THE RICKETY HORSE

Version française

When discussing corporate telecommunications, people like to refer to the feats of various pioneers. This has its uses. In this day and age, as we move from simple telephony to multi-service telecommunications, possibilities continue to expand. It is therefore interesting to consider the accomplishments of those at the forefront of the science who dare to experiment.

However, this approach can also be discouraging. He who compares exemplary accomplishments to the telecommunications in his own company, which he considers pitiful, may end up feeling that his case is extreme and his company too far behind the pioneers to catch up.

We will therefore take a different approach by describing the telecommunications industry’s version of the "rickety horse", pictured in. some encyclopedias. The poor animal is depicted with every possible defect. It is surrounded with arrows indicating its swayback, bandy legs, drooping lips, shabby tail and general dilapidation. Similarly, to describe an imaginary company ("any resemblance to an existing company, past or present, is only coincidental"), we will list here some of the practical defects that can be found, giving free rein to the art of caricature.

Our caricature will be followed by a Gustave Flaubert-style "glossary" of industry hearsay, with the most common and frequently regurgitated misinterpretations and comments heard on the subject of telecommunications. You may have others to add from your own experience.

My ambitions are modest: the purpose is to demonstrate, from a humoristic angle, some of the major blunders that can be encountered. My hope is that it will be of some use. We all know that in medieval churches the frescoes of Hell are fascinating while those of Heaven tend to be terribly boring...

A Large Company

It would be all too easy to consider a small company with the excuse of limited resources and information. Our rickety horse will therefore be a service company with several thousand employees in twenty or more locations scattered around France. It has several computer centres to which the locations are all linked by leased line or through Transpac (the French X25 network). The branches all use more or less modern PBX’s (Private Branch Exchange). The overall telecommunications bill, including Transpac, comes to a two-digit multiple of million French francs per year.

Unknown Traffic

However, the company does not know the breakdown of this bill or even its total amount. In fact, the data transmission services are managed by the IT department which is the only department aware of the costs generated by leased line or Transpac use. In addition, since the head office building is owned by the major shareholder, the telecom department of this shareholder jealously reserves for him all information on PBX-generated traffic (there is no guarantee, for that matter, that they even prepare the information) and the related telephone bill. The company’s telecom department is therefore unaware of each branch’s telecommunications costs.

Position of the Telecom Department

Poor telecom department! It is run by two competent engineers who do everything to stay abreast, but the company also employs a number of "Polytechnique", "Sup-elec" and other top French engineering school graduates, while the telecom department engineers are graduates of less prestigious schools. What is more, they are stuck in the middle of the building department. How can they possibly have any credibility and leverage with the company’s management?

Management’s ignorance in telecommunications is notorious and they will never forget the day the Company Secretary asked if Transcom was a new modem!

Everyone in the company treats them like repairmen. They are not expected to have any ideas on the ideal facility but rather to prevent any downtime and keep any breakdowns that might arise to a minimum. They are seen to be obscure technical support engineers versed in an easy science and therefore worthy of little esteem. No one feels the necessity to inform them of department needs to determine the operational specifications of the system.

Choosing PBX’s

When a location’s PBX needs renewal, the telecom department usually fights a losing battle. Traditionally, it was the regional manager who chose the equipment and he had tight budget restrictions. The telecom department tried to orientate the company into multi-service PBX’s, but the regional manager almost always opts for the cheapest bid over the one offering the best value for money.

Basically, the regional manager has no concept of what the word quality means in telecommunications. In addition, he is unable to have the foresight of technical development, which can result in costly adaptations. He may also allow himself to be seduced by the inflation of facilities and place an order on expensive PBX options that no one will ever use.

The result is that the stock of PBX equipment is an incongruous mixture which will almost certainly present problems if a network ever needs to be set up.

Relations with the IT Department

Relations between the telecom and IT departments are strained. The IT department chooses to look down upon telephony, believing religiously in "all X25" or "all leased line". They actually feel contempt for the development of digital switched networks which they consider to be the Trojan horse of PC-based computing that could break away from the centralized organization on which its power depends.

Incidentally, the IT department is undermined by the conflict between a majority who defend centralized organization and a vigorous minority who believe in decentralization. For the time being however, this minority has no voice in the matter. The discussion revolves around one basic issue: for some, all the "intelligence" should reside within the mainframe while for others, the network should be allowed to contain a part of the "intelligence".

