Date: Tue, 18 Aug 92 14:41 PDT
From: john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: In Defense of the Judge
Reply-To: John Higdon <john@zygot.ati.com>
Organization: Green Hills and Cows
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 12, Issue 642, Message 4 of 10

Our Esteemed Moderator devoted an entire Digest to the reinforcement
of the attitude that "the breakup was bad". There were horror stories
concerning customer dealings with telcos and long distance companies.

There is another perspective. Our telephone network and the services
offered are exponentially more complex than anything dreamed of during
the reign of the Bell System. Think of some of the services you now
take for granted and I can guarantee you that not only were they not
offered by Ma Bell, they probably would STILL not be offered if Ma
Bell was alive today.

Yes, it is confusing to select a long distance carrier. The former
Soviets and Henry Ford used to deal with that problem quite
effectively. But it boils down to this: either you have choice or you
do not. With choice comes the need for responsibility. For all those
who find this responsibility burdensome, would you rather we all had
no choice?

There were stories about GTE run-arounds. Folks, GTE has ALWAYS been
the ultimate standard in incompetence. That is the one thing that has
not changed with divestiture. Do not blame GTE's excuse for telephone
service on divestiture; it has a longer history than that.

And is PAT or anyone else going to claim that there were not royal
run-arounds from the Bells before the His Honor's decree? My memory is
longer than that and I remember trying to get weird problems in the
crossbar looked at, or billing problems resolved, or any of a number
of other things corrected and finding a brick wall at every turn. Did
some of us kind of conveniently forget all about that stuff?

Yes, life was much simpler before the mid-eighties. And so was
telephone service. Sure, there was no problem at all with slamming.
There was only one way to make calls. Confused by "calling plans"? It
sure was not a problem in the old days: there weren't any. If I had
even a fraction of the voice and data traffic that flows between my
Victorville facility and my San Jose residence in 1980, the cost would
have compared to the national debt. A PBX in my home? Sure just hand a
fortune over to Mother and it would appear, telco trucks and all. Data
transmission? What could beat the DataPhone 300?

The list goes on and on. And do not waste my time asserting that all
of these things would have eventually materialized in the world of Ma
Bell at a price you could afford. Monopolies have no reason to
advance.  Yes, The Bell System was reliable. Stogy, but reliable. Why?
Because it was cheaper that way. Recent failures of STP switches
started a whole lot of lip flapping about things not being as
bulletproof as they used to be. Yes, cutting edge technology has rough
edges and sometimes a few bugs. But is that a reason to take GTE's
stance and just sit back and collect the revenue and do nothing to
advance?

Pine all you want about "the good old days" of the Bell System. I am
damn glad it is gone. I thank Judge Green and all who had a hand in
shaking telecommunications loose from the iron grip of the most stogy,
conservative, lackluster corporate behemouth in history and finally
letting it soar. Of course, my bank account has benefitted in many
ways as the result of divestiture and that might slant my attitude
slightly.  But as good as Bell Laboratories might have been, the field
is too dynamic to be entrusted to one, single entity.

When Don Peters (former Pacific Telephone regional manager) came to my
family home to investigate the "Higdon Telco" that was strung around
the neighborhood decades ago, my mother quipped that "maybe John will
end up working for the phone company some day". Mr. Peters replied,
"Not likely. He is much too creative to work for us!" Whether or not I
deserved that compliment is open to question, but it is interesting
that an influential agent of The Bell System had that kind of insight
regarding his own firm.

But thanks to divestiture, I and many others HAVE joined the
telecommunications industry and I believe that we have all brought
something to the party. People may resent the marketing tactics,
sleazy tricks, AOS scams, 900 shadiness, etc., etc., but we have a
vibrant and useful industry now that moves our society along at a
resonable cost.  A whole industry cannot be based on concerns of how
Aunt Martha will cope with POTS. There are others of us out there. And
I beg to differ: we ARE the majority!

The Bell System is dead. Long live telecommunications.


        John Higdon         |   P. O. Box 7648   |   +1 408 264 4115
    john@zygot.ati.com      | San Jose, CA 95150 |       M o o !


[Moderator's Note: There is certainly no doubt that the old Bell
System was badly in need of reform during the years before
divestiture.  But instead of a decree which forced them to
interconnect on a fair and arms-length basis with all competitors and
possibly some transition assistance from the court to help the
newcomers, we wound up with the whole System dismembered and total
confusion among the remains. Naturally this fueled the public
discontent even more.    PAT]