The general decline in standards today

[HudsonHawk]

The Bell System, for nearly a century, was a "regulated monopoly" in the United States with the goal of "universal service." It lived up to that goal -- developing the most efficient, reliable communications service the world has ever known. And it remained so until 1984, when Ma Bell was guillotined, and replaced by "the law of the marketplace." The result across the board is a lot of shiny trinkets and flashy advertising, backed by incompetent, indifferent customer service. Ma Bell would not have tolerated that for a moment.

It also resulted in better, more reliable, cheaper service. To each his own, I guess.

 

[GHT]

I find it remarkable that you guys in the States can still use rotary phones. Exchanges here went tone-dial only round about the turn of the century.

You could connect a rotary (pulse dial)'phone okay and receive calls, but you could not make calls with it unless you had a separate device for creating DTMF tones.

Run that past me again. My phone is a late 1950's rotary dial phone thus:

Without the knowing that it cannot work without a separate device to create DTMF tones, it just gets on with the task in hand, namely it works.
What you can't do is that which is available with a touch tone phone. Press:
One for the money,
Two for the show.
Three to get ready.......
But it dials out, and receives calls in. Should I tell it that it's redundant?
By the way, I still have, and use, my first mobile phone. It's a big chunky affair, the model after the brick, about the size of a one pound bar of chocolate. Has a pull out aerial, a sim card the size of a credit card, a black & white screen and the battery is so massive, it's what makes the phone so big. It started out in life as an analogue phone, and would have quietly gone into retirement with the advent of digital, but I met a rather clever geek in a phone shop, who was able to put some piece of electronic wizardry into it. So it's still as good today.

 

[sheeplady]

Certainly service will not be universal if it is left only up to the profit motive. When privatisation was kicked off here, the former state telco, renamed British Telecom, was saddled with a number of restrictions to avoid this. In particular, BT is obligated to provide service anywhere in the UK - the "highlands and islands" service, whereas others can cherry-pick and run only in profitable areas. When I first gave in and got a landline in the flat, BT was the only option.

We have only ever had private telephone in the U.S.; however, before 1984 the Bell system was a legal monopoly. The idea was that they were given the monopoly under the requirements that they provide service to "unprofitable areas" to put it bluntly. There were a number of companies that fell under the Bell umbrella- and many independent companies that provided service as well. So, kind of like your example of privatization- highly highly regulated.

Quite frankly, and this is totally my opinion, the Bell System was the most effective ways to provide service to a vast country that tends to be phobic of governmental-run services. I have only seen a decline in POTS since the breakup of Ma Bell. If we still had the Bell System in place (pre-1984 sty;e) we'd likely have near-universal broadband access if the government had allowed/ regulated Ma Bell to carry everyone. The amount of territory the Bell system was able to cover in a few short decades speaks to how well this arrangement worked. But our government was too short sighted to see the rise of the internet.

(Considering that many places in the mid-west were still frontier nearly a hundred years ago- complete with settlers and homesteaders in the wilderness, think about what Ma Bell did. Now, if you want a telephone line down your street because you don't have one, you need to pay the company to put it in. Because everybody without phone service is a rich person building a new McMansion, obviously.)

 

[sheeplady]

Without the knowing that it cannot work without a separate device to create DTMF tones, it just gets on with the task in hand, namely it works.
What you can't do is that which is available with a touch tone phone. Press:
One for the money,
Two for the show.
Three to get ready.......
But it dials out, and receives calls in. Should I tell it that it's redundant?

I cussed out (not really, but made it well known I was very very unhappy) one of my doctor's offices because their touch tone system *hangs up* on you if you fail to press a number. I was pretty angry for a couple of reasons, but mainly because many people (particularly those who are older and more likely to be frail) don't have touch tone phones. For instance, neither of my husband's grandmothers ever had a touch tone phone in their lives. One grandmother was still renting her phone from Verizon when she died two years ago.

The people in the doctor's office looked at me like I had two heads. Flaming idiots.

Touch tone systems should *always* route you to an operator/receptionist who can direct your call if you fail to make a selection and not just to accommodate rotary phones either.

 

[GHT]

Certainly service will not be universal if it is left only up to the profit motive. When privatisation was kicked off here, the former state telco, renamed British Telecom, was saddled with a number of restrictions to avoid this. In particular, BT is obligated to provide service anywhere in the UK - the "highlands and islands" service, whereas others can cherry-pick and run only in profitable areas. When I first gave in and got a landline in the flat, BT was the only option.

