At 07:32 AM 8/29/97 -0700, Tracy wrote (in a pricvate communication):
>There are also many business buildings today with direct digital feed.
>Which in turn, use their internal switch to an employee with a digital
>phone.  Ergo the last leg may not be analog anymore.

Yes, I couldn't agree more.  As a matter of fact, since I have an ISDN
line, this message goes digital all or most of the way (depending on the
final leg of the journey).

My point is that there are still SOME noisy analog circuits around,
virtually always the first or last leg, and this is usually going to be the
source of bad connections, not the long distance service.  It's a question
of where the money is invested.  The phone companies are very happy to
update the long-distance service because they are used by everyone, they
are not labor-intensive and the companies can get good returns on their
investment.  They're reluctant to upgrade the local circuits, because it's
relatively expensive and the return is much lower.  Urban and industrial
areas are much better off in this regard than rural and residential
districts.  I live in downtown San Jose, "the capital of Silicon Valley"
and had no problem getting ISDN service (with free installation and a very
reasonable monthly cost).  I doubt very much whether I'd get ISDN service
in Winnemucca or any similarly out-of-the-way place.

MCI was started because long-distance looked like a good investment
opportunity.  There is now a movement for outfits like MCI  to get into
local telephone service.  Personally, I think this is a terrible idea,
because none of these companies is going to invest in improving the local
plant.  They will be renting the copper from the existing baby Bells, and
then no-one will have ANY interest in upgrading the local circuits.  Even
if these companies wanted to, there is a major problem because there isn't
much room left on the utility poles.  This is exacerbated when a second
cable TV company wants to compete as well!

My original e-mail was an attempt to point the questioner at the places
that I thought were the most likely to be involved, based on my experience.
 I was an analog engineer for many years, so I do have quite a store of
knowledge on this subject.  Back in 1962, I worked on the Telstar project
(I helped build and install the low-noise receiver for the British
terminal), which was my introduction to transoceanic communications, and
I've made a specialty in recent years of telecommunications.  I certainly
don't know all the answers (nobody does), but after 30 or 40 years I have a
fair store of general knowledge about telecommunications in general.  I
also know how diabolically difficult telecommunication problems can be
because of the problems of noise and unreliability that generally never
occur with digital equipment.

John D. Alleyn-Day
Alleyn-Day International
408-286-6421   408-286-6474 (Fax)
[log in to unmask]       http://www.Alleyn-Day.com
"You have to be in the right place at the right time
but unfortunately I was absent the day they
explained how that's done" - Herb Caen.