Date: Sun Sep  5 14:47:06 1999
From: editor@telecom-digest.org
Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #376
To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu


TELECOM Digest     Sun, 5 Sep 99 17:47:00 EDT    Volume 19 : Issue 376

Inside This Issue:                          Editor: Patrick A. Townson

    Re: Obituary: William D. Pfeiffer, r.r.b. Moderator (Paul W. Schleck)
    The Beginnings of Nationwide Time on the Railroads (Donald E. Kimberlin)
    Re: Sprint's Fantastic New World Headquarters (Bruce Wilson)
    Re: Sprint's Fantastic New World Headquarters (John R. Myers)
    Re: Problems BAM Text Messaging (Al Iverson)
    Re: Named Telephone Exchanges (Marty Bose)
    Re: Named Telephone Exchanges (Julian Thomas)
    Re: Named Telephone Exchanges (Bruce Wilson)
    Re: Modem-to-Modem Connection Help (Chris Johnston)
    Re: AT&T's 1-800-CALL-ATT Incompatible With AT&T Cell Phone (Jonathan Loo)
    Re: Info About an International (US/EU) GSM Setup Needed (Robert Berntsen)
    Re: Tracing Hang Up Calls From "Out of Area"? (Bruce Wilson)
    Re: Tracing Hang Up Calls From "Out of Area"? (Thor Lancelot Simon)
    Re: Teletype Plant Torn Down (Todd E. Toles)

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----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: pschleck@novia.net (Paul W. Schleck K3FU)
Subject: Re: Obituary: William D. Pfeiffer, r.r.b. Moderator
Date: 5 Sep 1999 10:08:02 -0500
Organization: Newscene Public Access Usenet News Service


I remember Bill Pfeiffer, too.  I recall voting for the creation of the
rec.radio.broadcasting newsgroup when it was offered up for vote quite a
few years ago (1991?).  When Mark Salyzyn and I managed to create
rec.radio.info (modeling ourselves after rec.music.info) in 1993, we had
the chance to have much mutual technical discussion and exchange of
advice with Bill about newsgroup moderation.  We even set up some
automatic pre-approval for periodic information postings that spanned
both groups, some of which persists to this day on the rec.radio.info
side.  Bill always put out a quality product on rec.radio.broadcasting,
though we didn't always agree on everything (Bill could have his
headstrong opinions as much as anyone else).

The object lesson for me after Bill's house burned down was to
immediately go out and buy property insurance ($100/year for me, and
highly recommended if you want to avoid such a tragic slate-wiping
experience).  I do hope that the object lesson in this most recent
tragedy isn't, "Wear your seat belt."

Posters in other newsgroups have noted that the {Minneapolis Star-
Tribune}, possibly taking its information from an AP wire story,
incompletely characterized Bill as a "delivery driver."  Others have let
the newspaper know about other contributions Bill has made over the
years.  One can only hope that some correction or update, possibly in
the form of a good obituary, will appear (please, no Moderator's Note
rants about the "running dog yellow journalists sucking at the teat of
advertisers, etc., etc." at the end of this post).

Goodbye Bill, you will be missed by all of us.


Paul W. Schleck
pschleck@novia.net
http://www.novia.net/~pschleck/  ICQ# 44218003
Finger pschleck@novia.net for PGP Public Key


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: About two hours ago, I was contacted
by Val Davis, a long-time participant in rec.radio.broadasting and
a person who had also been a close friend of Bill Pfieffer and asked
if I would serve as a sort of technical advisor during the interim
while the newsgroup and web site gets re-established. Val Davis will
serve as an 'interim moderator' and I will put the technical effort
into seeing that the newsgroup continues. Val said to me on the phone
his contacts all felt that 'the show must go on', and I agree with
that. Although nothing is set in stone at this point, s I am able to
get Val up to speed on the technical side of things, he will most
likely then continue to hold the newsgroup and website in trust
pending some decision by the regular participants on the appointment
of a new moderator or webmaster, etc.  The important thing right now,
today, is that the news has to continue to flow out to the net as
normally as possible, with as little interupption as possible. 

