Analog December 1988 [antikvár]

PROGRESS!Stanley SchmidtBack around the beginning of this year I mentioned the breakup of The Telephone Company into lots of little telephone companies, as a possible example of a case where a well-run monopoly might actually be preferable to an open market with lots of competitors. I cited the special circumstances attached to a system whose very reason for being was to unify a bunch of customers scattered all over the map, and had the audacity to suggest that it was not clear to me that the overall phone service I was getting now was better than what 1 was getting then. For this heresy I was duly raked over the coals by a number of readers who assured me that everything was ot>\'iously much better now. Incorrigible rascal than I am, 1 remained skeptical. I had to grant (as in fact 1 had done explicitly in the original editorial) that long distance rates had gone down, but I don't recall thatanyone ever called my attention to any other clear advantage of the new regimeor directly addressed my assertion that "price isn't everything."Well, 1 have seen the light. Those readers who were so disappointed with my earlier obtuseness may now welcome me into the fold. It has been brought to my attention that there's a whole aspect of this business of how to run a large, complicated network that I hadn't even given much thought to. My thoughts were directed to it eadier this week by a loud, steady but slightly buzzy hum that developed in my home phone and stuck around to accompany all subsequent conversations, dial tones, and whatnot.The phone remained usable, but the hum was always annoying and sometimes made hearing very difficult. So I decided something had to be done. In the Bad Old Days, this would have been an absurdly simple matter of calling TheAnalog Science Fiction!Science Fact