
From telecom-request@delta.eecs.nwu.edu  Thu Sep  7 18:57:41 1995
by
1995
18:57:41 -0400
telecomlist-outbound; Thu, 7 Sep 1995 15:19:47 -0500
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TELECOM Digest     Thu, 7 Sep 95 15:19:00 CDT    Volume 15 : Issue 373

Inside This Issue:                           Editor: Patrick A. Townson

    India Recieves $82 Billion in Telecom Service Bids (Rishab Aiyer 
Ghosh)
    Re: T1 Direct to Modem Bank (Les Reeves)
    Re: Area Code Crisis -- A Different Viewpoint (Steve Cogorno)
    Re: Boston Area Telephone Exchange Name History (Scott D. Fybush)
    Re: E-Mail -> Pager Gateway? (Doug Reuben)
    Selling Off Municipal Phone System (Peter S. Goodman)

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----------------------------------------------------------------------



==This Indian Techonomist bulletin (C) Copyright 1995 Rishab Aiyer Ghosh

India receives $82 BILLION in bids for telecom services

August 31, 1995: Bids for basic telecom services across India were
opened today. Sixteen companies submitted the 80 bids for 20 regions
(or "circles"); they were worth a total of $82 BILLION in licence fees
alone. The total bids for likely winners - one private provider is to
compete with the government Department of Telecommunications (DoT) in
each circle - were worth $35.6 billion spread over the next decade.

The surprise star of the show was HFCL, a company with political
connections and a joint venture with Israel's Bezeq, led in all nine
circles for which it bid a total of over $27 billion, between two and
five times the value of the nearest bids in the nine circles.

HFCL bid for the most lucrative areas; Reliance, a large group with
diverse interests and nearly 3 million shareholders, bid very low for
all circles, and got most of the weakest circles, classified "C" by
the government. However, in the desert state of Rajasthan, where
competing Shyam (with China's PTT Guangdong) bid $350 million, 80
times higher than Reliance, the latter may yet win as Shyam is
rumoured to be disqualified on technical grounds.

That makes 15 circles out of 20 divided between two companies.  Denro
Ispat, a steel firm in cooperation with America's Hughes, bagged the
wealthy western states of Karnataka and Maharashtra (which includes
Bombay). BPL, a consumer electronics company, won the southern state
of Tamil Nadu in cooperation with US West.  This will end the
controversy over US West's pilot project in semi-rural Tamil Nadu
involving broadband and wireless services, which was negotiated
directly, bypassing the bidding process.

Big losers included AT&T, who bid along with Birla Communications;
Bell Atlantic who bid with Essar; Bell Canada who bid with the Tatas,
another conglomerate; and Japan's NTT which bid with Itochu and
India's RPG group.

The Indian Techonomist spoke to Dr N Ravi, General Manager of
Reliance's Telecommunications Group. He was pessimistic about any
speedy resolution of the bids. Licences have to be awarded after a
weighted evaluation of the other portion of the bids, including a
development plan and rural infrastructure. However, the skewed bidding
and relative lack of competition will cause problems, as it did with
bids for cellular services, opened three weeks ago. There may be
"caps" - limits on the number of licences for a single company, two in
the case of cellular services. There may be backdoor deals. There may
well be a re-arrangement of Indian and foreign partners, perhaps
forming new "friendships" between till-now competing companies.

Caps would be good for AT&T; they would also be good for HFCL.  For if
it did not seriously misjudge the value of the market, HFCL probably
hoped that the government's caps would, in effect, give it a free
post-bid choice.

At this point it seem that although contracts for cellular services
may be awarded soon - though not by the government target of September
15th - those for basic services will be considerably delayed. Apart
from the complications caused by the bidding itself, there's a court
order against awarding contracts, which will probably be appealed. And
there's the Parliament, which doesn't want to pass a stop-gap
amendment allowing the government to set up a regulator until more
permanent legislation is ready - Opposition parties claim they want to
make the regulator a statutory body right away, although in fact they
just enjoy troubling the government.

Besides, the government has the imminent general elections - due in
the middle of next year - on its mind. And the assasination, a few
hours after the bids were opened, of the Chief Minister of the wealthy
state (and - it was expected - profitable telecom market) of Punjab.

Telecom services will be privatised, after a gap. A most interesting
gap - the fun has just begun.