Val and I have agreed to try and begin issuing messages to rec.radio.
broadcasting in the next day or two based on the queue of messages
coming in waiting for processing. It will be a thing of getting the
backlog caught up, getting him some scripts he is comfortable with
and knowledgeable about; making arrangements with the administrator
at the physical location where the processing is done (and where the
airwaves.com alias is pointed) to put it all in the care of Val, 
etc. So if you do not see as much of me here in the next few days as
in the past, don't feel I have abandoned telecom ... I will just be
trying to get Bill's group back on track, but I will be around here
also.    PAT]

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 05 Sep 1999 11:12:59 -0400
From: Donald E. Kimberlin <dkimberlin@prodigy.net>
Subject: The Beginnings of Nationwide Time on the Railroads


Telecommunications history buffs will by now have noted that EBay has a
rather constant small number of various models of the once-ubiquitous
Western Union "Naval Observatory Time" clocks  being auctioned.  These
pendulum clocks, made by the Self-Winding Clock Company of New York,
rewind themselves by means of a small motor or solenoid (in different
models of the clocks) and can be set at the top of the hour by
energizing a solenoid that was once connected to a telegraph line pulsed
once an hour from a local "master clock" in each city; the local city
master clock was updated  at noon each day to a pulse from the national
master site at Washington, DC. (Shades of the "strata" of today's
hierarchy of digital transmission clocking -- is there nothing "new" in
the world?)

 There's now a website containing an article that seems to be of the
prehistory of the Western Union national time service.  As one might
expect, the orthodox Western Union history leads to the notion that
the notion of a coordinated national time was conceived by the great
minds of Western Union.  However, as is so often the case with
technology history, it's not difficult or unusual to find there were
smaller precursors, and that's what this URL shows:

        http://www.inch.com/~ziggy/RREXTRA.HTM/ttime.Html

------------------------------

From: blw1540@aol.comxxnospam (Bruce Wilson)
Date: 05 Sep 1999 15:04:00 GMT
Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com
Subject: Re: Sprint's Fantastic New World Headquarters


> My fading and erratic memory realls SPRINT beginning as result of an FCC
> ruling that allowed private non-telco companies to resell excess
> microwave capacity in the first 'by-pass' of AT&T long distance
> services. 

Yep.  The "foot in the door" was their being allowed to operat as
"private line" carriers, so a company with geographically diverse
locations would contract with them to link its various sites, but the
public at large couldn't just dial into and use the networks.

> The best known was Goshen's little company called Microwave
> Communications Inc (just called "MCI" now) that wanted to provide
> alternate long distance circuits for trucking companies and the
> instigator of the Carterphone decision later.

I think Carterphone began process of opening up the terminal equipment
market, beginning with answering machines.  (It's hard to believe now
how paranoid the telcos once were with respect to connection of
"foreign equipment" to their networks.)

------------------------------

From: John R. Myers <jmyers@netcom.com>
Subject: Re: Sprint's Fantastic New World Headquarters
Date: 5 Sep 1999 17:17:47 GMT
Organization: John R. Myers / Palo Alto, California, USA


Jack Daniel <JackDaniel@rfsolutions.com> wrote:

> I'm sure the company's roots are over 100 years old if you include the
> railroad protion. Maybe starting with railway telegraph ?

Pat,

I can confirm this version of the story. I jumped into the Southern
Pacific Communications Company shortly after Congress acted on the
resale and sharing question. One time I borrowed a slide show from the
Marketing folks to liven up a rather dull professional talk. (They had
some dramatic shots of helicopters delivering microwave towers to
snowcapped mountains, etc.) The script for the marketing talk made the
point that the Southern Pacific Company was incorporated under a
Federal (not State) charter more than a hundred years ago to build and
operate railroad and telegraph lines.

Of course, this little story has no bearing on the question of how the
present-day Sprint can claim to have been in business for a hundred
years!


John R. Myers   <jmyers@netcom.com>  /  Palo Alto, California 

------------------------------

From: radparker@radparker.com (Al Iverson)
Subject: Re: Problems BAM Text Messaging
Organization: See sig before replying
Date: Sun, 0 Sep 1999 13:10:00 -0500


In article <telecom19.373.4@telecom-digest.org>, Jeffrey J. Carpenter
<jjc@pobox.com> wrote:

>> Then, after issuing the DATA command, put the following:
>> "To: NPANXXYYYY@message.bam.com," substituting your correct phone
>> number. The message will go through, even though it seems like it
>> should not. Am I unreasonable to assume that this is a bug?

> It is a bug.  Delivery using the "To:" address in the headers as
> opposed to the envelope "To:" address is wrong.  I believe it is
> completely unacceptable.

