94 lines
4.6 KiB
Plaintext
94 lines
4.6 KiB
Plaintext
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
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CHiNA Info-File : The 'Inward' Operators
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^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
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Well folks here is another file in the educational series of our releases.
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Look for more files from The Egghead Dude, Mr. X and The Viper in the next
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couple of weeks.
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The Telephone concept of Inward is one of the things that modernization of the
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network has essentially ended.
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Back in the days when lots of calls were operator handled, the Inward operator
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was the operator who answered jacks labelled "Inward" on her position. In
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some towns, this might be the same operator as the "Coin Collect" operator,
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who would answer jacks labelled "Coin Collect" or as any other operator.
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In larger towns, there would be switchboards explicitly allocated to these
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specialized services. In smaller towns, these services would appear on some
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or all of the positions occupied by other operators. The "numbers" route for
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non-dialable ring-downs would also have its own set of jacks.
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But now that modernization has arrived, and operators sit at computer consoles
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rather than cord boards and are located hundreds of miles from the areas they
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serve, the whole concept has essentially gone away.
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For example, New England Telephone serves Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont,
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New Hampshire, and Maine with operators connected to switching systems in
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Springfield MA, Cambridge MA, Framingham MA, Hanover MA, Lawrence MA, and
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Manchester NH. Most operators are not near these switching systems. They are
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in Fall River MA, Brockton MA, Quincy MA, Keene MA, Newburyport MA, Springfield
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MA, Marlboro MA, E. Providence RI, Portland ME, Dover NH, Keene NH, and
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Brattleboro VT.
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The long distance carriers are also drastically reducing the ubiquity of
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operators. In testimony before the Mass DPU, a competitor of AT&T claimed that
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AT&T planned to concentrate its operators in five nationwide operating centers.
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The operators don't really have any special sort of connection to the central
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offices except when they are performing coin collect functions or busy number
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verification. Some reasons a call might go through when placed through an
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operator when it didn't work when dialled are:
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1. You dialled via one carrier and then used an operator from a
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different carrier.
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2. Your local central office has a problem translating the area
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code or area code and first three digits.
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3. Your local operating company has a translation problem in its
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access tandem.
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4. The long distance carrier has a translation problem in the
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toll switching machine serving your central office, but when
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you're connected to an operator, you end up using a different
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toll switching machine for the call.
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Basically, the only reason the operator gets through when you don't is that
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the call may be placed through different switching systems along the way.
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Inward almost doesn't exist any more. Except when calling an area served by
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one of a very few independent telcos with their own operators, AT&T operators
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who call Inward are going to reach another AT&T operator. In no case will an
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AT&T operator calling Inward reach a local Baby Bell operator. Only in the
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case of the completing calls to non-diallable points (and there are thousands
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of them left, especially in California), will an AT&T operator end up on a
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Baby Bell toll board, but this isn't Inward. The Inward route (rather than
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the proper "numbers" route) for such places would end up on an AT&T board which
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would have to call the "numbers" route.
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This means that if I make a call from Boston via the AT&T operator for help in
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calling Montpelier VT, and the operator tries Inward, this means the AT&T (not
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New England Telephone) operator for Montpelier, who might be sitting at the
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operator position right next to her!
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It also means that if I want to call a pay phone in Montpelier collect, AT&T
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can't do it anymore, because they can't reach a telco operator. AT&T will call
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the pay phone and say that someone's trying to call collect and ask the party
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to call back 1+.
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Written by: Egghead Dude Edited by: Maxwell Smart
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A moment of silence for the dead : Mickey Leland, Bart Giamatti and of
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course the good old boys in 301.
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Hellos to : Commander Sozo, Master Ryu, The Oxidixer, Jolly Green Giant,
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Celtic Phrost and The Genetic Terrorist.
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Also to : Lord Blix, The Viper, Software Surgeon, The Guch, The Knack and
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all the rest of those 'nifty' guys of the FiRM
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