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From: goldstein@carafe.enet.dec.com (Fred R. Goldstein)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: FTS = Fouled-up Telephone System
Message-ID: <10274@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 31 Jul 90 17:27:23 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 532, Message 2 of 10


In article <10256@accuvax.nwu.edu>, davidb@pacer.uucp (David Barts)
writes...

>Actually, FTS stands for Federal Tieline System.  And what is a
>tieline?  A tieline is a piece of substandard quality string that when
>used to connect two soup can `telephones' has broken repeatedly and
>has had to be tied together in numerous places :-).

The Federal Telephone System was established in the 1960's and was
based on two AT&T tariffs.  One, Telpak, was a bulk discount for
leased channels.  (It was abolished when the FCC ruled that private
lines could be shared.  The discount worked because you bought blocks
of 60 or 240 channels; most customers didn't use them all up.)  The
other, which provided the switching, was called CCSA (something
Switching Arrangement).  In its day, CCSA was the state of the art for
private voice networks.

CCSA originally used old CO switches, reprogrammed for the private
seven-digit numbering plan.  Later AT&T moved the FTS onto electronic
switches.  Note though that of the 52 or so FTS switches in the '70's,
only a handful were four-wire.  The rest were two-wire (mostly 1ESS)
which of course were prone to echo.  AUTOVON is all four-wire, of
course; its tariff is called SCAN (Switched Circuit Access Network).

Nowadays FTS is being replaced by FTS-2000.  In classic procurement
style, the GSA (under Congressional pressure) decided not to give the
FTS procurement to one vendor.  Instead it's a 60:40 split between
AT&T and Sprint.  So there are two FTS networks, with a few links
between them.  At least the circuits and switches are digital.  Kids,
don't try this at home!


Fred R. Goldstein   goldstein@carafe.enet.dec.com 
                 or goldstein@delni.enet.dec.com
                    voice:  +1 508 486 7388