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The Breakup of Ma Bell.

Started by Dan/Panther, April 13, 2010, 01:43:42 AM

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Dan/Panther

I loved the Bell System films with Dr Frank Baxter, and Richard Deacon, I think also with Ricahrd Carlson. I collect 16MM films and have one of the 'Bell' films. The one,  "About Time".
D/P

The More People I meet, The More I Love, and MISS My Dog.  Dan Robinson

savageje

Quote from: paul-f on April 13, 2010, 03:23:02 PM
It's interesting to see it still playing out, as Verizon sells off the "legacy" wireline business in remote areas to Frontier and others, so they could take the hit and declare bankruptcy.  Now Verizon and AT&T are petitioning the FCC to make it a national priority to shut down POTS once and for all. 

You can follow their posts on the comment system at www.fcc.gov.  It's quite entertaining.

I work with VoIP and cellular technology every day and the thought of POTS going away scares me.  VoIP is a neat technology to be sure, but it seems like there are too many moving parts to count on it in situations "when the chips are down."  There are a lot of companies out there operating and maintaining VoIP infrastructure that cannot and do not provide the kind of reliable service we expect from a regulated utility.  Cellular is much the same way, with oversubscribed/under-engineered networks and coverage issues that are inherent to the technology. 

Jim Stettler

Quote from: Dan/Panther on April 13, 2010, 07:57:17 PM
I loved the Bell System films with Dr Frank Baxter, and Richard Deacon, I think also with Ricahrd Carlson. I collect 16MM films and have one of the 'Bell' films. The one,  "About Time".
D/P
Dude,
I sold off about a dozen a few years ago. All 16mm, all bell system.
Jim
You live, You learn,
You die, you forget it all.

bwanna

i work with POTS everyday.... the thought of it going away REALLY scares me :'(
donna

Dan/Panther

They're trying to make POT legal in California.... ::) :o ;D

D/P

The More People I meet, The More I Love, and MISS My Dog.  Dan Robinson

AET

Donna, I agree that service is suffering everywhere.  Aren't businesses supposed to work with you to keep  your business, and to keep you a loyal customer.  We have DirecTV here, and besides our house, we have a summer house, and the store, with my apartment above.  My dad has been trying to get them to give us a deal, and he would set up dish at the summer house and the store/apartment.  Of course, we don't NEED dish at the summer house since we only use it a few months of the year, but you'd think they'd be willing to play ball.  Not so much.

- Tom

bwanna

d/p....... :o :o :o :o :o

btw, it is legal in michigan for some medical conditions
donna

McHeath

Mixed feelings about the breakup of the Bell System.  It was a government regulated monopoly that had to fulfill the requirements of excellent service, reasonable cost, and extensive market penetration to exist and they did that very well.  The system was over-engineered by a significant margin, everything from the phones to the networks to the switching.  They poured vast amounts of money into fundamental research at Bell Labs and basically invented all the goodies that make modern life so hi tech.  Service was legendary, as was quality control, areas they set global standards in.  Costs were not cheap, but very stable and reasonable compared to the time.  Product innovation was slow.  

All of that is gone now.  All the telecoms and phone makers are sales and marketing driven.  Bell Labs no longer does fundamental research but only works on areas that are immediately marketable.  Products have limited life spans and are endlessly being made obsolete on purpose to drive sales.  The systems are over subscribed and under engineered, leading to quality of use issues that would never have been tolerated in the old days.  Aside from a few areas most service rendered is poor, once they get your cash out of you the next goal is to get more cash out of you, usually that's done by upselling you and not service.  Costs are all over the place, no one seems to know what it actually costs to make a phone call today, but you can easily end up spending thousands over two years on that new smart phone which was a "great deal", but conversely you get make free local and long distance calls with services like Google Voice.  Innovation is fast paced.

So which era was better?  Hard to compare really, it's rather an apples and oranges thing now as the market has changed so much.  Would we have had such deep cell phone market penetration under Ma Bell?  Who knows really?  Would it have cost a lot or a little?  Again there is no way to know what might have been.  

I think we can compare service between the eras and today's service basically is crap.  The only good service experiences that still seem to happen are the tech guys who come out to fix the landline, they are top notch and for a moment it feels like the old days.  But don't end up on the phone trying to get your __________ fixed/changed by a service rep, it's agony.  

And some things have not really changed at all, most cell phones are sold on contract in the US, which means you are essentially renting the phone every month for the life of that contract.  Of course by "selling" it us they don't have to fix it when it breaks, which it will.  

And from an environmental perspective the current era is far more wasteful, think of all the e-waste that is generated by the disposable cell and cordless phones and of the last 25 years.  Programs like "New Every 2" from Verizon simply add to the problem of waste, but they make sense from a marketing perspective because you have to generate new sales endlessly.  (Can you imagine a "New Every 2" program in 1970 for phones?)  But it does not appear that the issue of waste and environmental pollution created by the current telecom market is on the radar screen of anyone.  


Dan/Panther

McHeath;
You spent a lot of time thinking about that it seems.
Bwanna;
They want it legal across the board. For personal use.
D/P

The More People I meet, The More I Love, and MISS My Dog.  Dan Robinson

bwanna

well, said mcheath. it is unfortunate that we had to sacrifice the good of yesterday for the innovations of today. :(


d/p well....who wouldn't   :o ::) :o ::) 8) ::) :o
donna

Dan/Panther

It's going to be on the next state wide ballot.
D/P

The More People I meet, The More I Love, and MISS My Dog.  Dan Robinson

AET

That legal marijuana is a touchy subject, I personally am against it, because I've seen it wreck a lot of peoples lives, but that's just me.
- Tom

bwanna

before anybody gets crazy on me....i was just being silly w/ dan :-[
donna

Dan/Panther

Bwanna;
No one is going to get crazy on ya...
I would vote no.
I've really obtained a lot of information about ma bell I didn't know, and Pauls posting those links about those to guys winning the Nobel prize for physics, I was surprised.

D/P

The More People I meet, The More I Love, and MISS My Dog.  Dan Robinson

bellsystemproperty

I'm going to have to say it's a good thing without Bell. I wasn't alive when the Bell System existed, but our phone company, AT&T isn't bad at all. We never have any issues, and the one time it did they fixed it the same day.

Now we have many providers to choose from. Some are good, and then some are bad. If the Bell System continued, we may not have internet as we know it today. You might have to use WE computers and any unapproved software would be an "unauthorized attachment". There'd probably be no voip, so no free long distance with Google Voice or being able to use C*NET. Plus it'd be ridiculously expensive for a house to have a PBX, and none of us here would have nearly as many phones since they'd be so expensive. That's like collecting 56" plasma tvs! Towards the later years you could buy phones, but that was tricky for the average person and I think they had to be WE only.

There were some positives to the Bell System like higher quality phones, but for us that's not an issue because just because Bell is dead doesn't mean their phones will spontaneously combust!  ;D ;D ;D