Path: utzoo!telecom-request Date: Thu, 25 Apr 91 05:36 GMT From: "Donald E. Kimberlin" <0004133373@mcimail.com> Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Comments on History of Telephone Apparatus Manufacturing Message-ID: Organization: TELECOM Digest Sender: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 306, Message 3 of 6 Lines: 134 In Digest v11,Iss300, Larry Lippman added to the discussion about roots of telephone manufacturing in the U.S., suggesting that Stromberg- Carlson had evolved into Comdial, thus: > Stromberg-Carlson has led a checkered existence in the past twenty > years ... General Dynamics ... moved the corporate headquarters and > much of the operation to Tampa, FL. Minor correction (about 85 miles), Larry. The place Stromberg-Carlson wound up is Lake Mary, FL, a northerly suburb of Orlando, just off I-4 on the way to Daytona from Orlando. Continuing: > Stromberg-Carlson did a significant amount of military business; I > believe that General Dynamics may have absorbed that business into > another division, while leaving Stromberg-Carlson as a provider of solely > domestic telephone apparatus. I am not certain of the subsequent > changes, though. Pretty close to what I heard last year when doing some field debugging of their DCO Series exchanges in rural Mississippi (John Higdon, stay tuned for a special message about what PacBell will inflict upon you shortly!) In fact, G-D bought Stromberg in an attempt to learn about telephony to merge it into military electronic telephone exchanges. After getting an electronic exchange developed, they found they couldn't market the DCO to Telcos. It was just TOO different from military sales, so after getting the technology G-D wanted, they sold the Stromber Florida operation to English General Electric (NO relation to the American General Electric), which very shortly after the purchase, merged with Plessey of England, and the merged name soon changed to GPT/Stromberg-Carlson. It was probably thought to be a technology prize by the British, but read on at the end of this story! Then, in 1990, Siemens of Germany bought 40% of GPT back in England, so what is in Lake Mary today is owned by GPT, in turn largely owned by Siemens. Today's name runs something like GPT-Siemens/Stromberg- Carlson. (no kidding!) Larry continues: > The remains of Stromberg-Carlson changed their name to Comdial during > the early 1980's, but may have now changed it back. I believe they may > have also been acquired by Plessey. In fact, G-D spun off Stromberg's telephone-set manufacturing (which had, like ITT, licensed manufacture of WECo-pattern telephone sets) to the public, forming ComDial, which struggles to survive to this day in Charlottesville, VA. Michael Dorrian reported about this part of the Stromberg evolution in Digest v11, Iss302: > As far as I know, Comdial remains the only US manufacturer of > telephones (local content - AT&T's phones are assembled in the US from > Asian manufactured components). This offers quite a niche on sales to > the US government. In fact, Dear Readers, ComDial remains the place you can still buy a 500 or 2500 set with a STEEL baseplate, in my opinion even better than the plastic one AT&T now sells via Sears and such. They are small enough that I expect you can probably buy just one from the Charlottesville factory ... but I can't guarantee that. ComDial's president, who just died recently was on a personal campaign to make a quality, durable telephone set in the USA, much like the campaign of Zenith's president to keep one US television set factory going. Michael continues: > Recent {Washington Post} Virginia 30 had them at $80M in sales with 1K > employees. That report must have piqued the trade press, for the April 22 reported that ComDial reported it had a 1990 profit for the first time in six years, but analysts said it might be short-lived due to the recession and the Gulf War. The report said ComDial had just laid off 33 more workers to cut its staff to 940, down from 1,200 in 1987. It further reported ComDial had almost been buried by foreign imnports in station sets, so it had expanded to making key systems in 1985, which business had, at a loss, largely sustained it. The report said ComDial's sales were predominantly (65%) through distributors, so I'm sure Macy Hallock knows plenty about them lately. One diversion from Stromberg here, to respond to Larry about a remark concerning GTE and Automatic Electric. Larry quoted: >> GTE began buying companies and feeding business to >> its own manufacturing subsidiary, Automatic Electric. GTE simply >> decided in the 1950's to copy things that Bell had so successfully >> clamped controls on a half-century earlier. Then Larry commented: > In my opinion, GTE/AECo copied little from the Bell System. GTE did many > things the AECo way. My remark was not meant to say GTE/AECo emulated Bell designs. Rather, it was an allusion to GTE copying Bell's business and vertical market structure by acquiring and feeding its own design and manufacture with its captive operating companies. Just like the local Bell companies were BOCs, the GTE ones were GTOCs. They had a great way of fending off aspiring suppliers by telling them they could buy only against approved Materials Requests, which came from Stamford HQ. When one wasted a ticket to Stamford, one was told they could only approve Materials Requests orginating from some unknown place in the Operating Companies. Just like dealing with Bell, smart suppliers knew the cycle starting with lots of multipoint schmoozing, after which a Materials Request would "materialize," specifying one supplier's product, purchased through Automatic Electic. (Can you say, "KS Spec?") But, back to GPT-Plessey-Siemens/Stromberg-Carlson or whatever their name is these days, and that special alert for John Higdon: The General Dynamics legacy left there is what became the thing called the Century Digital Central Office, or DCO. They've managed a market postion of going into RBOCs and getting the "spoiler" slot of Number Two Supplier, just to be a bargaining chip against Northern Telecom. South Central Bell did that, so lots of DCOs are in KY, TN, AL, MS and LA. The DCO has a T-1 (23B+D) connected Remote Line Switch, or RLS. PHaving lost its General Dynamics product control mentors, this combination HAS to be one of the most beknightedly out-of-control pieces of hardware and software junk ever foisted on the telephone industry. The RLS is but a couple of years old and is running through Software Release 17 already! I personally have stood in front of one that had all green lights and no local or remote alarms ... but would offer no dial tone to any subscribers. Telephone people on here will recognize this as perhaps one of the most irresponsible things any public telephone exchange could ever do. And finally, the message for John Higdon: Pacific Telephone has bought these beasts and should be starting installationa about now. (Just thought you'd like the warning so you can convert to all GTE FX's, John!)