Metroliner telephone article 4063

John Mara

That's really an inaccurate generalization.

Three big organizations of that era--the Bell System, IBM, and the railroads all operated under various forms of govt supervision and mandates. The railroads and Bell were under strict Federal and state regulation. IBM and Bell were under strict consent decrees, making Bell doubly regulated. IBM and Bell were also being sued again by the govt; it should be noted that IBM won its lawsuit.

All of three of those organizations had a very expensive base of physical plant. This plant, especially in those days, could not simply be picked up, modified, and moved somewhere on the drop of a pin. The plant was built to very heavy standards intended to last for a long time. The technology we have now and take for granted simply didn't exist at the time.

That was a separate issue from divesture. That policy was on its way out. It must be remembered that in that policy the Bell System was responsible end-to-end and generally took that responsibility very seriously. (There were of course exceptions, but then EVERY organization has service problems at some point.) It was likewise when IBM bundled its service with its hardware.

In the old days, the phone company installed and was responsible for inside wiring. We didn't have this finger pointing nonsense at the demarc box or the nonsense cable TV companies pull.

For example, today: My cable company installed the wiring for me. It did a lousy job yet charged me for what was supposed to be "free installation". It wanted to charge me again to fix it. Now they want to charge me to fix obviously their problem (my neighbors and I have the exact same symptons.)

That actually is from local, state, and federal regulations. It also hasn't changed 20 years after divesture--old policies remain the same. Some regulators-politicians felt flat rate pricing was better, others felt usage sensitive pricing was better, and that debate continues. In railroading, some argue a transit system should be a single flat fare (as is New York City), others argue for fares on distance (as is Washington and Boston).

As a consumer, I don't like it when a third party intervenes and tells me I can't have bundled pricing that would save me money. That happened with IBM forced to go a la carte, the Bell System divesture, and now with new trends in broadband service.

Again, tariffs are the creation of regulatory agencies, not the companies. Many practices of IBM and the railroads were as frustrating but they were mandated too per above.

The real lesson here is that if we as the public are disatisfied with a public service, we must first learn accurately the REAL reasons for the way things are. Otherwise, we will not solve the problem, indeed make it worse.

No, we consumers got screwed. The newcomers take the cream business and serve selected areas and can't even provide decent service (like VOIP being unable to reach 911 because they were too cheap to develop the proper technical interface and customer database the traditional companies spent a lot of money doing.)

Today's technology make mobile phone service easy. But it didn't just happen out of thin air. It took the old Bell System's resources the ability to invest in a trial service on the Metroliner of cellular service and learn from it to develop AMPS. (Note the FCC held up subsequent testing for two years.)

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