Ironic that the state phone system came under the auspices of the GPO, (General Post Office.) Nowadays BT has become a lumbering dinosaur, ok for big phone users, but households get ripped off left right and centre by them. I have long since ditched their services. and the irony that I spoke of? My landline supplier is none other than The Post Office. And a damn good job they make of it too.

 

[HudsonHawk]

Quite frankly, and this is totally my opinion, the Bell System was the most effective ways to provide service to a vast country that tends to be phobic of governmental-run services. I have only seen a decline in POTS since the breakup of Ma Bell. If we still had the Bell System in place (pre-1984 sty;e) we'd likely have near-universal broadband access if the government had allowed/ regulated Ma Bell to carry everyone. The amount of territory the Bell system was able to cover in a few short decades speaks to how well this arrangement worked. But our government was too short sighted to see the rise of the internet.

Perhaps, but you'd also probably be paying hundreds of dollars per month for it. Ma Bell may have been good at getting service to the masses, but it was "you'll get the phone we give you, use it *where* we put it, use it *when* we let you and pay *what* we tell you."

 

[LizzieMaine]

Quite frankly, and this is totally my opinion, the Bell System was the most effective ways to provide service to a vast country that tends to be phobic of governmental-run services. I have only seen a decline in POTS since the breakup of Ma Bell. If we still had the Bell System in place (pre-1984 sty;e) we'd likely have near-universal broadband access if the government had allowed/ regulated Ma Bell to carry everyone. The amount of territory the Bell system was able to cover in a few short decades speaks to how well this arrangement worked.

Important too to note that Bell Labs was the fountainhead for nearly all the technology that shaped the twentieth century: Ma Bell didn't just make nationwide telephone a reality, she also gave us network broadcasting, electrical recording, talking pictures, stereophonic sound, the semiconductor, the laser, the solar cell, the communications satellite, the foundations for the internet, and much of the technology that put man on the moon -- and all that over the span of a *single human lifetime.* No single human enterprise that has ever existed ever accomplished more in a shorter span of time.

Of course, Ma is in her grave now, and in her place we have companies that have given the world on-demand pornography in every home, Nigerian Prince scams, Google looking over every shoulder, texting-while-driving, dropped calls, "titanium" as another name for "pot metal," "digital audio quality" that sounds like someone talking thru eight layers of wax paper, and Indian call centers. Progress.

 

[GHT]

I cussed out (not really, but made it well known I was very very unhappy) one of my doctor's offices because their touch tone system *hangs up* on you if you fail to press a number. I was pretty angry for a couple of reasons, but mainly because many people (particularly those who are older and more likely to be frail) don't have touch tone phones. For instance, neither of my husband's grandmothers ever had a touch tone phone in their lives. One grandmother was still renting her phone from Verizon when she died two years ago. The people in the doctor's office looked at me like I had two heads. Flaming idiots.

The times that I have come across this scenario. It's assumed that everyone is on the internet, that they have computers, that they have email. Some utility companies in the UK have started charging for quarterly bills if they are paper generated. So you have to have email or you will be surcharged about £4. That was the reason that I left BT, see my reply to Edward. They wrote to me stating that I had always paid my bill in cash. In future, if I wasn't prepared to give them my bank details, as in direct debit, or my credit card details, I would be surcharged £6 per quarter. I left them the day after receiving their letter.
My sympathies are with the elderly, like the grandmothers that you described. They do tend to stick with the devil that they know. And they pay a heavy price for doing so.

 

[HudsonHawk]

Of course, Ma is in her grave now, and in her place we have companies that have given the world on-demand pornography in every home, Nigerian Prince scams, Google looking over every shoulder, texting-while-driving, dropped calls, "titanium" as another name for "pot metal," "digital audio quality" that sounds like someone talking thru eight layers of wax paper, and Indian call centers. Progress.

Don't forget that Ma Bell voluntarily broke herself up precisely so she could pursue all of those scourges to humanity.

