5963 computer grade dual triode production dates 3510

Davidson)

The TELSAM scores told the tale...the "indies" sucked. Some of the worst came from various GTE properties, with United a close second. Even some of the few "mom 'n pop" telcos out there scored better.

When I went to the Satellite Transmission Systems-Varian factory in Melbourne, FL to check on an order of IBS modems, there, in the back, was an old, beat to crap Alascom "mobile unit" that they'd somehow shoehorned into an old GMC motorhome...you know, the fiberglas ones from the '70s? It was actually worse than some of the engineering boondoggles I'd seen out of New Jersey...but not by much!

All wrong. Bob Allen was "replaced" because Leslie Stahl on CBS outed him on "60 Minutes" for being indifferent about the company's (and the employees') situation at the time. Prior to the "60 Minutes" surprise, Wall St. loved Allen, because every time T's common stock would take a dip, he'd lay off more people, and thus buoy the stock. When Allen got thrown out, there weren't enough "indians" to do the work in the field, while management was as fat as ever. Armstrong did one good thing, in that the next round of downsizing was mostly lower and middle management, who'd been building empires and licking Allen and his underlings' boots for years. When Allen left, there were 1.15 managers for every working employee. Chew on that for a moment.

Technology wasn't the problem...it was failed upper management, period. AT&T had all the resources, and, instead of capitalizing on that, they put the guy in there as CEO that 1.) approved the AT&T PC 6300 and 7300 disaster, 2.) wrecked Western Electric in the '70s, 3.) headed up the horrific American Bell disaster, 4.) decided to try to cover his PC and biz technology goofs by buying another loser, NCR, for $13.8 BILLION (later selling it quietly for dimes on the dollar), and 5.) decided too late in the game that by pleasing Wall St analysts, he could save the company by keeping its common stock price artificially high.

Not true. During Allen's "reign of stupidity," district and above level managers kept complaining about having to make decisions they felt were "too small" to be their concern, and so, decision making was driven to the absolute lowest tier, sometimes to the techs themselves, with no clue as to strategy, funding, logistics...nothing. What emerged was even more "empire building" as first levels and even techs, left to their won devices, would try to carve out a layoff-proof niche in the crumbling AT&T structure.

Ask Pac Bell (later SBC) about NorTel switches. PB bought a pooload of them right after Divesbreasture and wound up wrecking them out in as little as three or four years due to reliability and support problems, opting to go with the 5E almost exclusively.

The DMS-200 could do end office functions. The 4E was a huge toll switch, period. Next? The 5E could do both (well, not being a HUGE toll switch, but a medium toll switch), and more, although it, too, had design problems which took some years to fix.

I have...it'll last 50-100 years. DMS-200s were good for...five? Ten at the outside?

Why were 5Es outselling DMS-100s almost 5 to 1 after it became common knowledge that NorTel couldn't support their own product? If it weren't for the 5E, Lucent would be gone already. It was their only profitable and in-demand big product line for a long, long time. No one buys 4Es anymore, either...the ones in service just get added on to and keep on going.