The complete list of bids for basic services will be available in a
few hours at http://dxm.org/techonomist/news/bids.html See also:
Telecom regulation - http://dxm.org/techonomist/regu.html and Cellular
services - http://dxm.org/techonomist/news/cellular.html

-==(C) Copyright 1995 Rishab Aiyer Ghosh. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 
-==Licensed for ELECTRONIC distribution, including commercial, provided  
-==this notice is attached. This bulletin is from The Indian 
Techonomist, 
-==the newsletter on India's information industry. 
-==http://dxm.org/techonomist/ - e-mail rishab@arbornet.org
-==Phone +91 11 6853410; H-34-C Saket, New Delhi 110017, INDIA.


The Indian Techonomist - newsletter on India's information industry
http://dxm.org/techonomist/                             rishab@dxm.org
Editor and publisher: Rishab Aiyer Ghosh           rishab@arbornet.org
Vox +91 11 6853410; 3760335;     H 34 C Saket, New Delhi 110017, INDIA

------------------------------



Gary Secor (glsecor@ix.netcom.com) wrote:

> I have some switched 800 lines now dumping on a centrex hunt group (16
> lines). I want to look at a T1 that replaces these switched lines
> since it should result in lower cost per minute and some better
> disaster recovery redirection options. What can I connect the T1 to
> that will allow it to connect to 16 modems? I suspect there may be a
> card that goes in a pc that can look like 23 or 24 analog lines. What
> is it called and what might it cost? Who has such an animal? Any other
> suggestions appreciated. I can use existing modem rack or am willing 
to
> look at a new one if it fits the situation. All thoughts appreciated!

If you want to use your existing modems, you will need a channel bank
with 16 2WFXS (two-wire FX station) cards.

Telco Systems makes excellent channel banks.  However, I am somewhat
biased since I sold them for three years <G>.


Les     lreeves@crl.com       Atlanta,GA      404.874.7806

------------------------------



Sergio Gelato said:

> Here in Italy, where variable-length numbers are the norm, the system

As I understand it, they won't be the norm much longer. As the network
converts to digital, aren't the numbers becoming standardized lengths?

> is constructed so that it is always possible in principle to determine
> from the digits dialled so far whether the number is complete or not.
> That is, 2345 67 and 2345 678 cannot both be valid numbers, but you
> can have 2345 67 and 2345 680, 2345 681, etc. In theory, this means
> that timeouts are never absolutely necessary. Of course for long

The main problem with variable length phone numbers is NOT technical
as you have pointed out; it is difficult for humans to use.  It is
very confusing to not know how many digits to expect.  Suppose you
have a form that someone has filled out and there are only six digits.
Does this mean that the number is incomplete, or is it actually
correct?

> I suspect that the cost of reprogramming all that data entry software
> that expects NXX-NXX-XXXX for phone numbers is the real reason the USA
> are trying to stick to 3+7 for as long as possible. As you note, there
> is no intrinsic reason from the point of view of the network itself.

Well there is in that the USERS of the network expect the numbers to
be in the NPA-NXX-XXXX format.  Additionally, why is there are need
for variable length numbers?  With the new NPS system, there are at
least 2.7 BILLION numbers available.

> (Related question: why are the USA still using only nine digits for
> Social Security Numbers, despite all the obvious shortcomings?)

There are one billion possible numbers of SSN.  I believe the numbers
are reused after a file has been closed for a number of years.  For
what it's worth, the first three digits of an SSN determine where the
card was issued (sort of like an area code).


Steve    cogorno@netcom.com

------------------------------



Interesting to note how, with just a few exceptions, all of these
exchanges have survived for 35-plus years now, intact:

> DOWNTOWN - 185 Franklin St. Office **

> CApitol 3       State Capitol Building     Federal Govt. offices only
> CApitol 7       State Capitol Building     CAPitol
> LAfayette 3   Revolutionary War Hero     LAFayette
> MEridian 7   Time-of-day information    MEridian 7-1234 (only)
> RIchmond 2      Richmond Street            RIChmond
> SHerwin 3       Telephone Pioneer          N.E. Telephone Co. offices 
only
> WEather 6   Weather information        WEather 6-1234 (only)

223, 227, 523 and 742 are all still around, all served out of Franklin
Street.  637-1234 and 936-1234 still get the time and weather.  And 
NYNEX offices are still the sole users of 743.

