4 ms·

Look at the state of our communications infrastructure today. These "modern" coax networks have no redundancy and so so reliability (eg: Comcast's Node+0 nodes

by posguy 6y ago

Look at the state of our communications infrastructure today. These "modern" coax networks have no redundancy and so so reliability (eg: Comcast's Node+0 nodes occasionally have their IP stack fall over, requiring a reboot). The remaining baby bells are baby bankrupt after years of pillaging their territory to pay for acquisitions and investor dividends (see recent Frontier bankruptcy and fire sale of Pacific NW territory to Ziply Fiber) and the infrastructure they do have is almost entirely running atop legacy hardware designed in the 1980s.

jcrawfordor 6y ago
The coax networks that GP refers to have nothing to do with cable television (except that television syndication links were carried over them). GP is referring to the AT&T L-series carriers which carried telephone calls (and later digital voice link equivalents) over multiple bundled coaxial pairs. The L-carrier infrastructure was built to remarkable standards of durability and reliability, in part because much of the system (particularly L-3I and L-4) were built as part of federal C3I contracts and were hardened against limited nuclear strikes, but also because of AT&T/WECo's general culture of obsession with reliability. Station equipment would be entirely duplicated for redundancy, nearly all equipment stations were manned to allow for quick repair (and 'maintenance patrols' inspected remote en-route repeaters as often as daily), and the system was designed for network-level redundancy through rerouting and the preparation of 'alternate control points' to allow continued operation even in the case of complete isolation of parts of the network. The L-carrier system fell out of use when it was replaced by fiber-optic technology (which AT&T initially referred to as "lightguide", perhaps due to it coming hot on the tails of their work on waveguide carriers such as WT4 which were essentially microwave radio through a metal duct). Of course, this raises the question of why this infrastructure is so much more reliable than cable television seems to be. I would suggest three explanations. First, AT&T, Bell Labs, WECo, and the rest of the Ma Bell crowd held reliability as an extremely high value, at both a cultural and requirements level. This is exemplified by now legendary Bell system feats such as moving exchange office buildings with operators still working inside (and dragging long tether cables) in order to avoid a service interruption. Second, AT&T long held major defense contracts with significant reliability requirements (against both natural conditions and enemy attack), and as a matter of cost savings these contracts were met using infrastructure shared with civilian services. In general, the non-Bell system modern internet carriers have not held this type of business on such a large scale, in part because they postdate the cold war and in part because AT&T, CenturyLink, and other Bell alums are more interested in federal contracts. Third, cable television has historically been both more competitive and less critical in popular opinion than telephone service, and so reliability has simply not been a high business priority for these operators. For the Bell system any service interruption could be a major scandal, and this is still to some extent true today of telephone service (see any 911 interruption incident). On the other hand the cable companies descended from offering a service which was viewed as a non-critical luxury. Consumer and regulator behavior seems to have just not caught up to the internet era in this regard. And yes, it is quite true that many of the Bell system alums are struggling today. On the other hand, CenturyLink is quite viable as a business and shows few signs of slowing. They are even arguably relatively innovation-forward as an ISP as evidenced by their having one of the larger gigabit GPON footprints in the US, as well as emphasizing no-contract "price for life" service in many markets where they compete with cable carriers. But yes, ultimately most of the Bell system has been dismantled in the interest of cost savings, and has been replaced by a sort of shambling wisp of its former self. Many feel that the writing was on the wall as soon as the breakup occurred, a move which was in good part aimed at reducing consumer prices, and did so, but partially at the cost of radically reduced investment in infrastructure. There is tradeoff between affordability and reliability, and the telecom industry seems to always cling to one of two extremes.
- Spooky23 6y ago
  Part of their monopoly was regulation. Those reliability requirements were mandated by state utility boards and the FCC. The engineering culture was the tail that wagged the dog.
  - jcrawfordor 6y ago
    Yes, and I think it's an important example of "reason number three" that while cable television operators are subject to public utility regulation in most states they are not subject to nearly as stringent quality-of-service requirements as the telephone operators. You can complain to your PRC or equivalent body about nearly any interruption of telephone service, but when it comes to your cable you're largely on your own.
    - Spooky23 6y ago
      Very true. In my experience in New York, Verizon basically uses the public service commission as a level-1 helpdesk -- they take referrals incredibly seriously. I had an issue with Verizon equipment infested with bees -- and they literally rolled trucks within 30 minutes of getting a referral from the regulator, a pole and a bunch of equipment was replaced within 24 hours. With TWC/Spectrum, unless they do something grossly incompetent or unsafe, the regulator is more like another party nagging them.
- jcrawfordor 6y ago
  As a bit of very purely My Opinon on the matter, I have always felt that there is great significance to the connection between the Bell system and Manifest Destiny. In the classic book Cadillac Desert, Marc Reisner argues that the American drive towards irrigation agriculture in the West must be viewed not as a practical matter but as a religious one, both on the obvious level that a large part of the movement (e.g. the Bureau of Reclamation) descended from the Mormons (cough LDS) for which it quite literally was a religious value, and on the deeper level that the government pursued irrigation projects with great gusto when they made absolutely no economic sense, and the government knew that---so there must be something deeper driving the efforts. I would view the telephone system through a similar lens. The famous painting "American Progress," frequently used to illustrate school lessons on manifest destiny, depicts not only the tide of pioneers headed west but, even more prominently, an angel stringing telegraph wire. This connection between the telegraph (and later telephone) and manifest destiny, and between the telegraph and deity, does not seem incidental. It was a widely held opinion through the late 19th and early 20th century that instantaneous communication through the telegraph and telephone was a fundamental component of civilizing the nation, key to American progress. It was closely coupled with the railroads in that regard, both in the spiritual sense that both opened the West to reclamation (which at the time had a meaning more like exploitation, in the sense of natural resources), and in the practical sense that the early telegraph system was often operated by railroads. So, perhaps at some basic level, there is a fundamental difference between the telephone system and the cable television system: the telephone system is an artifact of an era of unbounded American expansion and optimism, and so was founded with a strong sense of the "American values" of exceptional quality and dedication to purpose. The cable television system, on the other hand, only came to fruition in the 1950s, by which point it was coming of age in a post-war America in which capitalism was held as a greater value than expansionism and exceptionalism, manifest destiny having in good part died with the tremendous shock of the great depression. Just something to think about when you consider how history drives technology today.

