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From: dmr@csli.stanford.edu (Daniel M. Rosenberg)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: FTS = Fouled-up Telephone System
Message-ID: <10330@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 1 Aug 90 17:18:50 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 535, Message 10 of 11


In <10272@accuvax.nwu.edu> schweige@cs.nps.navy.mil (Jeffrey M.
Schweiger) writes:

>David Barts implies that the Federal Telecommunications System (FTS)
>remains much the same today as it was when he was first introduced to
>it.  While I never used the old FTS (being a separate system from
>Autovon), with the implementation of FTS 2000, commercial LD carriers
>(AT&T and Sprint, I believe) are handling the LD service.  Maybe one
>of the other TELECOM Digest readers can give us a description of FTS
>2000 and how it works.

Here at the Palo Alto Veterans Administration Medical Center, we have
what we call FTS, and is probably FTS 2000. We access normal, local
outside dialing through 9+number, FTS through 8+number. 9+ number
won't take areacodes (even the nearby 408) but 8+ will only take area
codes (and, I believe, FTS tie lines).

One fine day I tried to raise an operator to make a credit card call.
8+0+10 digits raised someone who said "FTS Sprint." She said to make a
credit card call, dial 0+areacode+number, which I had just done.

Eventually someone here told me one simply didn't make credit card
calls over FTS. In addition, the line quality is audible, but not good
enough for using a 1200 baud or higher modem over long distances. Come
to think of it, it is pretty much hopeless using a modem even to
Stanford, a few hundred meters away. Our switch at the VA is a new
Northern DMS-100 (or SL-100, or whatever they call it), and they just
layed down new lines from the phones to the switch.

But out FTS is better than the shouting and squawking described
earlier.  With the mediocre line quality, undocumented and
ever-changing dialing instructions, and opaque operators, it's sort of
like a giant COCOT.


# Daniel M. Rosenberg  //  Stanford CSLI // Chew my opinions, not Stanford's.
# dmr@csli.stanford.edu // decwrl!csli!dmr // dmr%csli@stanford.bitnet