> DOWNTOWN - 8 Harrison Ave. Office **

> DEvonshire 8    Devonshire Street          Only Boston Police (DE 8-
1212)
>                                            and pay phones had this 
prefix
> HAncock 1       Revolutionary War Hero     Only for John Hancock Ins. 
Co.
> HAncock 6   Revolutionary War Hero     HANcock
> HUbbard 2   Telephone Pioneer      HUBbard
> LIberty 2       Patriotic word             LIBerty

421, 426, 482, and 542 are all still around.  So is 338, which is now
in general use.

> DOWNTOWN - BACK BAY **

> CIrcle 7        Name origin unknown     Only pay phones on this 
exchange
> COngress 2      Not a local name        Created in 1950s
> COmmonwealth 6  Commonwealth Ave.       COMmonwealth
> COpley 7        Copley Square           COPley
> KEnmore 6       Kenmore Square          KENmore

262, 266, 267, and 536 are all still around.  So is 247, which served
the Boston Police PBX until just about two years ago, when they moved
to 617-343.  247 is now in general use.

> ARLINGTON

> MIssion 3 / 8   Not a local name        Replaced manual office in 
1950s
> HUnter 3 / 8    Not a local name        {Served customers of ARlington
manual
>                                         {exchange located in W. 
Medford.

643 and 648 are still around.  So are 483 and 488, now known as the
"West Medford" exchange (but still billed identically to Arlington).

> BELMONT

> IVanhoe 4 / 9   Not a local name        Replaced manual office in 
1950s.

484 and 489 are not only still around, but are STILL the only exchanges
in Belmont.

> BRIGHTON / ALLSTON 

> ALgonquin 4     Name origin unknown     ALGonquin
> STadium 2       Harvard Stadium         STAdium

254 and 782 still exist...in fact I have a couple of 254 lines on my
office telephone.  

> BROOKLINE

> BEacon 2        Beacon Street           BEAcon
> ASpinwall 7     Aspinwall Avenue        ASPinwall
> LOngwood 6      Longwood Avenue         LONgwood
> REgent 4        Not a local name        Created in 1950s

232, 277, 566, and 734 are all still around.

> CAMBRIDGE

> ELiot 4         Eliot Street            ELIot
> KIrkland 7      Kirkland Street         KIRkland
> Trowbridge 6    Trowbridge Street       TROwbridge
> UNiversity 4    Harvard University      UNIversity
> UNiversity 8    Harvard University      UNIversity

354, 547, 876, 864, and 868 are all still there, accompanied nowadays
by a slew of 49X exchanges, most belonging to Harvard, and several
MIT exchanges as well.

> CHARLESTOWN

> CHarlestown 2   Name of area served     CHArlestown

242's still there, and it spawned 241 a few years later.

> CHELSEA

> TUrner 4 / 9    Not a local name        Replaced CHelsea 3 manual 
office
1957

Still there as 884 and 889.  There's now an 887 as well, created after
the old 617-887 Boxford became 508-887 in 1988.

> DORCHESTER

> BAyside 9       Dorchester Bay          Created in 1950s
> COlumbia 5      Columbia Road           COLumbia
> AVenue 2 / 8    Dorchester Avenue?      Created in 1948
> GEneva 6        Geneva Avenue           GENeva
> TAlbot 5        Talbot Avenue           TALbot

Here's one that's gone.  229 is now a Burlington exchange, but a fairly
recent one.  Perhaps BAyside 9 became 929?  265, 282, 288, 436, and
825 are still around.

> EAST BOSTON

> Logan 7 / 9     Logan Airport           {Replaced EAstboston 7 manual 
office
>                                         {approx 1957

567 and 569 - still there.  There's 561 and 568 now as well, the latter
added after 617-568 Hudson became 508-568 in 1988.

> HYDE PARK
> ---------
> EMpire 1 / 4    Not a local name       {Replaced HYdepark 3 manual 
office

>                                        {approx 1955
> EDgewater 3     Not a local name       [Served customers formerly in

>                                        [HYdepark 3 located in Milton

361 and 364 are still there (the mayor's home phone is on 364).  333 is
around as well, but now counted as a Milton exchange with 696/698 -
see below under Mattapan/Milton.

> JAMAICA PLAIN

> JAmaica 2 / 4   Name of community       JAMaica

522 and 524 - still around.

> LEXINGTON


_
                                                                   

> VOlunteer 1/3   Patriotic name          Replaced manual office in 
1950s
>  (Minute Man)

861 and 863 are still in Lexington, now with 860 and 862 as well.