by posguy 6y ago

jcrawfordor 6y ago

The coax networks that GP refers to have nothing to do with cable television (except that television syndication links were carried over them). GP is referring to the AT&T L-series carriers which carried telephone calls (and later digital voice link equivalents) over multiple bundled coaxial pairs. The L-carrier infrastructure was built to remarkable standards of durability and reliability, in part because much of the system (particularly L-3I and L-4) were built as part of federal C3I contracts and were hardened against limited nuclear strikes, but also because of AT&T/WECo's general culture of obsession with reliability. Station equipment would be entirely duplicated for redundancy, nearly all equipment stations were manned to allow for quick repair (and 'maintenance patrols' inspected remote en-route repeaters as often as daily), and the system was designed for network-level redundancy through rerouting and the preparation of 'alternate control points' to allow continued operation even in the case of complete isolation of parts of the network. The L-carrier system fell out of use when it was replaced by fiber-optic technology (which AT&T initially referred to as "lightguide", perhaps due to it coming hot on the tails of their work on waveguide carriers such as WT4 which were essentially microwave radio through a metal duct). Of course, this raises the question of why this infrastructure is so much more reliable than cable television seems to be. I would suggest three explanations. First, AT&T, Bell Labs, WECo, and the rest of the Ma Bell crowd held reliability as an extremely high value, at both a cultural and requirements level. This is exemplified by now legendary Bell system feats such as moving exchange office buildings with operators still working inside (and dragging long tether cables) in order to avoid a service interruption. Second, AT&T long held major defense contracts with significant reliability requirements (against both natural conditions and enemy attack), and as a matter of cost savings these contracts were met using infrastructure shared with civilian services. In general, the non-Bell system modern internet carriers have not held this type of business on such a large scale, in part because they postdate the cold war and in part because AT&T, CenturyLink, and other Bell alums are more interested in federal contracts. Third, cable television has historically been both more competitive and less critical in popular opinion than telephone service, and so reliability has simply not been a high business priority for these operators. For the Bell system any service interruption could be a major scandal, and this is still to some extent true today of telephone service (see any 911 interruption incident). On the other hand the cable companies descended from offering a service which was viewed as a non-critical luxury. Consumer and regulator behavior seems to have just not caught up to the internet era in this regard. And yes, it is quite true that many of the Bell system alums are struggling today. On the other hand, CenturyLink is quite viable as a business and shows few signs of slowing. They are even arguably relatively innovation-forward as an ISP as evidenced by their having one of the larger gigabit GPON footprints in the US, as well as emphasizing no-contract "price for life" service in many markets where they compete with cable carriers. But yes, ultimately most of the Bell system has been dismantled in the interest of cost savings, and has been replaced by a sort of shambling wisp of its former self. Many feel that the writing was on the wall as soon as the breakup occurred, a move which was in good part aimed at reducing consumer prices, and did so, but partially at the cost of radically reduced investment in infrastructure. There is tradeoff between affordability and reliability, and the telecom industry seems to always cling to one of two extremes.