 

[jamespowers]

Let us not forget that The Bell System was broken up not by itself or any business interest. It was MANDATED to do as such by a 1974 antitrust lawsuit filed by the U.S. Department of Justice against AT&T. They said AT&T had total control over the communication technology in the US. So, if you think the government does a great job of fixing this kind of thing then let's remember---they screwed it up in the first place. :rofl:

 

[jamespowers]

Don't forget that Ma Bell voluntarily broke herself up precisely so she could pursue all of those scourges to humanity.

She didn't do it voluntarily. As I wrote above, it was the result of a lawsuit brought by the Department of (IN)Justice. AT&T felt that they were going to lose their suit so they proposed the breakup rather than face a total loss in court that would have done far worse to the company. They settled this way in 1982 after 8 years of wrangling with government hacks. lol lol

 

[AtomicEraTom]

On the note of telephones:

My last one I had through US Cellular and it gave up the ghost after a year and a half. I went in to the office and told them I wanted something done about it and they more or less told me "Sucks to be you." After being a customer for 5 years, I went to Sprint and got a new, better phone. I like all the gizmos, but I know it'll die before you know it.

Meanwhile, my Western Electric 302 from 1949 is still working like new.

 

[HudsonHawk]

Let us not forget that The Bell System was broken up not by itself or any business interest. It was MANDATED to do as such by a 1974 antitrust lawsuit filed by the U.S. Department of Justice against AT&T. They said AT&T had total control over the communication technology in the US. So, if you think the government does a great job of fixing this kind of thing then let's remember---they screwed it up in the first place. :rofl:

Actually, the 1974 anti-trust suit only requested that AT&T break up their vertical integration, specifically it asked AT&T to sell off its equipment manufacturing company, Western Electric. It was AT&T itself that proposed instead to break up the telephone operating companies. They did this because they wanted to get into the computer business, which they were prohibited from doing as long as they owned Western Electric. It was AT&T who orchestrated the breakup into the Baby Bells, the government simply went along with AT&T's request.

 

[HudsonHawk]

She didn't do it voluntarily. As I wrote above, it was the result of a lawsuit brought by the Department of (IN)Justice. AT&T felt that they were going to lose their suit so they proposed the breakup rather than face a total loss in court that would have done far worse to the company. They settled this way in 1982 after 8 years of wrangling with government hacks. lol lol

Again, the lawsuit only asked that AT&T sell off Western Electric, not break up their phone service company. AT&T came up with the idea because they wanted to get into the computer business.

 

[jamespowers]

Again, the lawsuit only asked that AT&T sell off Western Electric, not break up their phone service company. AT&T came up with the idea because they wanted to get into the computer business.

But they would have done nothing otherwise and let Bell Labs get into that in normal operation. As it was, they broke up and FAILED.

 

[jamespowers]

Actually, the 1974 anti-trust suit only requested that AT&T break up their vertical integration, specifically it asked AT&T to sell off its equipment manufacturing company, Western Electric. It was AT&T itself that proposed instead to break up the telephone operating companies. They did this because they wanted to get into the computer business, which they were prohibited from doing as long as they owned Western Electric. It was AT&T who orchestrated the breakup into the Baby Bells, the government simply went along with AT&T's request.

The lawsuit instigated the break up because they would have done nothing otherwise. Bell would have done just fine as a whole unit while retaining the ability to pay for its Bell labs instead of losing their advantage to other parts of the world. The place that we got the semi-conductor and laser from died and now it is done overseas---all thanks to that lawsuit---which also ended up costing us all more money for local phone service as well because local service was no longer subsidized by long distance service. :doh: All in all, it was stupid.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

One of the first things I noticed after the breakup was that it seemed as if "long distance" was anything beyond shouting range.

 

[jamespowers]

Meanwhile, my Western Electric 302 from 1949 is still working like new.

That is because it was designed to last forever. You other plastijunk is not.

 

[HudsonHawk]

But they would have done nothing otherwise and let Bell Labs get into that in normal operation. As it was, they broke up and FAILED.

They couldn't get into the computer business as long as they had both the phone service and the equipment manufacturing business. They gambled on the equipment piece and lost. Sort of. Several of the Baby Bells are now back together with AT&T.

 

[jamespowers]

One of the first things I noticed after the breakup was that it seemed as if "long distance" was anything beyond shouting range.

Oh yeah! They went after every cent they could and every consumer was wondering how they managed to get so screwed by breaking up a monopoly. lol lol Yeah that really gave you competition there. :rofl: