Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request From: Dale Frye Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Phone Frustration Message-ID: <2429@accuvax.nwu.edu> Date: 26 Dec 89 21:27:18 GMT Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu Reply-To: Dale Frye Organization: Washington University, St. Louis MO Lines: 59 Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 9, Issue 596, message 5 of 5 I, for one, love the breakup. 1: Some years ago I called (from a neighbor's phone) to report no dial tone. The operator was not intrested in my troubleshooting except for whether or not I had checked to see if all the phones were on the hook. Then I had to guarentee that someone would be home in case they had to come out. Two weeks ago I lost dial tone. From a neighbor's phone I told repair "At the network interface ther was no dial tone but there was voltage."(PERIOD) Operator said "Can I have a phone number to reach you in case we need to talk to you?". By the time I walked home the phone was fixed. No hassles of someone staying home "just in case". My NTI is outside so there is no reason for me to sit at home waiting. 2: I wired my house when it was built (about 5 years ago). I included enough wire (4 pairs) to handle most possible wiring schemes. The wiring is run in a star configuration with the terminus in the basement (it's a full basement). I have used the wiring for an intercom also. Sure Bell could have wired it this way way back when but do you think they would have let me used the extra pairs for my own purposes. If they had they would have charged me a monthly rate just to use the wire in my own house! Worst of all can you imagine how much it would have cost for them to run the wire! I could go on with examples of what things would be like it Bell still had the same amount of control but I assume you can extrapolate those conditions to now. It appears to me that those whining about the "Good Old Days" have one specific complaint that might not have existed under the old ways (i.e. problems due to antiquated wiring, finger pointing, etc.) but then forget about all the additional problems that existed (or would have existed in today's communications environment) cause by all that excess baggage. This whinning reminds me of the person complaining about the paving of the roads because it causes the horse's shoes to wear out faster. The break up forced the communications system to become more modular. Some of the problems of modular systems are the inablility to "fine tune" and finger-pointing amoung the caretakers of the modules however an extremely fine tuned integrated system can only grow so big before it fails under it's own weight. IMHO the time for the breakup was right. It clearly opened a logjam of improvements. The whiners fail to see the vast number of small improvements as being better than some small set of additional problems created. As these improvements become more apparent and the new problems are solved (or die a natural death) maybe then they'll shut up. 1981 - IBM PC - It doesn't support CP/M, no software available, no hard disk, 160K floppy -- don't buy it. 1984 - Mac - It doesn't support DOS, no software available, no hard disk, 128k memory -- don't buy it. 1988 - Next - It doesn't support Mac, no software available, no floppy disk (????) -- don't buy it. Dale Frye Washington University in St. Louis