to start with, if they were just going to allow them to recombine?  Maybe heavily-regulated "monopolies"  and the "universal service concept" were not all that bad to start with?

I think that there will always be some need for land-line telephone service, but we will see more and more people opting for wireless service to replace their home phones.  I was intimately involved with the early licensing and development of cellular systems (early 80's), and I remember then that I predicted that wireless would someday assume the position of being the primary telephone service for the majority of customers.  Looks like that could be happening one day soon.



....... I freely admit that the telephone companies needed to be shocked into reality and become reasonable in their approach to competition, however, the wholesale de-reg/re-reg of the business and forced dismantling of a long successful and superior communications structure (compared to the rest of the world) was not necessarily well thought out.  This, unfortunately,  is what you get when you allow government entities that are not technically well-versed and are not necessarily motivated by anything other than politics and/or legal manuevering to have such total authority over a highly complicated and sophisticated industry.  I was in Washington, D.C. in 1983 and I personally saw a group of attorneys wearing freshly printed sweatshirts that said "I helped kill MA BELL".  That was eye-opening to say the least.....was it really in the best interest of our country?................I'm not sure!

Also, please don't confuse the start-up "competing companies"  with the LECs (Bell and existing Independent companies) who built the industry over many decades and then were forced to compete with one hand tied behind their backs and to give away their services to those who wanted to compete with them.  It was not an "even playing field" , it was a disaster....and, in my opinion, still is.  As I said before, the consumer didn't necessarily benefit, but the lawyers definitely did!
/quote]


Hey.....still my story and I'm stickin to it!!

73,  Jack, W9GT

[WU2D]

My mom was a telephone "pioneer" and she retired in the early 80's with a sweet retirement package which she has been drawing on for over 30 years. Free long distance for life included.

Ma Bell -There will never be another setup like that.


Mike WU2D

[WD8BIL]

I sure recall some big rectifiers in the central offices that looked identical but some were tagged as Western Electric and some as Loraine!? Same situation on some smaller rectifiers used for field installed electronics in environmental shelters.

That was us Mack. We private labled for all the biggies. An ego thing on their part i guess. A close look at the spec plate no doubt shown the Lorain name somewhere on it.
The big Floral rectifiers were beasts. RL400s (48VDC @400 amps) are still in use 15 years after we stopped building them. With the new topographies today we're getting 2000 amps, full control/monitoring and distribution in the same footprint. 10,000 amps plus distribution in 5 24" x 7' racks. Can u say STRAP !!!