> MALDEN

> DAvenport 2 /4  Not a local name        Replaced manual office in 
1950s.

322, 324...still in use, along with 321.

> MEDFORD

> EXport 5 / 6    Not a local name        Replaced manual office in 
1950s.

As 395 and 396, these remain in use today.

> MILTON / MATTAPAN

> BLuehills 8     Blue Hills Reservation  Split in 1959
> CUnningham 6    Cunningham Park         Split in 1959
> CYpress 6       Not a local name        Mattapan customers prev. on 
CU6
> CYpress 8       Not a local name        Mattapan customers prev. on 
BL8
> OXford 6        Not a local name        Milton customers prev. on CU6
> OXford 8        Not a local name        Milton cistomers prev. on BL8

The BL8 and CU6 exchanges both returned much later -- 258 as an MIT
exchange in Cambridge, 286 in Revere.  296/298 still serves Mattapan,
696/698 still serves Milton. 

> NEEDHAM

> HIllcrest 4     Not a local name        Replaced NEedham 3 manual 
office

444.  Still in use, along with 449, 455, and 433 added later.

> NEWTON

> BIgelow 4       Name origin unknown     BIGelow
> DEcatur 2       Name origin unknown     DECatur
> LAsalle 7       LaSalle Junior College  LASalle
> WOodward 9      Not a local name        Created in 1950s

244, 332, 527, and 969 all still exist...along with about a dozen
more recent additions.

> QUINCY

> GRanite 2 / 9   Local granite quarry    GRAnite
> MAyflower 9     Pilgrims' ship          MAYflower
> PResident 3     Quincy is birthplace of Presidents John Adams & 
J.Q.Adams

MA9 - or 629 - no longer exists.  472, 479, and 773 are all still
there, with several more recent editions.  The 629 exchange was
assigned much later to Somerville.  Besides GR9/479, there are no
other XX9 exchanges in Quincy even now.

> REVERE

> ATlantic 4 /9   Revere located on ocean {Replaced REvere 8 manual 
office
>                                         {approx 1957

284 and 289 are still around,  along with 286 (see Milton/Mattapan,
above).

> ROXBURY

> GArrison 7      William Lloyd Garrison  GARrison
>                 (Abolitionist)
> HIghlands 2 /5  Roxbury Highlands       HIGhlands

427, 442, 445 - all still there.  Very little phone growth there - the
only new addition in 35 years was 541 a few years back.

> SOMERVILLE

> MOnument 6      Name origin unknown     Replaced manual office in 
1950's
> PRospect 6      Name origin unknown     Replaced manual office in 
1950's

666 and 776 remain in existence, along with several newer exchanges.

> SOUTH BOSTON

> ANdrew 8 / 9    Andrew Square           {Replaced SOuthboston 8 manual
>                                         {office in early 1950's

268 and 269 are still around, along with newer 463 and 464 exchanges.

> WALTHAM

> TWinbrook 3 /9  Not a local name        Replaced manual office in 
1950's

Waltham has seen explosive phone growth, fueled by DID-heavy users in
office parks along Route 128.  893 and 899 are still around, with 890,
891, and 894 arriving a few years later, and literally dozens of new
exchanges in the last decade.  Many of the new "Waltham" exchanges are
used by Cellular One, which used to have its local headquarters in 
Waltham.  

> WATERTOWN

> WAlker 4 / 6    Not a local name        {Replaced WAtertown 3 manual 
office
>                                         {in 1950's
> Note: WAlker was used as the new prefix even though Watertown began 
with WA 

Hmm ... I'd always just assumed it was WAtertown!  924 and 926 are still
there, plus 923 and 972, the last for town government only.

> WEST ROXBURY

> FAirview 3/5/7  Not a local name        Replaced manual office approx 
1954
> HOmestead 9     Not a local name        {Used for Brookline customers 
served
>                                        (by W. Roxbury central office

323, 325, 327 -- and that's still it.  469 is still in existence too,
but now counted as a "Brookline" exchange.  I believe there's still
a geographic area along the Brookline/W.Roxbury/Newton line where ALL
customers are assigned 469 and only 469.

> WINTHROP
> VIking 6        Not a local name        Replaced manual office in 
1950s

846 - still around and only recently joined by 539.

Great list! -- and fun to see how far back many of today's exchanges
go.  


