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Technology Stocks : LAST MILE TECHNOLOGIES - Let's Discuss Them Here -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Hal Barnett who wrote (1672)	7/25/1998 2:51:00 PM
From: Frank A. Coluccio	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 12823

Hal, <OFF TOPIC, Kinda...> >>To put the current "Last Mile Technologies" discussion into a historical context consider my grandfather's first job as a "runner" for Illinois Bell in the 1890s.His job was to answer the phone when it rang and then run to the office of the person being called and bring him back to the proper telephone set in the basement.<< You have the makings of an entirely independent thread there! Discussion on telecommunications memorabilia and trivia has always been one of my softer zones. My first job with the Bell System demanded my mastery of International Morse Code for communicating with ships at sea. I had entered that dubious talent as an 'extra' on my employment application form, since I was a Ham Operator, long before VoIP, or even SI. <grin> I didn't know any runners of the specific caliber of your grandfather at the time, although I did have a supervisor whose job it was to act as middle man between Western Union wire line services and the manual switchboards for Long Lines Customers, during the Twenties. He eventually was charged with tending to the vagueries of mapping input-output connections at the cable entry points (the main distribution frame) of these switchboards, as time went on, and was promoted throughout his career until... When he retired he had 51 years of service under his belt, starting out as a teen-aged messenger (runner, I suppose), and ending his career in the NY International Transmission Maintenance Center, overseeing high frequency radiotelephone and emerging satellite operations to points on the globe that still did not have submarine cable or satellite gateways. I remember the day that he retired, and they gave him his watch in front of a 1927 C-2 RadioTelephone Terminal test board (18-B board) in the NY#2 office. To add another touch of interest to this story, Bob Annunziata of Teleport Communications Group was one of my immediate supervisors at the time. And BTW, the 18-B board I referenced was also being retired at the time with IDDD coming into play, and with the commissioning of TAT 5 to Spain, and the Intelsat IV Flight VI out of Etam, West Virginia. Thank You Very Much for that almost unfathomable touch, in this day and age, of 'last mile' history! And so it goes. Best Regards, Frank C.