> This error means that you cannot use aliases or mailing lists that
> contain the phone email addresses, which is a problem for us.

> When we tested this service last year, we were able to get in contact
> with the manager responsible for the service.  He indicated that he
> understands the problem, but they have no plans to fix it.

> We selected AT&T wireless.

It's either a bug, or a poorly-implemented method of spam filtering.
Either way, I agree that it is unacceptable.

Possible ways around it? If you're a unix/shell geek, write a little
script that catches mail to that address and reformats it properly, and
sends it along to the new address. I do this using shell scripts, called
by Sendmail, for other various reasons.

Here's a good general reminder when working with mail forwarding:

Don't just blindly forward your mail somewhere else.

Forward it somewhere else AND keep it in the mailbox it was sent to, if
possible.

For example, if your ISP or School uses sendmail, they'll tell you to
set up a file called ".forward" in your home directory. That file
should contain the address that you'd like your mail forwarded to.

For example, for bob@school.edu, he might want his mail forwarded to
bob@example.com. So he'd set up a .forward file containing
"bob@example.com" -- but if example.com eats his message he'll never see
it and have no way to recover it.

What I do for my .forward setups is I set them up to contain:
bob
bob@example.com

That first line, with just your username on the school.edu system,
means leave the mail here. Combined with the second line, it means
leave a copy here and forward a copy to bob@example.com.

That way if example.com eats the message, you can still retrieve it by
logging into your .edu account and reading it there.

Of course, you have to clean out your edu mailbox once in a while. I
think that's a small price to pay for helpful redundancy.


Al Iverson
RRSS/radparker.com

Al Iverson -- Web: http://al.radparker.com/ -- Home: Minneapolis, USA
Visit the Radparker Relay Spam Stopper at http://relays.radparker.com.
STOP! Include SWANKY99 in email replies or they may be tagged as spam.
Send me no unsolicited advertising, as I will always return it to you.

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 5 Sep 1999 10:40:35 -0800
From: Marty Bose <martyb@dnai.com>
Subject: Re: Named Telephone Exchanges


When I was going to college I worked every summer in the ELgin Main in
San Leandro, CA, which is now known as SNLNCA11.  I still live in San
Leandro, and have a phone number that would be ELgin 1-xxxx to an
oldtimer.


Marty

------------------------------

From: jt5555@epix.net (Julian Thomas)
Subject: Re: Named Telephone Exchanges
Date: Sun, 05 Sep 1999 18:56:17 GMT


In <telecom19.373.9@telecom-digest.org>, on 09/04/99 at 06:18 PM,
Joseph Singer <dov@oz.net> said:

> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: In the early or middle 1960's I had the
> phone number 312-RAvenswood-8-7425 which of course also spells 'Patrick'.  
> PAT]

Best one I had was many years ago in Lexington Mass VO2 3269 which could
also be rendered as TOADBOX.


 Julian Thomas: jt 5555 at epix dot net  http://home.epix.net/~jt
 remove numerics for email
 Boardmember of POSSI.org - Phoenix OS/2 Society, Inc  http://www.possi.org
 In the beautiful Finger Lakes Wine Country of New York State!

 Success always occurs in private, and failure in full view.

------------------------------

From: blw1540@aol.comxxnospam (Bruce Wilson)
Date: 05 Sep 1999 14:54:15 GMT
Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com
Subject: Re: Named Telepone Exchanges


I'm old enough to remember when our phone number went from 4904 to
7-4904 then to CRestwood 7-4904.  (Other exchange names introduced at
that time included BLackburn, BRowning, CHerry, and AMherst).  There
was no relationship whatsoever between the names and any established
area within the community.

Some people (such as my mother) found it easiest to find the
appropriate letters under the numbers on the dial and use the exchange
name when dialing, but it seemed most (me and my father being two)
found translating the letters to the more easily seen numbers
preferable, thinking of (and dialing) BLackburn 5-5555 as its numeric
equivalent, 255-5555, and the use of exchange names didn't last very
long.

------------------------------

From: Chris Johnston <chris@netus.com>
Subject: Re: Modem-to-Modem Connection Help
Date: Sat, 04 Sep 1999 22:46:10 -0700
Organization: Netus Internetworking


Hi Carla:

In the old days, we were able to set one modem in Answer and one in
Originate.  You can still set these modes.  All you should need (if
you can hack NT's RAS) is to do just this and then add the ATA to one
side.  You may also need 48 volts of battery in series with the mess.

