Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!texbell!vector!telecom-gateway
From: fmsystm!macy@hal.uucp
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: re: Prefix '520' For Los Angeles Radio Stations
Message-ID: 
Date: 22 Sep 89 10:51:50 GMT
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Reply-To: macy@fmsystm.UUCP (Macy Hallock)
Organization: F M Systems  Medina, Ohio USA
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Approved: telecom-request@vector.dallas.tx.us
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X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 403, message 2 of 3

In article  Mike Morris  writes:
>X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 391, message 3 of 9

>klb@lzaz.att.com (K.BLATTER) writes:

>>Also, most people are familiar with this service as radio stations
>>often use this service -- especially stations that have large broadcast
>>areas.  I remember growing up and when the radio station would have
>>a contest, they would list six or seven numbers that listeners could
>>call into to win.  While each of these numbers was from a different
>>geographical area, they all terminated at the radio station.

>LA has most of it's FM station on a 5,000' mountain so both the AM and
>the FM has excellent coverage - LA county has 2 complete area codes
>(818 and 213) and pieces of 2 more (714, 805).  Many of the radio
>station also cover portions of San Bernadino and Riverside counties
>(area code 619). A while back (pre the 213-818 split) I noticed
>that more and more stations were giving out 213-520 numbers for dial-in.
>After the split, I noticed that they were giving out the same number
>as "dial 213-520-xxxx or 818-520-xxxx".

Ah, but there are other reasons!

Yes, folks, it's another of Macy's True Stories of Telephony (TM)

We often had problems with radio/TV stations running contests and
giveaways in my phone co. days...a real traffic engineering nightmare.
Seems the heavy peak demand caused by everyone going off hook and
dialing one exchange at once would bring the local tandems to their
knees.  There was even a ESS in one city I know of that would give up,
shut down and re-IPL on an 85% (or therabouts) load.

In the days before widespread ESS and CICS this could be a real
problem.  The solution devised back in the late 60's was to set up a
special exchange in one switch, usually the downtown one, since it was
a major tandem and most of the stations had their studios downtown.
The outlying CO's (Central Office) would be set up with only a couple
trunks available to the downtown tandem for this special dedicated
exchange.  The outlying CO's would then, if possible, be modified to
give a regular 60 ipm busy for all trunks busy on this trunk group, as
opposed to a standard 120 ipm (fast busy) or ATB recording.  (This was
a real hack job in some types of offices)

The idea was to prevent the heavy peak from overloading the tandems
and offices without sounding odd to the customers.  By creating a
bottleneck by limiting trunkage, the downtown tandem switch did not
get buried (it was also modified to act the same way on calls
originating within the downtown switch).

The tariffs filed by telcos in most states allow numbers to be
reassigned to customers at the telco's discretion.  The telco went to
all the stations and forced a number change and dedicated
contest/request lines to be used by the stations.  Stations not in the
downtown exchanges were offered FX services.

In some areas, these exchanges were consolidated accross area codes,
such as L.A.  In many areas special tarriffs were put into place to
offer this high traffic response service at a special premium rate,
because a large calling area was being delivered at local rates.  This
was done because 800 service could not be configured to deal with this
problem at the time.

With the new ESS machines in use, similar, but improved schemes are
currently in use.  This is complicated by the various types of older
CO switches out there and uncooperative independant (non-Bell) telcos,
often becouse they are not offered CICS channels by the Bell co. or
their switch is too dumb.

A recent problem occurred in Akron, Ohio not too long ago that
justifies this design philosphy...

Seems an older local station (WQMX 94.9) got bought, changed its
format from elevator music to contempary rock and needed to build its
listeners.  Good old American marketing enters the picture...and the
station widely advertises they are going to give away $10,000 to the
100th caller at 7:30 one designated morning.  The number they
advertise is a regular POTS number (with three line rotary hunt
group).

Now their broadcast coverage area includes Akron-Cleveland-Canton
Ohio.  Cleveland or Canton to Akron is an inter-LATA toll call.

The effect of this promotion is:
 1. Akron's University ESS switch (216-836,864,867,869,860) is
    brought to its knees. This is the switch that serves WQMX.
    It is completely no-tone for almost 20 minutes.
 2. Several local tandems are thoroghly messed up.  Akron's
    downtown Blackstone exchange ESS is overloaded for the
    first time in its history.  Operation is erratic, at best.
    Many of the inter-LATA carriers use Blackstone as their
    closest Point of Presence to University  central office.
    Blackstone's many Centrex customers are affected as well.
3.  ATT, Sprint, MCI and others are overwhelmed by Cleveland to
    Akron calling.  Also a record.
4.  Somebody wins the money, eventually.
5.  Nearly thirty minutes pass before the network recovers.

Ohio Bell never knew what hit them.  Statements in the newspaper to
that effect the next day showed WQMX did not communicate its
intentions to Ohio Bell and did not subscribe the tarriffed services
for this use.  WQMX widely advertised the promotion and it was noticed
by some Ohio Bell personnel, but they did not think much of it at the
time, and no prior arrangements were made.

Needless to say, such facilites have been put into place recently.
WQMX has been trying other stunts to attract listeners, but not this
one again.  And the public has its reassuring dial tone again.

WQMX's latest stunt was a girl with a cellular phone standing in front
of a billboard saying: I NEED A JOB! CALL ME: XXX-XXXX over a busy
Akron freeway during morning rush hour.  The idea was to get the girl,
really a new morning jock just hired by the station, on other
stations' live morning programs and then plug WQMX.  This one gave the
cellular co. some extra traffic, but did no harm, other than upset a
couple of the other radio stations in the area.  So much for telecom
as a promotion tool... telemarketing anyone?

FACT: Most central offices are engineered for around 10% maximum
usage.  That's right. 10% of you all, businesses and residences, get
on the phone at once, in one CO, and look out.  (This number varies
with the type of switch and its engineering, but its a good, round
number) This will also be declaimed by many Telcos, but thats the way
it is.

Well, I'll be back with more True Stories of Telephony another day...
Regards to all,

       Macy Hallock               fmsystm!macy@NCoast.ORG
       F M Systems, Inc.          hal!ncoast!fmsystm!macy
       150 Highland Dr.           uunet!hal.cwru.edu!ncoast!fmsystm!macy
       Medina, OH 44256           Voice: 216-723-3000 X251
       Disclaimer:                My advice is worth what you paid for it.
       Alt.disclaimer:            Your milage may vary.
       Biz.disclaimer:            My opinions are my own. What do I know?