From: rlucas@bvsd.co.edu (Richard Lucas)
Subject: Re: FYI - USWest wasting our money again
Organization: Boulder Valley School District
Distribution: co
Date: Sat, 12 Sep 1992 17:21:28 GMT

In article <1992Sep11.230902.13800@mercury.cair.du.edu> jvilhube@diana.cair.du.edu (Jan Vilhuber) writes:
>I say to you what I said to Eric: get informed before spewing out
>a bunch of garbage on the net. You have no clue. After all, what have you
>read about either the product (Electronic Directory) OR US WEST?
>What do you know about the internal organization of US WEST? What
>do you know of the limitations put on the Baby Bells by lunkheads
>in Congress and courts? Go read up, and come back. Now go play.
>
>(I apoligize for the harsh tone: I get pissed off when people
>start flaming about things and have not even gone through the motions
>to get knowledgeable about the subject)
>
>>Uncle Fester
>>
>
>-- 
> Jan Vilhuber            | Internet: jvilhube@du.edu or jvilhube@[130.253.1.4]
> (The skydivin' Bass)      | Bitnet  : jvilhube@DUCAIR
>--------------------------------------------------


	Then I'll step into the question. I spent over a dozen years with
Mt. Bell/US WEST, and my wife has over 15 years with them right now. This
includes time with at least four different departments. I later worked as
a private consultant, testifying on the LCAP rate case and working for the
law firm that successfully handled the class action lawsuit against USW on
the inside wire maintenance agreement. I also spent time as a CWA steward
and officer (grievance specialist; I'm a HS debate coach now), which
involved a number of other departments. I've also studied the history of
telephone companies in general, as well as USW and Divestiture in particular.

	As I understand it, the French were largely introduced to the
possibilities of dial-up communications through Minitel. Given the age of
the Minitel system, I suspect that they didn't have as large an embedded
base of modem users as we have now. What we have in this country is far
different than what existed in France when Minitel was started. We have a
large embedded base of computer users with modems, and the number is
constantly growing. The standards developed seem to have been largely
ignored by the USW system; the impression I get is that USW is proposing a
system that might have been reasonable either several years ago (given our
level of sophistication then) or if we had a comparable situation to France
at the time of Minitel's start. Neither situation is the case. The result
is that even moderately sophisticated modem users are reacting negatively
to the USW proposal. If we want to spend extra money, we want it to be on
something that will go along with what we've already invested in. A new
proprietary system is hardly where we want our money to go. If "new" users
of such a system get hooked on it, and want to expand their experience
into other areas, they'll find their initial investment is pretty useless.

	I don't think that a small degree of common sense is too much to
expect from USW. I have unfortunately seen too many examples of a lack of
such thinking (try the lack of rate reciprocity in the original LCAP
proposal or the wire maintenance agreement negative checkoff in spite of
a legal opinion against such a method). I suspect that you've never worked
in the telecom field for anyone other than USW. The Bell-shaped head
syndrome is unfortunately true, which I didn't even realize, much less
appreciate, until I left the company. I've commented on the MCI
consultant's BBS about the tendency of the LEC's to not hire people with
telecom experience in other non-Bell telcos. The responses have indicated
that this is noticeable elsewhere, too. I encourage you to expand your
knowledge and experience beyond USW alone - although I might comment that
this may not be particularly healthy for your career advancement chances.

Rick Lucas (rlucas@bvsd.co.edu)
Debate Coach, Fairview HS
Teaching others to argue almost anything with almost anyone.
(Statistically insignificant chance of my opinions being shared by any
current or former employers.)

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