I can't say that this will work, but we did such an experiment with a
pair of 300 baud modems many many moons ago.


Chris

Carla Decker wrote:

> I have a project where I need to be able to connect two PCs  together
> using two modems over a telephone cable that *DOES NOT* have dial tone.
> I also need t use RAS & DUN to take care of a requirement for TCP/IP.
>
> Here's my configuration:
>
>     PC <-----> Modem <------------------> Modem <-----> PC
>     RAS          9600         No Dial Tone     9600                 RAS
> SVR
>     Client

> The configuration is dictated, and not negotiable.  I can get the
> configuration to work using Hyperterminal. Unfortunately, Hyperterminal
> doesn't give me TCP/IP capabilities. When I try to use RAS, I can't get
> the RAS Server to answer. Any suggestions would be most helpful!

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 5 Sep 1999 02:48:18 -0400 (EDT)
From: Jonathan D Loo <jloo@polaris.umuc.edu>
Subject: Re: AT&T's 1-800-CALL-ATT Incompatible With AT&T Cell Phones


If you call 1-800-CALL-ATT from a public pay phone and follow the
voice prompts for a collect call you will reach a live operator.
According to the operator, the rate for a live operator assisted
collect call is higher than the rate for an automated collect call.

I specifically asked the operator for the rate for making the call
from a coin phone and they quoted the automated rate.  I explained the
system was requiring me to go to an operator and asked for the live
operator assisted rate.  Then I asked how to use the automated system
from a coin phone, since the automated rate was lower.  The operator
didn't know.

I asked to speak to the operator's supervisor.  The operator's
supervisor claimed that if I follow the voice prompts the system would
automatically give me the automated system, which is cheaper.  I told
the supervisor this is not the case, and explained that if I follow
the voice prompts exactly as the supervisor instructed then I would
always get a live operator.

The supervisor said that what I was saying was false and refused to
accept a complaint about the issue.

------------------------------

From: Robert Berntsen <rb@tandberg.REMOVE.no>
Subject: Re: Info About an International (US/EU) GSM Setup Needed
Date: Sun, 5 Sep 1999 15:05:55 +0200


Tom Byfield wrote in message:


> I need to arrange a cellphonesetup that meets the following
> criteria:
>     (1) the handset *must* work in the US and Europe;
>          - Europe: UK definitely, the rest of the EU pref-
>            erably, and former Yugoslavia and other parts
>            of eastern Europe would be great.

A handset for Europe should definitely be a dual band GSM (900 - 1800).
This will in fact cover most of the world. In UK you will have access to
Orange (GSM 1800), with better prices than some of the more established
carriers.

>          - US: northeast definitely, west coast preferably,
>            and the rest of the US would be great;

USA is more complicated. In US there is approx. 16 GSM operators up and
running, and an additional 9 that prepare service. The coverage is approx.
55 % of the US population. If you choose to stay with GSM in the US, you can
find handsets that work on the 1900 MHz in US and 900 MHz in Europe (Bosch
and Ericsson). I believe Motorola has a triple band phone (900-1800-1900)
but I do not have personal exsperiance with it. Thus you can have service
with the same handset and will have good service both in Europe and
N.America. Canada has service on GSM 1900 for 52% of the population.

There is another solution, and that is to have one handset for Europe (Nokia
6150 would be exelent), and another for US. This could be the Nokia 6190.
You could add an analoge module to the 6190 allowing you to roam in on some
analoge networks. The charger and batteries for the 6190 and the 6150 are
the same. They both can use the same SIM-card. Or you could have an UK
SIM-card and f.instance an Omnipoint SIM-card. Having two different
SIM-cards, would give you a higher probability that you will have roaming
service. DO NOT BUY the 6190 from Omnipoint. They will fool you by not
giving you the security code for the handset, so the handset is locked to
their SIM-card.

>     (2) I'll be based in the UK for most of the fall, so a
>         carrier/plan there would probably make sense, but I
>         expect to be calling the US a fair amount.

Unfortunately you have to check plans for the different providers. Check
their roaming agreement list.

Look at http://www.gsmworld.com/gsminfo/gsminfo.htm to determine
coverage. Under UK and USA or any other country you can look at the
different carriers, and even contact them.

------------------------------

From: blw1540@aol.comxxnospam (Bruce Wilson)
Date: 05 Sep 1999 15:13:58 GMT
Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com
Subject: Re: Tracing Hang Up Calls From "Out of Area"?