Jealous of the information in its network, the IT department has fallen back on the surest method of preventing leaks: it acts as if the information doesn’t exist. As a result, the volume of leased line and Transpac traffic is unknown. Since they only hear from users when they come up against obstacles caused by under-sizing, equipment is all over-sized. Subscription fees, which represent nearly one third of all telecommunication expenses, therefore grossly exceed requirements.

The Computer department wants the different means of communication to remain totally separate. It would not consider using the PBX to access Transpac even if the PBX can switch or concentrate packets. In addition, it prefers to dismiss Numéris (NB : French ISDN) as long as possible, insisting on calling it "experimental", "potential" and so on, undoubtedly hoping to delay integration of the data and telephone services. It has set up an E-mail system that is only accessible from the mainframe and does not want this communication instrument to be opened up to others through a generalized E-mail system.

"Ethical" Telephony

When it comes to the telephone, the regional managers are governed by strict moral standards, considering it a waste of time and money rather than a tool. Under the pretext of saving money and to prevent employees from "abusing" the telephone, most regional managers have instituted discrimination procedures and above all, operator control mechanisms that are more costly than the expenses they supposedly prevent. They are not advised, for example, that the cost of operator hours exceeds the cost of local calls.

They also object to directories for efficient network use on the basis of similar "moral" or sociological reticence. Each location has its own directory which is carefully rationed out and there is no uniform numbering system nor abbreviated number system for inter-location calls. Again, for "ethical" reasons, a number of locations do not have direct dialing in for fear that it would bring on an overload of incoming calls. All incoming calls must therefore go through the switchboard. This only impedes the use of services like the facsimile which work better without human intervention.

Telephony without Organization

People seem to think that telephony is "self-evident", so network budgetary control is improvised, decisions anarchistic and overall consistency coincidental, while the sums of money at stake are considerable. Decisions bend to the rules of optimization "subject to budget constraints" (which is a far cry from straightforward optimization). Any expense will be made if it can be allocated to an "affluent" budget heading but on the contrary, it will be like drawing blood from a stone if the expense is to be allocated to a "tight" budget heading.

The user is expected to cope on his own with unfriendly terminals flashing incomprehensible instructions, again because telephony is self-evident. The result is that facility-use is minimal and the immediate conclusion is that the equipment was useless. The user is thus unaware of the different types of call-forwarding, filtering and grouping.

Operators may be friendly but they are few, poorly trained and their equipment is inefficient. In addition, they are overloaded with work. Outside callers often go through the switchboard since either direct dialing in does not exist or they are unaware of it. They thus have trouble reaching the person they are calling since the telephone system is poorly used. There are few answering machines and no one has heard of vocal messages.

Since outgoing callers have no electronic directory and videotex terminals are rare, the switchboard is often bombarded with questions like "How do I call Spain?". Switchboard hours make it virtually impossible for incoming callers to call anyone in the company after 5:30 p.m. if they do not know the person’s direct line.

Incoming call reception is undoubtedly inefficient, if not off-putting, and a jeopardy to the company’s image.

Under-Utilization of Possibilities

No one is aware of the technical possibilities and advantageous rates offered by the public network: the company uses neither "Trafic +" nor "Colisee", nor even leased telephone lines. It has not even researched these services.

Value added services (E-mail, facsimile, audio- and video- conference calls, electronic filing, Tele monitoring, file transfer between PC’s and so on) are hardly used, either because their cost is overestimated or because they are thought to have a perverse effect on users or even because their existence is not known. If in use, they have been installed only here and there, and by individual initiative, far from the eyes of the decision makers and in disorderly fashion.

Also, several telecommunications applications have social connotations that distort and discourage their use. Take the fax, long considered a prestigious tool reserved for executive secretaries, until someone new decided to give it a friendly face and installed fax machines on every floor next to the drinks machines. This now appears to be the source of useless trips down the hall and wasted time, requiring investigation into the best way to organize this difficult-to-assimilate tool.

Paging is another service with positive or negative connotations depending on the location. It is very "in" to carry a "beeper" at the head office because it makes you look like a top executive, but some plant managers refuse to carry one because it would make them look like security guards.

The PC Tower of Babel

There seems to be a PC epidemic. Soon one out of every three employees will have one. The company is therefore not behind the times in computers, but has not allocated the necessary resources to link these machines, making its microcomputer population a Tower of Babel using incompatible software programs. Enthusiastic and headstrong computer buffs throw themselves into developing original applications programs (which are often redundant) that cannot communicate with each other mainly because their programming languages are different.

