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From: ptownson@eecs.nwu.edu (Patrick Townson)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Phone Frustration
Message-ID: <2378@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 23 Dec 89 17:38:17 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 9, Issue 590, message 2 of 4

>The moderator's views about the divestiture are well known, but the
>problems enumerated in Will's message can hardly be blamed on divestiture.

  (Example given: person under difficult circumstances needs to call the
  AT&T operator from a desolate area with one pay phone; it belongs to
  someone other than the local Bell; she cannot get through.)
  
>Customer Owned Coin Operated Telephones became possible as a result of
>the FCC's Carterfone decision (1968) authorizing customers to attach
>any sort of device to their phone line....

>Thus, even without the breakup, we would have been likely to see this
>scenario.  Indeed, it is a common one in France where COCOT's have
>been authorized for decades and the telephone company is still a
>monopoly.

And France has really great and effecient phone service, don't they? 
What a great example for Americans! What a goal to strive for! Phone
service as good as that in France. COCOTS may have been authorized as
of 1968, but they did not begin appearing on the scene until the
early 1980's -- once they knew that AT&T was unlikely to find a legal
environment friendly enough to stop them.

 (Example given: woman receives calls from a misprogrammed pay phone
  telling her the box needs to be cleaned out. This goes on until
  the call is 'finally traced' to the COCOT proprietor.)

>Even if we went back to the pre-Carterfone days when all autodialers
>had to be leased from AT&T, it wouldn't prevent a customer from
>programming a wrong number. I expect the problem was solved thorugh
>the use of a call trace capability by the local phone company just as
>it would have been had AT&T been integrated.

Indeed, it could happen anytime, but the difference is, now-a-days it
is up to the consumer to find out what is wrong, *and convince
others*. By this, I mean the lady can call 'repair service' or the
operator to report the problem. As far as telco is concerned, there is
no problem. *They* don't control the equipment in question, and *their*
equipment is working fine...she got the calls, didn't she? And I
venture to say when the lady called the COCOT to complain about
getting constant calls from one of their phones, she was told to check
with the telco. 

One of the notorious problems since divestiture, now that we get our
local service one place, our long distance service somewhere else, and
our equipment from a third place, is that all three love to point
their fingers at the other two as the troublemaker. In our office, for
example, getting the WATS lines repaired is like a three ring circus.
The long distance guy says the local telco dedicated circuits to his
switch are not working. Telco says it must be our PBX which is not
handling the calls correctly. Our PBX guy says call the long distance
company. Finally with some effort, I get all three together on our
premises at one time, and let them stand there and point their fingers
at each other, but none of them leave until my phones are working
again.

 (Example given: people get billed for long distance calls not their
  own. Problem is found to be crossed wires in the junction box coming
  into the subscriber's premises. How did the wires get crossed?)
  
Mr. Sirbu notes,

>There's nothing in this story to suggest that divestiture had anything
>to do with the problem  -- unless you want to argue that the old AT&T
>never got customer's wires crossed!

Yes, AT&T, or more precisely, the local telco did get wires crossed.
But that condition is far more common now that the local telco by law
cannot work on wires past the point they enter the subscriber's 
premises. If the telco is going to charge $$$ to come out and install
your phone these days, and you have the option of having 'someone else'
do the work, then you get 'someone else' (the building janitor, maybe?)
who claims to know what he is doing. It is frightening to me to
realize that in a large apartment complex or office building, with a
big IT in the basement, that anybody and everybody these days who
wants a phone installed is free to get in the cabinet and tamper with
the wires. 

So the victim of the cross-wiring with the wrong calls on his bill
calls the long distance supplier, and gets a third degree run-around.
He calls the local telco, and is told they have nothing to do with the
wires in his building or long distance. The building manager says call
the telco. The telco says call the long distance company.  I am
victimized when you moved into the apartment across the hall and your
friend said he could save you big money by doing the installation
himself! An unusual and rare occurence? Not in the big city in many
older neighborhoods.  Tenants in an apartment building have gotten
into physical fights with each other accusing the other of stealing
their service or cutting the wires off entirely, etc.

In big, older urban areas like Chicago, multiples come up all over the
place in the cable run. You go to the basement of my building --
private property where the telco can no longer under law work without
charging a hefty fee -- and you'll find pairs for everyone on this
block.  So your efforts to wire your phones victimize several other
folks in the vicinity. Even novice installers from the local telco in
the old days did not bungle things so badly!

 (Example given: Problem in the switch causes subscriber to lose calls.)

>This story doesn't even involve AT&T, and can thus hardly be blamed on
>Judge Greene.  Indeed, one postive consequence of divestiture is that
>the equipment market has become more competitive, leading GTE to throw
>in the towel and merge its switch operations with AT&T.  This will
>likely prove quite beneficial in the long run to GTE customers.

In the old days when I reported a condition like this, someone looked
into it and repaired it. Now, when I call Repair Service, I am given a
third degree questioning: Have I tested every phone in my house? Have
I unplugged all but one, tested it, and used a process of elimination?
Can I prove it is a central office problem and not a problem on my
end?  Am I aware that if telco comes out to my premises a week from
Tuesday and finds the problem on my end I will receive a hefty bill
for having bothered them? I know how telephones work, and I can't get
through their questioning at times; what about the average consumer?

>In short, the moderator should spare us his non sequiters about Judge Greene.

Mr. Sirbu is, of course, technically correct. No matter where you
look, you'll not find any piece of paper signed by Harold Greene
saying COCOT proprietors are free to screw the (relatively ignorant of
telephony practices) consumer. No where did he sign off on anything
saying service was to get worse, or that the conditions given in the
examples were to be permitted to exist.

But....what could he *possibly* have expected to happen otherwise?
COCOTS began proliferating once Greene set the pace. Long distance
rip-offs began in an agressive way once Greene set the pace. By the
court's portrayal throughout the entire divestiture process of AT&T as
an evil giant which had to be squashed, everyone understood what
Greene was saying, which was that AT&T, in his estimation, was a bad
organization which had to be stopped.

He could have easily permitted competition without smashing AT&T in
the process; but instead, he took a century of fine-tuning and
carefully planned practices which had given the USA the finest
*totally integrated* phone network in the world, bar none, and
indicated his willingness to see it picked apart. Unlike other
utilities such as electricity and gas, where your use of the utility
is of little concern to me, as to what you attach to the pipes or
wires, telephones are different: it takes two to tango, so to speak,
and my service becomes worth less or more in large part based on the
configuration of your service and equipment.

That's what made the Bell System so successful over the decades: One
way of doing things; one standard; everyone shape up or ship out.

Greene could have authorized competition by telling MCI/Sprint and
others they were free to compete; and that they could spend the next
century developing a system or network equally as efficient and good
as Bell if they desired. You say its not fair to MCI/Sprint to have to
spend that long to accomplish it?  Who gave AT&T and the Bell System
any breaks over the past hundred years? Where did Greene find the
moral or ethical authority to force AT&T to sell off its property?

Mr. Sirbu is indeed correct: Divestiture was a very narrow thing; it
said only a few words, relative to all the water which has passed
under the bridge in the past five years; but ideas have consequences,
and I can't imagine Harold Greene didn't know that from the moment he
first entertained the concept of divestiture in his courtroom.


Patrick Townson