My wife's become increasingly upset (and suspicious of what I might be
doing behind her back) by the frequency of hang-up calls at home
during the day.  I suggested using *69 to trace them, but she says
"The number dialed cannot be reached."  (We don't have caller ID.)

It's been at least a year ago now that she got calls from an ex-
husband of many years before; and *69 produced the same result.  This
was apparently because he was calling long-distance from another state
(which I suspected after using switchboard.com, his name being
somewhat unique, and finding a listing in southeast Missouri).

Although I don't know why they'd place the calls then hang up, I
suspect the hangups she's now getting during the day might be out of
area telemarketing calls.

How much might it cost (and is it even possible) to skip caller ID and
go straight to ANI at home?  :-)


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I may be wrong and will stand corrected
if I am, but I believe your only absolute entitlement to ANI comes
when you are paying for te calls, ie. the calls arrive on an 800 
number. If you have an 800 number, you are entitled to ANI both in the
form of a monthly printout of same with your phone bill, and/or 'real
time' ANI when the number is delivered with each call perhaps on a
caller-id display box. 

I think what you would have to do therefore is get an 800 number from
a carrier who is equipped to provide real-time ANI -- and it won't
be an inexpensive proposition -- have that line turned on, then have
your existing number automaically forwarded to the 800 number. If
you simply have your existing number intercepted with an announcement
that 'calls are being taken by 800-xxx-xxxx' my thinking is that
certain people may grow suspicious and not call. You do not want that;
you want to quietly lure them into calling and exposing themselves
to you. You will not be able to get an 800 number which merely forwards
or translates into your existing number (which is mostly how it is 
done now-days) because your *existing* number hasto be forwarded to
the 800 number ... and having each of them point at the other will
result in problems. Probably you should get a dedicated line for the
800 number with a display unit, etc. 

But the short answer to this is I do not think you have a guarentee
of identification of the calling number unless you are paying for the
call, and even then, the ANI could simply point to a payphone at
a gas station along the highway somewhere.

An alternative is you can force the telco to place a 'trap' on your
lne subject to some stringent requirements. Telco does not wish to
be placed in the position of being your private detective agency.
They do not like getting sued on privacy violations, etc. If you
wish to press criminal charges, you can fill out a form that most
telcos use in which you agree as follows, (1) that results from the
trap are turned over to the police or prosecutor in your area. You
do not get to see the results first; and must obtain the information
on the trap results from the police. (2) You promise to prosecute
the caller, and **you have to agree to prosecute prior to seeing the
results**. Now that can get awkward, as I am sure you can understand.
Maybe based on the results, you do not want police to be involved,
and the police/prosecutor says, well fine, they do not like being 
in the trick-bag either, faced with the same problem telco gets into
revealing information about phone calls, etc. My advice would be if
you are not dealing with or interested in criminal prosecution of
the harassing caller to go with plan one: calls inbound on an 800
number and you getting the results, but it might get expensive and
might wind up giving you little or no new information at all.  PAT]

------------------------------

From: tls@panix.com (Thor Lancelot Simon)
Subject: Re: Tracing Hang Up Calls From "Out of Area"?
Date: 5 Sep 1999 13:31:00 -0400
Organization: PANIX -- Public Access Networks Corp.
Reply-To: tls@rek.tjls.com


In article <telecom19.375.6@telecom-digest.org>, Ed Ellers
<ed_ellers@msn.com> wrote:

> Someone describing themselves as "Hung up on in Hanover" wrote:

> "I'm getting about one hang up a day now and the RBOC says that there
> is no way that they can trace the calls to find out who is making
> them. Is this true? I'm sure the telemarketer's are using a outbound
> wats line or ISDN or T1/3 or something and not sending CID info on
> purpose."

> Callers don't send CID info -- the originating central office does
> that.  My suspicion is that these boiler rooms have T1s *direct to
> their IXC* for their WATS lines, making caller ID or ANI difficult
> since the leased lines wouldn't have phone numbers associated with
> them. (If they had local CO lines they'd have phone numbers for each

There's still ANI, which provides the BTN or "billing telephone
number" associated with the call.  The call won't be routed between
telephone carriers if there's no ANI, and probably won't even be able
to be routed within a single telco's network.

So, basically, whoever said they couldn't trace the calls was lyng to
you.  The _can_, they just don't _want to_.  I suggest you involve law
enforcement, and/or file a complaint with your state regulator
regarding the telco's dishonest response.


