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J.R. Snyder Jr.
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- Operator Articles and Related Information
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- CAMA/ONI history
- Current 411 information
- Current consoles, end of TSPS
- Directory Assistance (1) (2) (J.R. Snyder Jr.)
- Directory Assistance to 1985 (from a patent)
- DAS/C (Directory Assistance/Computerized)
- Exchange names and numbers
- First Bell System male operator
- International Operator Center
- More on International Operator Centers
- Interview with the first Bell System male operator
- LMOS LMT background
- Mechanized Combined Line and Recording System (MECOBS)
- Nevada musings
- Office classes and arrangements, notes on the 4ESS
- Old network hiearchy and trunking arrangements
- Old network hiearchy graphic (big image)
- Operator Intercept
- Party lines
- Pay Stations and International Calls
- SARTS history
- Toll Stations
- Toll and Local Assistance Cord Switchboard
- Toll Service Position System
- TSPS history
- US West experiences
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- J.R. Snyder Jr. introduces himself
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I was a Bell System operator for a long time, starting at age 17. But I was so fascinated with telephone operations that I went on to many other jobs. I first learned on an old toll cordboard, using paper directories to look up numbers. From paper repair records and manual test boards in a small Phoenix test center I went to helping AT&T with conversions to LMOS/MLT and SARTS testing at Southern Bell and Mountain Bell. I later assisted with TSPS and DAS/C, eventually becoming an Instructor and Method and Process writer for U.S. WEST. I traveled many miles in the west instructing repair call centers and test centers from Minnesota to Washington to New Mexico and back. Related articles on System and Circuit History:
DAS/C: Directory Assistance System Computer. Computerized directory assistance programs. [More here, internal link]
LMOS: Lucent Technologies Loop Management Operations System (LMOS). "The Loop (internal link) is the portion of the telephone line that runs from the customers’ telephone to the switch in the central office, where the line can be connected with other telephone lines or a trunk. LMOS manages the Loop, from detailed cable and wiring information, to trouble ticketing and resolution." More at Tekmark (external link)
MLT: Mechanized Loop Testing. Automated telephone line testing for the local loop. [More here (internal link).
SARTS: Switched Access Remote Test System. "When a customer reports trouble with a circuit, a test is made to determine the cause. In the regional telephone operating companies, special service test personnel use a test system called SARTS (Switched Access Remote Test System)." More here (internal link)
TSPS: Traffic Service Position System: Early operator system succeeded by the Operator Services Position System. [More here internal link]
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- I was hired under the EEOC Consent Decree (related article, internal link), just as the DOJ was filing yet another antitrust suit against Bell, which seemed like an every 20 year event. By 1982, however, I knew that "1984" was for real and that the breakup of AT&T would soon begin.
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My writing interest began in Junior High, then developed when I became layout editor of my high school's award winning yearbook. I originally majored in journalism in college until I got derailed by life and ended up with a degree in Social Science and became a Paralegal for a while. (I'm still a member of the Maricopa County Bar in Phoenix). I think college often ruins good reading and writing for people, even for me, and even though I went to a quality private liberal arts university.
Well, one good deed turns into another. www.pivateline.com has rekindled an interest in me dormant for almost 15 years. Dormant mainly from burnout of being on a dysfunctional organization corporate staff and navigating treacherous corporate political waters rather than being able to do a job. I wish I had some of your material as background when I was writing Instructional material, Instructor Guides and M&P's. It would have been so useful, it's so clearly laid out, which is what I like. It would have given me a better picture in order to to lay out the material for students and employees. I was a good Instructor but had to keep things at ground level and I had gotten lazy because of the pressures about keeping abreast of some things. I'd do well with my new hire classes but in almost every one there was inevitably The Inquisitive One, who I thought was great rather than an annoying interruption, whose hand would shoot up and ask a question a little out of the scope of the basics I was teaching but relevant none the less. Since I'd become dormant I sometimes didn't know the answer, if I'd known about Private Line or the web site I could have whipped out an answer on say packet switching and be done with it or better yet refer them to it. Would have kept them busy because inevitably they were way ahead of the others and they could've been doing that while the others plodded through.
