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Message Digest 
Volume 28 : Issue 15 : "text" Format

Messages in this Issue:
  Steve Jobs medical leave of absence
  Re: AT&T drops Appleton, WI time/temp service - local guy picks it up  
  Re: AT&T drops Appleton, WI time/temp service - local guy picks it up  
  Re: AT&T drops Appleton, WI time/temp service - local guy picks it up  
  Re: Nortel files for bankruptcy protection 
  Re: AT&T drops Appleton, WI time/temp service - local guy picks it up


====== 27 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ======
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and the name of our lawyer, and other stuff of interest.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2009 22:57:37 -0500
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Steve Jobs medical leave of absence
Message-ID: <p06240802c594645d0240@[10.0.1.6]>


http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2009/01/14advisory.html

January 14, 2009

Apple Media Advisory

Apple CEO Steve Jobs today sent the following email to all 
Apple employees:

Team,

I am sure all of you saw my letter last week sharing something very 
personal with the Apple community. Unfortunately, the curiosity over 
my personal health continues to be a distraction not only for me and 
my family, but everyone else at Apple as well. In addition, during 
the past week I have learned that my health-related issues are more 
complex than I originally thought.

In order to take myself out of the limelight and focus on my health, 
and to allow everyone at Apple to focus on delivering extraordinary 
products, I have decided to take a medical leave of absence until the 
end of June.

I have asked Tim Cook to be responsible for Apple's day to day 
operations, and I know he and the rest of the executive management 
team will do a great job. As CEO, I plan to remain involved in major 
strategic decisions while I am out. Our board of directors fully 
supports this plan.

I look forward to seeing all of you this summer.

Steve


------------------------------

Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2009 05:26:40 -0800 (PST)
From: David Kaye <sfdavidkaye2@yahoo.com>
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: AT&T drops Appleton, WI time/temp service - local guy picks   it up  
Message-ID: <014f6346-a08b-4703-abf6-2012be086b39@g3g2000pre.googlegroups.com>

On Jan 14, 2:40 pm, "Michael G. Koerner" <mgk...@dataex.com> wrote:

>
> A Darboy businessman saved a 59-year-old Appleton institution.

This is so funny.  Ever since AT&T dropped both the time and the
weather services (here in San Francisco they were POPCORN and
WE6-1212, I've had a hankering for time and temp.  Time, especially.
Unless one is near a computer it's hard to get good time.  My cell
phone resolves to the minute, and radio and TV stations have so much
digital delay built into them that they can be off 10-20 seconds!

So I wrote some time/temp software and now I'm looking for equipment
to handle it.  Heck, I used to have a 5-line POTS line broadcaster but
no longer have it.  I shouldn't have tossed it.

Anybody have leads to a fairly inexpensive multi-line POTS
broadcaster?


------------------------------

Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2009 06:53:23 -0800 (PST)
From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: AT&T drops Appleton, WI time/temp service - local guy picks   it up  
Message-ID: <93a67f08-dfcd-4f71-b8af-88429d76a0ec@n2g2000vbl.googlegroups.com>

On Jan 14, 5:40 pm, "Michael G. Koerner" <mgk...@dataex.com> wrote:

> A Darboy businessman saved a 59-year-old Appleton institution.

Would anyone know of such time/temp services still available elsewhere
in the U.S.?  Bell made a half-hearted effort to standardize them at
936-1212 but many places had their own number.  Later, some companies
charged extra for it and it was a 976 number.

> Man, that line was in service since 1950 - (memory flow alert!) dial
> telephone service was cut in in Appleton in 1949 and from that time
> until about 1968 or 1969, one only needed to dial the last five
> digits of the number to connect a local call dialed from Appleton
> (733 or 734 numbers).

Made it easier for SxS exchanges so new levels and expensive switches
didn't need to be added.  I believe in such cases if someone dialed a
7 first it was simply absorbed (ignored).

> That, too, will end in a couple of years when NPA 274 comes to the
> 920 area, requiring that all ten digits of the number be dialed on
> all calls.

Hard to believe a small town in Wisconsin will require ten digits when
not that long ago five were plenty.


------------------------------

Date: 15 Jan 2009 23:37:45 -0000
From: John Levine <johnl@iecc.com>
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: AT&T drops Appleton, WI time/temp service - local guy picks it up  
Message-ID: <20090115233745.8360.qmail@simone.iecc.com>

>Would anyone know of such time/temp services still available elsewhere
>in the U.S.?  Bell made a half-hearted effort to standardize them at
>936-1212 but many places had their own number.

In Boston, time is 617-637-xxxx and weather is 617-936-xxxx, for any xxxx.
I just called them, both say they're Verizon.

R's,
John


------------------------------

Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2009 05:32:46 -0800 (PST)
From: David Kaye <sfdavidkaye2@yahoo.com>
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: Nortel files for bankruptcy protection 
Message-ID: <281b445a-4255-43cf-a5fd-bc1c0d69b470@l33g2000pri.googlegroups.com>

How the mighty have fallen.  Nortel was once Northern Telecom, aka
Northern Electric, the equipment supplier of Bell Canada in earlier
days, the Canadian equivalent of what Western Electric was to the U.S.
Bell System.