Spooky23 6y ago
Part of their monopoly was regulation. Those reliability requirements were mandated by state utility boards and the FCC. The engineering culture was the tail that wagged the dog.
- jcrawfordor 6y ago
  Yes, and I think it's an important example of "reason number three" that while cable television operators are subject to public utility regulation in most states they are not subject to nearly as stringent quality-of-service requirements as the telephone operators. You can complain to your PRC or equivalent body about nearly any interruption of telephone service, but when it comes to your cable you're largely on your own.
  - Spooky23 6y ago
    Very true. In my experience in New York, Verizon basically uses the public service commission as a level-1 helpdesk -- they take referrals incredibly seriously. I had an issue with Verizon equipment infested with bees -- and they literally rolled trucks within 30 minutes of getting a referral from the regulator, a pole and a bunch of equipment was replaced within 24 hours. With TWC/Spectrum, unless they do something grossly incompetent or unsafe, the regulator is more like another party nagging them.
jcrawfordor 6y ago
As a bit of very purely My Opinon on the matter, I have always felt that there is great significance to the connection between the Bell system and Manifest Destiny. In the classic book Cadillac Desert, Marc Reisner argues that the American drive towards irrigation agriculture in the West must be viewed not as a practical matter but as a religious one, both on the obvious level that a large part of the movement (e.g. the Bureau of Reclamation) descended from the Mormons (cough LDS) for which it quite literally was a religious value, and on the deeper level that the government pursued irrigation projects with great gusto when they made absolutely no economic sense, and the government knew that---so there must be something deeper driving the efforts. I would view the telephone system through a similar lens. The famous painting "American Progress," frequently used to illustrate school lessons on manifest destiny, depicts not only the tide of pioneers headed west but, even more prominently, an angel stringing telegraph wire. This connection between the telegraph (and later telephone) and manifest destiny, and between the telegraph and deity, does not seem incidental. It was a widely held opinion through the late 19th and early 20th century that instantaneous communication through the telegraph and telephone was a fundamental component of civilizing the nation, key to American progress. It was closely coupled with the railroads in that regard, both in the spiritual sense that both opened the West to reclamation (which at the time had a meaning more like exploitation, in the sense of natural resources), and in the practical sense that the early telegraph system was often operated by railroads. So, perhaps at some basic level, there is a fundamental difference between the telephone system and the cable television system: the telephone system is an artifact of an era of unbounded American expansion and optimism, and so was founded with a strong sense of the "American values" of exceptional quality and dedication to purpose. The cable television system, on the other hand, only came to fruition in the 1950s, by which point it was coming of age in a post-war America in which capitalism was held as a greater value than expansionism and exceptionalism, manifest destiny having in good part died with the tremendous shock of the great depression. Just something to think about when you consider how history drives technology today.