Date: Sat, 15 Aug 92 01:08:19 PDT
From: lauren@vortex.COM (Lauren Weinstein)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Deterioration of POTS
Organization: TELECOM Digest
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 12, Issue 636, Message 1 of 9

John Higdon asks how I think POTS has deteriorated.  Perhaps not from
the standpoint of "techies" (the category into which many of us
reading TELECOM Digest could be classified).  But for the average
telephone subscriber, phone service is becoming increasingly confused
and expensive.

Much of what was included in basic installation fees in the past are
now extra cost items.  Inside wiring, for example, is simple if you
know what you're doing.  But for most people, it's another expense and
an additional confusion.  When something goes wrong, many people end
up paying overpriced repair shops to "repair" phones or answering
machines that weren't broken, simply because telephone repair claimed
(often inaccurately) that a problem must have been "on the subscriber
side."  Perhaps most of us in this forum are in a position to make a
clear determination of whose side of the protector a loose connection
may be on, but most subscribers aren't, and they can get taken to the
cleaners as a result.

I'll bet that many of you have had the experience of a friend or
relative calling you in total confusion about a telephone related
matter, and having to untangle the mess yourself and help get them out
from under the telco finger-pointing.

There is more to service than price.  For the moment, let's skip a
detailed discussion of the continuing moves to eliminate flat rate
service, increase access charges, and in general shift as much burden
as possible onto the local POTS subscribers who have nowhere else to
go (wait until the latest round of "rate restructuring" comes through
in California!  You'd better be making lots of intrastate toll calls
if you're going to absorb the basic service increases that have been
requested!)  Let's also skip over the confusion, slams, and ripoffs
related to long distance service competition -- soon to be intrastate
competition ...

The bottom line is that basic no-frills telephone service has become
much *less* convenient for most average subscribers.  More hassle,
more confusion, and more potential for technically unknowledgeable
people to be the losers.  I weigh such factors into the equation when
I say that POTS has deteriorated.  There are lots of great aspects to
telephone service for those of us with a technical bent.  But we are
not the majority (by far!) and an understanding of how the changing
face of telephone services affects everyone else is increasingly
important.


 --Lauren--


[Moderator's Note: Let's face it, Lauren: Between Judge Harold Greene
who disgraced his robe and courtroom to wreck the public telephone
network in the USA; the ripoff companies who moved in to feed on the
remains of AT&T after he got through dismembering them and the poorly
trained people hired in the past decade by the telcos, the stage has
been set ultimatly for a total collapse of the network.  Do you
remember when the old Bell System *never* allowed a new employee to be
in contact with the public (either as a service representative, repair
clerk or operator) until they had undergone 8-10 weeks of training?
When you were hired by Bell, the first thing you did was go to their
school all expenses paid at full salary for a couple months of
training in the 'way things are done in the System ...'. It is to the
credit of the old Bell System and a century of fine-tuning that the
network has held together as well as it has over the past ten years
since Greene's assault. Regards confusion, deterioration, higher
prices and public discontent, you are more right than you realize.
I've devoted this issue of the Digest to some of the typical horror
stories I hear each day here. I would publish more of these -- I get
plenty of them -- but I simply get too angry and upset.  Anyway, what
follows are some of the more recent submissions.   PAT]