***** Moderator's Note *****

It's a sad day, to be sure. The "old world" wireline monopolies could
afford the best, and they were willing to pay for it, because it meant
less maintenance, more reliability, and a lot less training required
for the union work force (1). They got what they paid for; gold-plated
reliability that is, to this day, the standard for all the world: the
United States and Canada are the only places I've ever been where
customers pick up a telephone and dial a call without bothering to
listen for a dial tone.

N.E.T. once conducted an experiment: it installed a switch made by a
third vendor in a Boston-area location, to evaluate the
cost/performance ratio. The exchange was plagued with problems
throughout its lifetime, with everyone involved pointing fingers at
everyone else. Although the executives liked having a third name they
could drop during negotiations with Western Electric and Nortel, the
citizens who used the exchange were much less enthusiastic, and
eventually preasure from the PUC forced the transition to a Nortel
remote.

Suffice to say that the Baby Bells learned the hard way that the
Frying Pan you know is better than the Fire you don't: they stuck with
the Weco/Nortel duopoly thereafter. All would have been fine, except
for Nicholas Negroponte and his prophecy about the crossover of wire
and wireless.

Cellular penetration continues to erode the wireline customer base,
and cellular carriers contine to rake it in with bundles that include
long distance (it's cheaper to include it rather than bill for it),
while wireline competitors creek along with antiquated billing
systems, an expensive work force (cellular is pretty much all
non-union), and "big iron" exchanges that cost millions but can't
attract customers who have other choices.

Bill Horne
Temporary Moderator

1.) There is, of course, the sleight-of-hand game which AT&T played to
maximize profits, pre-1984. Prior to the breakup, when AT&T owned the
Bell System, Western Electric was a major profit center which could,
given the margin-of-return regulatory environments AT&T's subsidiaries
worked in, charge pretty much whatever it wanted for its
switches. AT&T would enjoy the profits from Weco, while the operating
companies told regulators they had no choice. That's another story,
for another time: suffice to say that Nortel had 20+ years to deal
with the change, and the company didn't keep up.

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2009 08:37:22 -0800 (PST)
From: Wes Leatherock <wleathus@yahoo.com>
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: AT&T drops Appleton, WI time/temp service - local guy picks it up
Message-ID: <527487.97356.qm@web112217.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>

On Thursday, January 15, 2009 8:53 AM hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:

> On Jan 14, 5:40 pm, "Michael G. Koerner" <mgk...@dataex.com> wrote:
>
>> A Darboy businessman saved a 59-year-old Appleton institution.
>
> Would anyone know of such time/temp services still available
> elsewhere in the U.S.?  Bell made a half-hearted effort to
> standardize them at 936-1212 but many places had their own number.
> Later, some companies charged extra for it and it was a 976 number.

In flat-rate cities Southwestern Bell never provided free time
service.  That was practically all, maybe all, of Southwestern Bell
exchanges.

Time service was available in most cities of any size in SWBT
territory, sponsored by some local company which probided an
advertising message along with it.  In Oklahoma City, the Audichron
machine was on the main banking floor of the First National Bank and
Trust Company, with blinking lights to show which lines were in use
and handsets so customers and visitors to the bank could pick up on
the spot and listen to the message.  The bank was, of course, the
advertiser sponsoring the service.  Before divestiture the telco
leased or purchased the machine from the Audichron Company and
furnished it to the customer as a tariff item or special assembly.

In flat-rate exchanges, there is no revenue stream to the telco for
providing the service on its own behalf.

There are five time services listed in the telephone directory for the
Oklahoma City metropolitan exchange.  Four of them are in smaller
cities included in the metro exchange, presumably provided by local
advertisers in the respective areas, but of course available to any
costomers in the metro exchange.

>> Man, that line was in service since 1950 - (memory flow alert!) dial
>> telephone service was cut in in Appleton in 1949 and from that time
>> until about 1968 or 1969, one only needed to dial the last five
>> digits of the number to connect a local call dialed from Appleton
>> (733 or 734 numbers).
>
> Made it easier for SxS exchanges so new levels and expensive switches
> didn't need to be added.  I believe in such cases if someone dialed a
> 7 first it was simply absorbed (ignored).

As I recall, any of the SxS selectors could be arranged to absorb,
trunk or cut through on any specified digit.  Not used just in small
towns but in mtero cities which were SxS.

>> That, too, will end in a couple of years when NPA 274 comes to the
>> 920 area, requiring that all ten digits of the number be dialed on
>> all calls.
> 
> Hard to believe a small town in Wisconsin will require ten digits when
> not that long ago five were plenty.

Wes Leatherock
wleathus@yahoo.com
wesrock@aol.com

***** Moderator's Note *****

Even in flat-rate environments, the telco could earn money from the
time signal: it was allways leased to the FAA, police, fire, etc., for
use as an independent log signal that was recorded under airport tower
transmissions, police dispatchers, etc. I don't know how much they
charged for the service.

Bill Horne
Temporary Moderator

------------------------------




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