Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!ginosko!uunet!pyrdc!netsys!vector!telecom-gateway From: gabe@sirius.ctr.columbia.edu (Gabe Wiener) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: AT&T Long Lines Message-ID: Date: 7 Oct 89 18:14:19 GMT Sender: news@vector.Dallas.TX.US Reply-To: Gabe Wiener Organization: Columbia University Center for Telecommunications Research Lines: 26 Approved: telecom-request@vector.dallas.tx.us X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@vector.dallas.tx.us X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 436, message 4 of 7 I was just thinking about the AT&T Long Lines that have been used in this country for decades. I'm sure all of these questions have ridiculously simple answers, but here goes anyway. 1. Over the _really_ long runs, such as through the Rocky Mountains, or through the deserts of the southwest, how do they prevent line resistance from degrading the signal to a point where it would become undetectable? 2. When one of those lines is damaged out in the middle of nowhere, and the damage is _inside_ the cable, how do they locate it? Moreover, how do they splice in a new piece of cable? In other words, how do they connect up those hundreds of individual lines? It would be like trying to rewire a spinal cord. 3. Are the long-lines used today by AT&T digital or analog? Sprint obviously is touting their fiber-optics, but what is AT&T doing? Do they still use the analog long-lines that they've been using for years? Or do they send the signals over them via a digital encoder? Thanks... Gabe Wiener - Columbia Univ. "This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings gabe@ctr.columbia.edu to be seriously considered as a means of gmw1@cunixd.cc.columbia.edu communication. The device is inherently of 72355.1226@compuserve.com no value to us." -Western Union memo, 1877