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From: kitty!larry@uunet.uu.net (Larry Lippman)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Time Limits on Calls
Message-ID: <11927@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 9 Sep 90 15:52:24 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 632, Message 12 of 12


In article <11852@accuvax.nwu.edu> ihlpf!kityss@att.uucp (Arnette P
Baker) writes:

> I want to relate a story on the subject of "time limits" imposed on
> phone calls by the telco.  I grew up in Towanda, Il.  - population 578
> (now over 650!)  When we moved there in 1972 we had 5 digit dialing on
> local calls, plus a forced time limit of 2 minutes on the same local
> calls.  We had 7 digit (well 10 counting NPA) phone numbers, but for
> any other number on the stepper we only dialed 5 digits.  After two
> minutes a warning tone would sound, and then 10 seconds later you
> would be disconnected.

> So, anyone out there ever hear of this kind of limit??  I presume it
> was done to reduce the load on a switch that was under engineered for
> the amount of traffic, but I really have no idea why it existed.

	The only CO apparatus I know of which offered this "feature"
was pre-1940 Automatic Electric SxS intended for very small rural
CDO's (Community Dial Offices).  This feature was particularly used on
multi-party lines.  I have never seen it actually installed, though.

	A "single-frame" factory-wired SxS CDO could typically handle
only 200 subscriber lines with sometimes a few as ten calls being able
to exist at any one given time.  Since considerable field wiring in
the CO was necessary to provide any expansion beyond the first factory
CDO apparatus frame, effort was often expended to make user
requirements "conform" to the limitations of that first CDO apparatus
frame.  If it meant timing conversations to eliminate the requirement
for additional selector and connector shelves, then so be it...


Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp.  "Have you hugged your cat today?"
     {boulder||decvax||rutgers||watmath}!acsu.buffalo.edu!kitty!larry
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