Conference 7.286::digital

	Suggest that there may be more information at:

DIGITAL's Telephone Network	AYOV18::DTN				  379

				Alfred

        The topic note asserts that no Digital facilities in California
        have DTN access, but this is apparently not true, based on a quick
        scan of the facilities listing in the Digital Telephone Directory.
        I found DTN listings for the following: 
        
        MVO -- Mountain View Office
        WRO -- Santa Clara
        WRA -- Santa Clara
        ZVO -- Sunnyvale
        
        I suspect that many of the other facilities have dial-out access
        to the DTN, just no dial-in directly from the DTN except through
        standard long-distance.
        
        Alfred is right that this might more appropriately be asked in the
        DTN conference, but if John Covert or someone else who's in the
        know about the DTN wishes to answer here, I suspect the answer
        would be of general interest. 
        
        BTW, if you have an SL100 at your site, you can probably program
        it to remember the numbers you use most frequently.
        
        Tom
        

    I guess I really don't understand .0.I'm located at WRO (Santa Clara
    Ca.) and we all have normal DTN numbers.
    If you're saying that *not all* Ca. sites have DTN,that's true...my
    Santa Clara phone book lists some employees that have to be called
    via outside lines.

    Yes, it is a pain to look up outside extensions for other DEC sites.
    When I started with DEC we were on the DTN network through Santa Clara.
    I don't know who made the decision to pull us off, but I know they
    should have had their heads examined.  Believe me.....we hate it.
    
    One of the orphan children,
    
    Linda

    The Southern California offices have their own telephone network
    called the STN or something like that. 
    
    This whole issue is quite symbolic of the fact that Digital Southern
    California is cut off from the mainstream of Digital Maynard/Marlboro.
    I get the feeling there is no place more distant from the Mill than
    Los Angeles. In fact we have a term for it locally, and it forms
    another acronym that looks something like this: DH.
    
    Of course we have that infamous cartoonist here in LA, Matt Groenig,
    who does the "Life in Hell" series. I thuink you'd have to be here
    to understand.
    
    e.

    Why should we have DTN? They still use ponies out here for the mail.
    ;-)
    
    When you live on-site 100% of your time, you have to make *all*
    of your calls to outside numbers.
    
    Trying to reverse-engineer a DTN number can be nearly impossible.
    I often get passed around by a few switchboard operators before
    I finally get the answering machine.
    
    Jim
    

        It is, of course, possible that the reason many of the sites
        in California are on their own "local" telephone network is
        that local (Western Area) management decided that this was
        what made the best business sense.  Perhaps this is a question
        that should be asked of local management.
        
        Tom

    Southern California was not put on the DTN for a simple reason:
    The DTN exists to save money, and it would cost more to put those
    sites on the DTN than to use the public network to dial them. 
    In the US, historically, the DTN has been just a tie line network.
    With a few exceptions, DTN calls travel over dedicated lines.
    Long-haul dedicated lines are very costly, so it didn't pay.  That
    might be changing, so DTN could eventually reach the area.
    
    In Europe, where tie lines are often very costly, they use "virtual"
    DTN by having the PBXs translate DTN codes into public network numbers.
    (A few domestic sites have done this too, but it's rare.)  Were
    this done in the US, then people could dial DTN codes and still
    reach the SCal sites.  That's a question for US DTN management;
    the SL-100s (and Rolm in CXO) can do it; the old Maynard Centrex
    (gone for a few years) couldn't.  I think the Dimension FP8 nodes
    can do it too, but I'm not positive if it's "free".  That, of course,
    would only give the rest of the company 7-digit access to those
    sites; the site PBX would need local DTN translation to get back
    to the rest of the company.  And that might not be possible.
    
    Some of the smaller NorCal sites are not on DTN because they're
    too small to warrant tie line access and/or didn't want it.  Virtual
    DTN could also be used, at least on a limited basis, from some of
    those sites.  But not everyone _wants_ to be on DTN...

    re: .8
    
>   Southern California was not put on the DTN for a simple reason: The DTN
>   exists to save money [....] Long-haul dedicated lines are very costly,
>   so it didn't pay.  That might be changing, so DTN could eventually
>   reach the area. 
    
    Puzzling sort of argument. When I first worked for Digital in Western
    Canada (80-84), there was no DTN there. That seemed fairly reasonable,
    given that it would seem to be a fairly costly and massive effort to
    install DTN in such a large and sparsely populated geography (there
    is a Canada outside of Toronto, you know).

    Imagine my surprise when I discovered, after rejoining Digital in Los
    Angeles in 1986, that Nowhere in the SW US Area is on DTN! And DTN is
    now installed across Canada! I find it hard to believe that tie lines
    around the US are more expensive than those across 2,000 miles of
    (relatively) deserted bald-headed prairie in Western Canada. 
    
    Whether it's cost or not, the perception among many people in the area
    is that SW Area management doesn't *want* us on DTN. As Erik observed
    earlier, there is probably no place in the corporation that *feels*
    further from GMA than the SW US Area - culturally, at least. 

    Larry.

