By performing vital work on the Distant Early Warning missile detection system and Nike missile systems and by managing Sandia Laboratories, the
Bell system could continue arguing for a privileged legal position as a national strategic asset.
Throughout the 1970s and '80s, the industry was just beginning to experience the unsettling effects associated with the introduction of toll competition, the need to preserve toll rate averaging so that rural long-distance rates would be affordable, the demise of customer premises regulation, the deregulation of inside wiring, and billing and collection, and the dawn of the breakup of the
Bell system.
Yet, at the same time, because it is a robot, it would have far greater flexibility than the typical
bell system. 'Exteriors.
In this well-written and important book, Green explores the connected history of such patterns in the
Bell System between 1876 and 1984, "the convergence of gender, class, race, and technology in the workplace." (1) She particularly details evolution of telephone operators' roles "in the context of debates over the degradation of skills, job loss, worker's control, job segregation and segmentation, and race and labor/management relations." (2) Green contends that management deliberately manipulated the operator workforce for decades, through technological deskilling, overbearing supervision, paternalism, and gend er and racial stereotyping.
As a result, the
Bell system is drifting toward raising voice rates, is refusing to provide the infrastructure needed to accommodate the 260-300 percent annual growth in data traffic, and is trying to cram mobile telephone sets with gismos like Multi-Media Short Messaging (MSM), movie listings, and horoscopes in the hope of raising revenue from novelty-crazed teens.
In the turbulent final decades of the century, WEC adapted to manifold forces of change: new electronic technologies for transmission and switching; the emergence of competitive markets for telecommunications; entry by rival suppliers to Bell companies; and, finally, the Modified Final Judgement that broke up the
Bell System.
Almost two decades after Judge Greene's decision broke up the
Bell system, we are beginning to see the communications industry compete with the gloves off and no quarter given.
However, because of restrictions imposed in 1984 at the time of the
Bell System's divestiture, Bell Atlantic cannot carry calls across LATA boundaries.
"Soon after I came into the
Bell system, there were talks to convert the monopoly into a competitive business.
We went down that road before the integrated
Bell system, and it didn't work.
Those of you who grew up in the old
Bell System recall that just about everything was defined by a
Bell System Practice, or BSP.
