RR is so out of touch with the truth. Shameful for someone in
communications field to be so malinformed.
AT&T was developing glass fibre to replace copper 40 plus years ago. They
had also been developing r.f. carrier long distance calling since the
1930s, at first pairs of open wire transmission line were used, using
frequencies is 2 kHz wide from 2 MHz to 70 MHz, later microwave was used.
Trans oceanic telephone was handled by submarine cables, later fiberoptic
cables. Radio technology was used from New Jersey to UK using encoded
double sideband 10 kW transmitters, often using two or three bands at a
time, using frequency and space diversity using Musa steerable elevation
rhombics at each end. The take off angle could be adjusted. There were
similar set ups in Germany California and Ohio. AT&T also provided
Teleprinter Telephone Exchange (TWX) and long range private 60mA Morse and
teleprinter lines (AP and UPI), long range equalized (class A) telephone
private lines for radio stations that were calibrated to allow for
interstate radio station networks, these were very expensive to run. They
werealso responsible for Federal secure AUTOVON system.
Local Bell companies were mandated to provide service even in remote
areas. High density areas had to subsidize the farmer five miles into the
woods. They had to maintain the local outside physical plant, poles,
battery banks, etc. They had to run and maintain compensated audio lines
for studio-transmitter links and RF feeds for television, making sure all
feeds were phase coherant at each and every control room.
Over the years there was active development of technologies that brought
huge cost savings to the consumer.
When the Southern Pacific Railway (SPRINT) was allowed to provide at first
private trunk services for Private Business Exchanges (PBX), later it was
alowed to provide long distance service.
SPRINT was not required to maintain services in remote areas or other
services.
AT&T started to deploy its nationwide fiberoptic cable in the 1980s, parts
of this was and is usedas the Internet backbone -- the backbone is ALL
owned by AT&T.
Certainly competition hasted and put pressure on inexpensive telco
services, but long before this the planning for improved economy was
planned by AT&T Long Lines Division from New Jersey.
So once again, RR is misinformed from reading the conspiracy sites full of
deliberate missinformation which he blithly propagates.
AT&T actually was heading, and a review of their long distance charges
shows it. Local Bells had to provide many mandated services
and maintain the Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS) to 99.99999%
reliability which it achieves.
The cheaper providers were not mandated to provide all the mandated and
unprofitable services.
The USA has and had the best telecommunications systems in the world and it
is a tribute to the excellent corporate planning and execution by AT&T, the
Baby Bells, and the hundreds of thousands of formerly unionized operators
and inside and outside electrical craft workers.
Unions lost many, many jobs, but the costs to consumer became cheaper.
It isa lot more complicated than RR's put down of our union brothers.
73
DR
On Oct 1, 2015 9:28 AM, "Ron Ristad" <ristad@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
It has nothing to do with morals. The telephone company wanted as much
money as they could squeeze out of you. You wanted to pay as little as
possible.
There used to be only one telephone company that had a monopoly and it was
in their best interests to keep an outdated technology that earned them the
greatest income, at the cost of the consumer.
Once the monopoly was broken up to the free market the technology changed
overnight. A long distance call that cost $10/minute 50 years go costs 1
cent/minute today and you can have an unlimited number of extensions.
-----Original Message-----
From: "John J. Miller" <seaspark@xxxxxxx>
Sent: Sep 30, 2015 9:51 PM
To: sparkscoffee@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [sparkscoffee] Morals
With all of this talk about morals; I thought I should confess my
misgivings.
Quite a few years ago, when I lived in NJ I added several extension
phones in my house without adding to my
monthly bill. I thought it was high tech, the way they used to detect
illegal extensions was by sending an ac signal on your line, measure
the impedance,the only thing connected when your phone was "Off hook"
was the ringer, so I disconnected all ringers except one. This way the
"Telephone Cops", (WKRP Cinnc.), could not detect my transaction and
they didn't. I rationalized this action because I knew it wasn't costing
anyone any money; I didn't make the phone Co. consume more power, etc.
Along came some sort of DE-regulation and people were allowed to connect
anything they wanted, so it wasn't illegal anymore. Telephone techs I
knew said that so much was being added, that it upset the networks.
JJ Miller
