To be moderately fair to them the huge numbers of employees they used
to have are no longer needed to maintain even higher quality of service
than we saw in the days of the Strowger relays. The telephone systems
used to require HUGE buildings with rack upon rack upon rack, often
20' or higher of those relays to provide service to one small local
exchange. And in another large annex they had a huge number of
"operator" consoles for the "operators" you got when you dialed "O".
The advent of 411 did not change the required number of "operators";
but, it did allow the companies to hire lower levels of talent and
cluster the "411" people in just a few locations. (Which proves the
point that it's basically a constant cost to actually make the call
to anywhere once you are on the network even though the state PUCs
allow LECs to charge absurd intrastate rates.)
With the advent of the charge for using 411 the usage went way down
allowing them to economise by dropping most of their 411 people. The
"O" process got inconvenient enough that they were able to drop the
number of "O" people.
Then they replaced the Strowgers with ESS boxes. And each new round
of the ESS boxes is getting ever smaller. (Connectors and wire make
up most of the serious bulk these days.) It got down to the point that
the increased reliability coupled with the simplified operation replaced
virtually all the night staff, when no changes are being made, down to
one person as early as the early 90s. (I nattered with the guy fairly
frequently. I lived across the street and 1/4 of a wire mile away from
my local exchange when I was in Hermosa Beach, Ca.) And now with the
"O" staff mostly automated away, the "411" staff cut to a very small
number, that poor guy is basically alone all night. Sometimes there
are two on duty. But usually it's one tech getitng bored all night.
(Well, he DOES have routine line quality tests and the like that he
should be running. If you've noticed some models of modern phones
"chirp" at you in the night that's the line check taking place all
automatically. The operator can institute special checks if a problem
is found, though.) I also note that the specific exchange building
now seems to service about 10 times the number of telephones the
whole building could handle in the Strowger days. And most of the
building is utterly ghostly vacant.
Annecdotally, living where I did then and keeping the vampire hours
I so enjoy I managed to watch GTE install some new racks of equipment
in the late 80s. I asked what it was. "ISDN" was the reply. I spent
the next 5 years trying to get GTE to give me a rate for an ISDN
telephone connection. The equipment was there. But it may well have
never been used.
So liberal whining about replaced employees just doesn't fly with me.
The service (there) got better rather than worse with the improvements
and reduction in employee count.
It was well subsequent to that change over that things started to go
to deferred maintenance hell. And THAT is mostly on the lines between
the local exchange and the home or the in home wiring, in my experience.
{^_^} Joanne said that.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Cor" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Ya.. I feel the same way you do. The big issue is that verizon is a states
> (USA) company. There is nothing wrong with that normally, except that
> right now alot of people there think that its brilliant to outsource all
> of the *meanial* programming, tech support, computer, IT, etc. work
> overseas. This includes verizon. Verizon once had huge building filled
> with offices, filled with people. They are now just a few person operation
> in the states.. litterally. There is no way for them to properly run a
> business. All I hear from the people that have Verizon is they are a)
> stuck with them for now and b) how bad their tech support is and how they
> cannot understand them.
>
> Good luck.
>
> -Cor
