Phone irony

[McHeath]

So back in 1949 the US feds file an antitrust suit against the Bell System and force the severance of Northern Electric, in Canada, from Western Electric in the USA. 

The two companies go their separate ways, and eventually Western Electric is killed off, chopped up, and today a big chunk of it is called Avaya, they even still had the Shreveport Works making phones in the US until 2001.

Northern Electric became Nortel, ran out of money and went into bankruptcy court this year.

And now, in a move that I think is amusingly ironic, Avaya is buying much of Nortel. 

http://tinyurl.com/ktqmkq

[Phonesrfun]

Yep, and on the other side of the coin, AT&T is now getting back to being a behemoth too.  Go figure.

[rp2813]

What goes around comes around.  I lived through the re-behemothing of AT&T, which most observers know isn't AT&T at all, but is SBC masquerading as AT&T, and isn't even that since they have out-sourced so much, including their IT division.  What I have heard from people still with AT&T is that ever since they farmed out IT, there hasn't been a single system rolled out or changed that didn't end up with big problems.  The whole philosophy of Ma Bell doing things right the first time and testing things to death before launch has completely evaporated.

So now GM has brought in former SBC/AT&T chairman Ed Whitacre to help turn things around.  Their ads featuring him immediately bring to mind Lee Iacocca, and I imagine Ed fancies himself as such.  I wonder if this means that after getting GM into the black, ol' Ed will start buying up Ford and Chrysler, all in the name of satisfying the shareholders just like he did as he swallowed up every last Baby Bell available to him.

What's next?  Ed Whitacre for President?

Ralph

[McHeath]

Interesting info Ralph about the "New at&t".  Speaking of how things have changed, the current incarnations of the old WE phones, the 2500 and 2554, are now marketed at "commercial grade" phones.  This is amusing seeing as how they were originally ordinary residential phones and were made a lot better to boot. 

I will testify that our local at&t folks are very good at service, any problem we've had at work or home that's tied to their system is quickly dispatched.  But it was that way here long ago when it was Pacific Bell.

[rp2813]

I agree that service needs are still handled well by AT&T overall.  Not a whole lot has changed with that philosophy over the years.  It's the internal operations that are no longer anything like Ma Bell ran things.  I suspect that at some point when things really start to get out of control, AT&T may bring their IT department back.  Either that, or they will simply operate at far lower standards than they used to and their employees will suffer the consequences, putting out fires due to a general lack of ownership and responsibility in the farmed-out IT culture.  The subscriber may not notice much, but internally it will simply become more and more chaotic. 

My last position there was in the wireless segment, and that was pure pandemonium.  Since wireless is now the cash cow, their way of doing things trumps the old-school landline methods, so my friends on the telco side are constantly having to put the brakes on projects because wireless just doesn't get it when it comes to understanding all the impacts any changes might have across the enterprise, yet telco (landline) gets little respect anymore because that whole end of the business isn't the revenue source it used to be, and so the issues telco has are generally dismissed by the wireless teams who are now in the driver's seat. 

It's really sad to see such an interesting workplace culture being kicked to the curb in the name of keeping the shareholders happy.  Integrity started to disintegrate as soon as SBC took over in 1997, and there's basically nothing left of it at this point.

Ralph

[bwanna]

ralph, from my perspective on the wireline side, i agree, things have gone steadily downhill since 1999, when SBC came on the scene. most of us in the field remain committed to A-1 customer service. a goal the company makes increasingly difficult to achieve. dispatches on trouble calls are viewed as too costly. sometimes a customer has to make 2-3 reports before a truck will roll. training & tools cost too much. productivity is valued over quality. used to be managers came up thru rank & file & knew the job of their employees. now we pretty much have paper pushers, who just want the "numbers" to add up.

specialized departments have been eliminated. we are supposed to know everything from cable repair to dsl service, data circuits & uverse.

ha, uverse. while it is a good product, it was not developed fully before being offered to the public. we have most of the kinks ironed out now, after 3years. but many a customer paid the price of our ineptitude.

AT$T (aka SBC) is definitely all for lining the pockets of the CEOs & shareholders. i don't think they see the big picture where excellant employees=satisfied customers=long range profits.

ok i'm getting off my soapbox

[McHeath]

Thanks for the inside insight from bwanna and rp2813.  I don't have any complaints with the service we receive from at&t, it remains as good as it ever was.  If we have trouble we call in and sometimes a truck is in front of our house in literally 5 minutes.  (!)  A couple of the techs have given us their personal cell phone numbers and told us to call them directly if we have any more trouble. 

However, I don't use AT&T for my wireless, our boys do, and we hear nothing but horror tales from the crypt from them.  (Not that life with Verizon Wireless has been a cake walk, we got new cell phones once that literally did not work outside of our local region and were told that was just they way they were!)  We often hear the phrase, "I hate AT&T!" followed by a long and sinister story of how _________ was screwed up for _______ number of days and required__________ number of calls to get it fixed, if it was.  They also have Comcast stories to tell, seems like service and support there are pretty bad as well. 

And it seems that the business model of our time is as bwanna put it so well:

AT$T (aka SBC) is definitely all for lining the pockets of the CEOs & shareholders. i don't think they see the big picture where excellant employees=satisfied customers=long range profits.

But that's a whole another story eh?

[Dan]

I have Cincinnati Bell landlines and it is great as it ever was since the monopoly days.

[bwanna]

thanks for the good words towards service from ATT

i'm taking it as a testament to the dedication of the front line workers. 

[HobieSport]

I have always liked ATT/SBC. They have been good to me over the years, and I always especially like the front line workers, as well as the desk job folks.

The only personal frustrations I've ever encountered were trying to find the right phone numbers and an understanding person to talk to about phone service in the first place. I've listened to lot's of musac, but remain patient and human.

I miss the "old days" when I could just phone the local telephone service office instead of someone in India or something. I just try to just be patient and get through to someone who can really help me put new data on the main computer database.

I've also probably personally been a little bit aggravating to a front line worker: We lived down a long country road for awhile and the phone lines had problems because of inclement weather and mice in the walls evidently with a taste for copper. The phone line worker was so overworked that winter and he naturally got angry at me for calling me out there yet again. But we fixed it together and shook hands when we heard that dial tone again...

[rp2813]

LOL re: U-verse, Donna.  It's a good example of how things have changed.  The whole concept of trying to break a new system or product before it even went into beta-testing seems to be applied less and less.

Back in 1997, Pacific Bell already had a cable TV system with Tivo type technology up and running serving a number of areas, with plans to expand.   Customers loved it.  It blew Comcast out of the water.   As soon as SBC came in, they scrapped it and ripped out all of the "node" boxes and related cabling.  It seems like only a short time later, SBC was looking for a way to offer video and since they abandoned the Pac Bell technology, they had no option other than to set up an arrangement with Echostar (Dish Network) to provide TV services.   No doubt the logic behind abandoning the Pac Bell system was that the return on investment wasn't going to be quick enough.  I'm not so sure they were right about that.

Ralph

[Dan/Panther]

So basically, Nortel, and Avaya are right back where they were in 1949.
D/P

[McHeath]

Pretty much, it's the classic "The more things change, the more they stay the same".