-=Scott Fybush - fybush@world.std.com - Waltham MA=-

------------------------------



Recently, Eric De Mund <ead@netcom.com> wrote:

> Is there an email -> pager gateway? I'd like to be able to have 
clients
> send email to my MobilComm alpha pager at its 1 (800) number.

To which Pat responded:
 
> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You need to speak with Doug Reuben 
about
> the service he and his associates offer. It has been discussed here in
> the Digest in the past, but not too much recently. Perhaps in 
response,
> Doug will send a general update about his service to us. I can't find 
> him on the mailing list right now or I would include his email address
> here.  PAT]

Well, to answer Eric's question, yes, indeed, we offer exactly the
service you seem to need, and in many cases (as is the case for
existing MobilComm Nationwide customers) at a flat monthly rate. Give
us a call, check out our (messy :) ) WWW site, or send us some e-mail
for details. I'll gladly respond to personal e-mail with specific
questions about the service. See address/contact info, below.

As to not being too active on the Digest lately: This is certainly a
regret of mine - regular readers may recall (somewhat long :) ) posts
from me regarding cellular service around the country which I think I
enjoyed posting more than most people enjoyed reading (and reading,
and reading...:) ). And the volume hasn't dwindled because of a lack
of subject matter nor a lessening of my interest - if anything, there
are so many developments going on right now that I'd need to post a
good deal more than I used to in order to keep up.

For example, Cell One/NY (now "AT&T Wireless"...errr..yeah) has had a
recent switch upgrade which prevents calls to 500 numbers from being
placed with 0-500 anymore. AT&T has also stopped supervising 500
*platform* calls (ie, where you don't talk to anyone and just connect
to the platform) which means I don't pay for the 500 call until I talk
to someone. This makes people much more likely to call my 500 from a
cellphone, since they don't pay if I don't answer my 500#.

AT&T has promised to allow 1-500 dialing from carphones (did they
REALLY think this through? Or will they only allow 1-500 from a class
of "non-International" 500? Or can they do special non-fixed-rate
billing through cellcos?...Doubt it..). However, this misses the
point: Allow NON-superivising 0+ access for ALL calls, 500, 700, and
calling card. No one wants to pay to reach a busy or non-answering
number (except on LA's A and B systems, where they don't have a choice
:( ), and AT&T puts its 500, 700, and Calling Card services at a
disadvantage by continuing to supervise them at the AT&T "chime",
instead of when the destination party is reached. Sprint, MCI, et. al.
already do this, as do most of the "800" access calling cards, so why
pay more to use AT&T, when you may not even connect to your party?

Anyhow, as to what Interpage (TM) is doing, well, briefly, since we
started a little over a year ago, we've gone "International" by
sending e-mail, news, and other information to SMS and GSM phones in
Europe (Vodaphone, Orange, SONOFON), as well as traditional alpha and
numeric paging to BT, London Paging, Hutch (UK and Hong Kong), Cantel,
and just about anyone else who asks. :) Although we have pretty low
rates (25 cents per page to the UK), we would like to lower this even
further. I realize we can never get "flat rate" (unlimited) paging
like we do for some US carriers, but if there is any long distance
carrier/reseller out there who can offer us less than 30-second
minimums and/or "lower than the rest of the Wiltel reseller's" rates,
I'd be happy to hear from you. (Please fax an International rate quote
to our fax #, below. No voice calls please... E-Mail is OK, but
include prices - we know more or less what is out there - if you think
you are better, please have something to show for it. I'm not trying
to be difficult, but we don't need a lot of resellers calling us with
rates that are commonplace...) I'd also be glad to hear from carriers
with less than 12 cent daytime rates for direct dial (no T-1, yet!).

We have also started to provide our news and information services to a
number of paging carriers, so if you see the news/sports/weather-cast
on your pager saying "Interpage" or "InfoNews", well, that's us! :)
Some carriers and other firms use us to disseminate their own news via
a news "editor" on our system which they use to input their own
information to their customers/employees on a regular or "as needed"
basis.