For some silly reason Ground Start and terminals, as in DID, two way and one way trunks, has always been an enigma to me. No matter how many times it was explained to me. I did know you were wrong about payphones using ground start, they did use ground though for the operator to be able to "pull the ring key" on the cordboard or press the collect button on TSPS and collect coins from the chute into the box.
I'll confess that before I worked for the phone company I was a bit of a Phone Phreak. My mother and aunt (former Traffic Manager) were the ones who steered me to work there at any early age for two reasons: they wanted me to get a good job and start me out in a place where I could work for 30 years, and also hopefully stop the phone hacking and channel the energy more positively. You get the idea. Unfortunately it didn't because at a cord switchboard I had a virtual cornucopia of equipment to play with and amazingly I never got caught or fired. I did things like learn how to get into AT&T's International Gateway and get to overseas operators from a local Toll cordboard tandem. I could bypass the local #5 crossbar from my home phone and get onto the tandem although it was hit or miss, I was no stranger to busy line verification. I don't even want to know now what the ARS (Arizona Revised Statutes) much less the USC had to say about those activities. I knew they were illegal which is why I never evolved into a computer hacker, but a friend did.
There seems to be a lot of fascination with coin that never interested me much. I became the Coin Center manager because I was asked to and I wanted off of Staff. There were a lot of people in that department very into it. I was involved in the conversion to smart payphones and they tagged the new Telecard Manager title on me just because. US WEST had one of the first chip cards in the U.S., I still have some of the early ones, and I learned all about the collectors of these cards from all over the world from my peer in Seattle, who was in charge of distributing and working with these collectors and she started getting into the magazines, etc. I knew they'd become something but in 1995 they were a bit ahead of their time in the western U.S. I ramble.
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- While young I realized my experiences at the end of the Bell System era would be good fodder for a book. That was based on my fascination with history and reading all the old material on "number, please", Bell Labs, as well as being around the time of the development of cellular, ESS, TSPS, etc. and how transitional the period was. I remember reading TeleESSny magazine and scouring it for information and buying out of my meager funds the annual Telephone Industry Directory that even had maps of exchange territories. I knew where every toll center in Southern Bell, Mountain Bell, Pacific Bell and Nevada Bell was and the Independents. Sure, it was trivia to some people. But not to me.
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It's quite true that the RBOC's either don't care or don't know about their history. I think they're so busy surviving and have stacked themselves with people who are trying to shed any vestiges of the past. I call it the MBA mentality. As a manager I feared as I was leaving, and still do, that all sense of the past would be lost. It's like the railroads and airlines; electricity, telegraphy and telephony are integral to the history of this country. That's why I am writing here, on-line. I'd like to help preserve some of that history.
My short stint at a contracted Verizon Wireless call center kind of brought things full circle for me and into the current era of contracted Directory Assistance or DA., wireless setup, mobile web, text messaging and A Whole New Era. I still have a corded phone but only use the line for dial up and have myself converted to wireless as my primary voice device.
I am a member of a Pioneer chapter but have been out of touch for a long time. They're a far more helpful and a better resource since most still remember the Bell System and the Independents, such as GTE, Lincoln T&T, Contel, United, and Centel.
At the Qwest high rise at 20 E. Thomas in Phoenix the Pioneers have a well kept small museum on the lobby floor that sadly doesn't get visited much. Up until I left in 2000 if I was instructing in Phoenix I would always take my classes down there and walk them through the old switching systems, phones, cordboard, testdesk and stuff.
There's also one at 200 State St. in Salt Lake City that has not been as well maintained. A lot of my students were just relieved at the break from the classroom of technical material which to many of them was "just a job." Some however, really were fascinated and followed me around peppering me with questions about what it was like in the "old days." Made me feel very young again because it reminded me of how inquistive I was and how working at the phone company once was an avocation, almost a calling. I'm enjoying adding to privateline.com and welcome your e-mails.
- Best, J.R. Snyder Jr.
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