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From: bovine!john@apple.com (John Higdon)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Touring the Central Office
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Date: 15 Aug 89 01:08:20 GMT
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In article , kitty!larry
@uunet.uu.net (Larry Lippman) writes:
> 	It is becoming extremely difficult for even an organized group
> to tour a central office in any BOC area.  BOC's are particularly paranoid
> (perhaps rightfully so) about outside people being in any central office.

Things must have been different in years gone by. Twice (in the early
60's) there was a little bill insert inviting the subscriber to an
"open house". There were two dates given and when you showed up, you
got a tour of your (my) central office. This was the ANdrews (San Jose)
office that served my telephones. Around that same era, a friend of
mine got a similar invitation in his bill to tour the AXminster (Santa
Clara) office.

About fourteen years ago Pac*Bell invited radio engineering types to visit
the downtown San Jose office. We saw the crossbar, the ESS, the AT&T
tandem (it was all AT&T then), and even the employee lunch room! About
three years ago, radio engineering types were invited to tour the
Bush/Pine office in San Francisco where we saw the ESS, the video
switching center in the Grant St. building, and a Telephone Pioneers
exhibit.

> There is virtually zero chance of any individual being afforded a tour of
> a central office, unless it is, ahem, an "unauthorized" tour courtesy of a
> friend (who may do so with considerable risk to their job).

Oh, I was reminded of that in no uncertain terms (I was palmed off as
someone from the Fresno area that worked for Pacific Telephone!) But
organized tours have been most plentiful. Pac*Bell is very image
conscious and they may feel that this is one way of enhancing that.
--
        John Higdon         |   P. O. Box 7648   |   +1 408 723 1395
      john@zygot.uucp       | San Jose, CA 95150 |       M o o !