If you *do* receive "Interpage" or "InfoNews" stories, please let us
know what you think, and of course, tell us how we can improve and/or
augment these services. Are there any additional services would you
like to see?  For example, is there any interest in aviation weather
forecasts on a pager?  Horoscopes? We tried a few of these, but found
little interest...  We are also the only paging service provider (I
think) to put weather and stock information on any *numeric only*
pager, so you do not need to get a more expensive alpha pager in order
to receive this information. We have not, however, figured out how to
get news stories on a numeric yet...:)

In June, we started to offer our Enhanced Pager Overlay Services
(EPOS).  Working with Arch and SDC, we can provide e-mail, weather,
re-programmable 800 access, voicemail, "Meet Me", faxmail, and most
recently, fax broadcast to literally hundreds of recipients via a
single 800 number which you can access from anywhere in the US and
most areas of Canada.  This package builds upon our initial notion of
allowing ANY alpha or numeric pager to receive e-mail and other
services, but goes beyond this by providing one single number for
people to contact you at for e-mail, voice, voicemail, fax and fax
broadcast services. (Our Web site has a detailed explanation of this
if you want more details on how EPOS works, etc.)

We have also made some substantial additions to our fax services.
Besides our InFax (SM) (automatic INcoming e-mail -> fax [and pager])
and OutFax (SM) (you send text e-mail or postcript level 1 or 2 to one
or more faxes), we have recently started to offer our FaxUp (SM)
service, which allows people to send a fax to us, and we will
automatically convert it into a graphics file and send it along as
e-mail to you. FaxUp can also be used to re-distribute and broadcast
faxes: You send us a fax, and we re-transmit it to a list of fax
and/or e-mail addresses which you may upload to the system, or
configue/modify via telnet access to your personal account.

InterTalk (SM), our e-mail voice response server has also been
improved since my last post to the Digest - well, we didn't *have*
InterTalk at the time of my last posting so I guess anything is an
"improvement". InterTalk allows you to retrieve and hear e-mail
subject headers from any touch tone phone. Thus, to check to see if
you received any new e-mail messages, you would call into InterTalk,
enter your account and password, and then have the option to go
through the headers of all your most recent mail. We also recently
added the ability to call into InterTalk and add or delete weather
forecasts as you travel. If you travel from city to city a good deal,
you can add a weather forecast for the city you happen to be in (or
any city for that matter) and tell our system at what time you want to
be paged. Subsequently, you will be paged with that city's forecast at
your requested time. It makes a good "wake up" service which also
gives you the day's weather, assuming you don't normally receive pages
in the middle of the night! :)

And finally, we consolidated a number of our services for WWW
customers under the "WebReach" (SM) banner. Interpage's WebReach
services allow WWW page owners on any system (not just ours) to be
faxed when a customer browsing their web page sends and order or
requests more information.  This allows individuals and firms to have
a WWW/Internet presence, without having to log on continuously to
ensure timely response to potential customers.

We can also store documents and informational sheets on our system
which will be faxed to customers "on demand". If you have a pager, we
can also create a "callback" service, eg., a customer clicks on a hot
button on your page which will alert you on your pager that you have a
potential customer who would like an immediate callback at the number
provided.

Additionally, direct mapping of WWW pages without the need for
complicated URL's is something new which we recently implemented.
Thus, if you have registered the domain "hello.com" and have your Web
page on our system, you can give out your URL as "www.hello.com",
instead of the actual URL which would look like
"www.interpage.net/misc/others/hello.html".

Anyhow, now that I've bored everyone with all of our newest and
greatest services and features, I'll suggest that you may want to
check out our WWW server (http://www.interpage.net) for more
information. We'd also be happy to fax some literature and brochures
to anyone who asks.

So now do you see what I mean by LONG posts? :)

Before I close, I would however like to thank all the people who have
helped us along in the past, especially those Digest participants who
encouraged us during our beta-test stage last year and enabled us to
grow quite rapidly. Your comments, constructive criticsms, and of
course your patronage have all been greatly appreciated!

My next post will be much more telecom-related, and soon... I promise! 
:)


Doug Reuben / Interpage(TM) Network Services Inc.

dreuben@interpage.net
+1 (203) 499 - 5221
   (800) 624 - 6964 (EPOS)
FAX(718) 793 - 6081

------------------------------



Quick question:

I'm a reporter with the {Anchorage Daily News} in Alaska. Our city
government is proposing to sell our phone company, Anchorage Telephone
Utility, which I gather is the largest municipally owned phone company
in the country. I'm trying to find examples of other cities selling
similarly sized phone companies. (ATU is about 145,000 access lines.)
I want to see what happened in other places, vis. rates, layoffs, etc.
Where can I find other examples? Any help gratefully received.

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End of TELECOM Digest V15 #373
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