    Well, Having worked in the San Francisco District for thirteen years, I
    remember the day that the district went on DTN.  Six years after I
    hired into the company, I finaly got put in the phone book.  (i was in
    the Chevron Phone Book after three months on a residency, an I may
    still be in it four years later.)  When I heard that the District was
    bing removed from the DTN, I asked the people involved.  It seems that
    every call on the DTN is charged to the caller in internal funny money. 
    It turns out that outgoing WATS service is cheaper then the internal
    DTN.  Now I have to look on two pages in the directory to get peoples
    numbers and I always have to mention that we are not on DTN when
    calling the greater Maynard area, but the phone lines are better.  My
    next question is why are we still using AT&T long distance?? ;-)
    
    Larry

re the last two:

In Canada, tie lines are still less expensive than WATS and long distance,
which is not the case in the U.S. any more.  Coast to coast in the U.S. is
now 27 cents a minute, half what it was just fifteen years ago!  Ottawa to
Calgary is 68 cents ($C) per minute.

Why are we still using AT&T long distance?  Because over all, it is cheaper
and more reliable than anything else!  Just one example: during business hours,
MCI is more expensive than AT&T by about 1 cent per minute.

/john

>>> Why are we still using AT&T long distance?

    Probably because AT&T is the only company that provides us access
    to the telephones of any country in the world that has phones. 
    And, we do business everywhere and are a world-wide operation. 
    The new guys on the block may claim fiber-optics, pin-drop silence,
    etc., but they do not connect to a phone in Timbuktu, Morocco.
    
    .......... Suchindran

    Timbuktu is in Mali, West Africa, 1000 miles distant from Casablanca.

    Boy I love this notesfile, scratch something that seems innocuous
    on the surface, and something else comes up smelling not so hot.
    In this case it is the (perceived) cultural difference between the
    coast and the "Greater Maynard Area".  I hope you folks out there
    know that there are other sites in Mass. and So. N.H. outside of
    Maynard/Marlboro.
    
    Anyways, I just wanted to say that I moved .0 to the DTN conference
    where it should have been.
    
    David

    
    
    I've never thought that not having DTN out here in sunny southern
    CA (also Arizona and Nevada) was yet another way to separate us from 
    the rest of DEC.  Californians should be used to be a little 
    different from the rest of the country. ;^)  My complaint is 
    having to translate those darn DTN's!!!!  Wouldn't it be nice if
    ELF asked for DTN as well as outside line??!!  On that same note,
    it would be nice if every Digital form that asks for a phone number
    would allow an extra inch in the blank for us poor fools who have
    to print the whole number!!!!!

    
    Donna
    

    The Digital Telephone Directory has a conversion table from DTN
    to regular numbers.  It can be found in the blue pages at the front
    of the book.  It only lists US and Canadian sites.
    

    Contrary to what has been stated here about DTN's in the SW and
    Arizona, PNO (Phoenix, AZ) does have DTN's.  However, TFO (Tempe,
    AZ) just 25 miles south does not have the DTN availability.

    I am from the Southwest Area (Irvine, Calif.), I've been here for
    13 years.  We tried the DTN system for about two years with limited
    success.  The quality of service was poor and the cost could not
    be justified.  So back to DID (direct in-ward dial) for the local
    folks and a lot of hassle for long distance calls.  After 13 years
    I've managed to memorize the important and most used DTN conversions
    but I really feel sorry for the new kids on the block. 
    
    Rumor has it that the SWA may be getting on the DTN sometime in
    the near future but I wouldn't hold my breath.
    
    Jodi-

    Re: .17:
    
    I'm not sure that you're real-life DTN. I think you've got the same
    setup as TFO. You dial DTN and some automagic happens that dials
    the outside line for you.
    
    I'm *never* in the office (well, maybe once a month to pick up the
    car check) so I've been trying to decipher the DTN numbers into
    outside numbers. It's given me a great sense of adventure trying
    to find the right number. I almost always get somebody in DEC on
    my first try. And they are generally somewhere in the correct
    vicinity (almost always in the right state). But pin-pointing
    a person on the first 'digit' punch is pure black-magic.
    
    I've met some neat people along the way. And I will give massive
    credit that most along the way have been very civil and have gone
    out of their way to help. I just apologize to those that I've
    encountered on, say, my 6th transfer by which time I've grown a
    little impatient. (Especially when I'm in *dire* need of help and
    my customer has transisitioned from the pink to flouresescent red
    range.)
    
    Jim_who_misses_the_DCO_days_of_calling_the_switchboard_and_saying_
     simply_"DTN"_number_number_number_and_getting_it
    

>    I'm not sure that you're real-life DTN. I think you've got the same
>    setup as TFO.

Nope, PNO has enough traffic to justify real DTN.  See AYOV18::DTN; there
is an automatically updated list "DTN.LIS" which indicates which locations
are "real" DTN in the U.S. and which are not.
    
>It's given me a great sense of adventure trying to find the right number.

If you don't have the number, call your local office and ask the attendant to
look it up in the blue pages for you, or call 508 493-5111.

/john

    Just as a point of trivia, most of southern california (Digital
    offices) have become better connected to the Digital whole recently when 
    we got real access to DTN. What a difference! Now when speaking to key 
    GMA Digital people, I feel like I'm not some stranded penguin in
    Antarctica. I realize some people may not see it as another factor
    in makinbg us separate; but it all depends on what your awareness level
    is.
    
    erik