Thor Lancelot Simon	                        tls@rek.tjls.com
	"And where do all these highways go, now that we are free?"


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: See my reply above to Bruce Wilson.
Yes, you can get law enforcement involved,  and in doing so, you
force telco's hand and get them involved also with a trap placed
on your line to register incoming calls, etc. Where this can
occassionally go sour is that you have to agree in writing to
prosecute first, **regardless of the trap results and before you
are even entitled to know the results of the trap**.  Now if the
trap results show that ex-spouse is charting your whereabouts each
day so s/he can show up at your home in the middle of the night
and kill you all while you are in bed asleep, then yes, I think
you would want to get the police involved and see what they think
about all that. On the other hand, what if it is merely a neighbor
with a minor grudge, or a child you know or who perhaps is related
to you? Or someone you consider a close friend but who has some 
sort of mental illness or delusion or fantasy or whatever; the kind
of person you would prefer to deal with quietly on your own. Police
don't have options available like that. If you get a trap put on
your line, both telco and police will strongly warn you, "DO NOT
DISCUSS THIS WITH ANYONE."  You do not tell your wif, or the rest
of your family. You certainly do not tell your neighbors, the
people at your church or the people where you work. NO ONE is to
know that a trap is in place, lest the person you think least likely
to be the offender is warned and stays away. 

Then after a day or three, the police tell you they have the results
and would you please come in and sign off on the prosecution, in 
order that you might learn the identity of the person involved. If
you are lucky, it was 'merely' some ex-spouse ax-murderer who planned
on sneaking into your home that night while you were asleep ... but
sadly, more often than not it was a young child who had been repri-
manded by an adult neighbor or his school teacher, or who thought
that sort of prank would be funny. Or perhaps it is a co-worker who
has designs on you and chooses to harass your family members. Or a
spouse who wants to see what the other spouse is up to while they 
are gone, or a lover, or a significant other, or an in-law or a
nosy neighbor. Statistics in the past have shown that most harrassing
phone calls are not chosen at random by picking a phone number and
calling over and over; they are the effort of someone who knows you
in one capacity or another. That's the problem with 'getting law-
enforcement involved'  as you suggest. Once 'involved', you may not
like the direction things move in. 

Tracing on an inter-telco, even an international basis, are quite
possible if the right people at telco are motivated to handle it.
Should I reprint here the repor I gave a few years ago of the fellow
in Chicago who plagued the staff of Buckingham Palace with obscene
calls for a couple weeks before efforts of British Tel, AT&T and
Illinois Bell finally brought his fantasy to a screeching halt?  PAT]

------------------------------

From: Todd E. Toles <toddt@toles.com>
Subject: Re: Teletype Plant Torn Down
Date: Sun, 5 Sep 1999 09:21:32 -0500


lwinson@bbs.cpcn.com (L. Winson) wrote:

>> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The 'hammer and anvil chorus' was a
>> very familiar sound also to te people who worked in or visited a
>> Western Union public office. Most WUTCO public offices were gone by
>> the middle or late 1960's in favor of having customers call in their
>> telegraph messages over the phone to a central location.

> The last time I was in Chicago, a few years ago, I passed a Western
> Union building downtown, across from the La Salle Street commuter
> railroad terminal (the new one.)  There was a public office open in
> the lobby (protected by heavy thick glass).  I wonder if it's still
> there.

Nope.  The former WU building is now home to a bunch of internet-related
companies and CLECs.  It's been remodeled and IMHO is very nice looking now.
I *THINK* there is still a WU office in another building in the area.

> The public office at 427 South Lasalle was opulence to the extreme.
> Elegant marble counters, marble writing desks where the customer would
> be seated to compose the message he would take over to the clerk;
> large highback leather chairs in the carpeted waiting area where you
> could sit if you were expecting a telegram; brass spitoons and huge
> glass ashtrays always clean; a very high vaulted ceiling with elegant
> glass globes for lighting; ceiling fans always spinning sort of
> slowly keeping the room at a nice temperature, and of course at least
> one Western Union clock in each office. The din from the machines was
> always present except rarely for a few seconds of total silence once
> or twice a day perhaps at irregular intervals.

This is all gone.  The lobby area for 427 South LaSalle is has been
restored though.

------------------------------

End of TELECOM Digest V19 #376
******************************

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