This situation constitutes the grounds for a continuous lively debate throughout the company. Some consider it constructive, claiming that a certain amount of disorder and lack of discipline is inevitable - even necessary - during a training period when everyone must learn to master a new tool and use it his own way. On the other hand, others think the disorder would be far more fertile if its foundation were used to make it bear fruit. They state that if it is difficult to impose word processing or spreadsheet compatibility, users should be put face-to-face with the need for such compatibility by setting up a PC network.

The discussion has not yet been lively and interesting enough to solve the problem.

Discrepancy between Ideas and Implementation

This situation typifies a facet of our company. Technical issues are discussed, sometimes bitterly, but decisions do not follow.

The build-up to decisions seems to be a bit odd: everything takes place as if superficial examination followed by rapid discussion could replace research and even experimentation. The company’s discussion of technical matters therefore always needs translation:

When you hear, "we know what electronic documentation is", it does not mean "We have researched this service in depth", but rather, "Mr. So-and-so (one of the company’s managers) read an article on the subject", or even, "Mr. So-and-so saw a demonstration at a trade fair stand and reported back to us about it".

When you hear, "We tried EDI and it doesn’t work", it does not mean "We conducted an experiment using translation protocol that takes size and other effects into account and the results were negative", but rather "We gave it a trial run which was only rapid and superficial so the results were inconclusive."

Crossed Wires

The different branches are cabled individually and anarchistically, when need be. The installer always keeps the manuals for himself, claiming that he "has the answers at the tip of his tongue", so everyone has to go through him for any kind of work.

Every time an additional network is installed (point-to-point links, LAN, modified telephone connections), new cables have to be laid over the old ones. The conduits are saturated and the purpose of the cables in them (most of which are disconnected) is no longer known. It would almost make more sense to spend a fortune on redoing the whole system to improve the network.

There is no guaranteed system upgradability (PBX, cables), particularly into ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network). The cables would not be able to transmit 64 kbit/s, either because their diameter is too small or because their standard is such that they are not protected against electromagnetic interference (especially from the electricity networks), or because there are too many break points. The PBX will need expensive additions when an ISDN is required.

CONCLUSION

Our rickety horse is obviously unrealistic! No company has all these faults at once, but there are many that can identify with parts of the portrait we have drawn.

If a company resembles this animal, how can it sort itself out? In our opinion, there is no other solution than to make a conscious effort to combine expertise with power of decision. Nothing can be done as long the engineers are stripped of any decision-making power.

Think of the achievements so often described, that we have chosen to ignore in this text. Careful study reveals that they all developed from the combined efforts of company management and the technical team in charge of implementation. Often, management had to use the full weight of its authority (and even, at times, its "hatchet") to put through decisions that would go against the habitual grain.

Success is based on the agreement of three company poles: strategic (management), organizational (the "middle management" layer of Department heads) and technical (those who have the know-how in the different areas concerned). These three poles are present everywhere, and with the exception of pathological cases, they all consist of people very eager to achieve. However, getting them to agree on the importance and urgency of progress in telecommunications is another story.

Unlike other living beings, if it wants to, a company can always transform itself to adapt to its environment. In such a case, elimination of the elementary defects we have pointed out is rapid. Then, of course, further improvement is a difficult task. As all transmitters know well, the first decibels are the easiest to reach...

GLOSSARY OF HEARSAY IN TELECOMS

(NB : This kind of glossary quotes genuine comments, which does not mean that their content is truth!)

Computer Science: "I don’t want to hear about telephony. With leased lines and the X25 I have exactly what I need and everything works fine.’, (a computer scientist; see Telephony).: "I don’t want to hear about telephony. With leased lines and the X25 I have exactly what I need and everything works fine.’, (a computer scientist; see Telephony).

Consultants: "All incompetent and the manufacturers are all sold on them. Their studies are all just regurgitated manufacturers’ manuals." (an installer; see Installers).: "All incompetent and the manufacturers are all sold on them. Their studies are all just regurgitated manufacturers’ manuals." (an installer; see Installers).

Directory: "There is no need for a company directory. If people’s telephone numbers are circulated, they will spend all their time on the telephone and never do any work.": "There is no need for a company directory. If people’s telephone numbers are circulated, they will spend all their time on the telephone and never do any work."

Directory (bis): "The unions are against putting an employee’s function after his name in the directory, so what can we do?": "The unions are against putting an employee’s function after his name in the directory, so what can we do?"

Discrimination: "Ever since international direct dialing was removed from non-management telephones, there is a steady stream of people through the department heads’ offices asking to call abroad.": "Ever since international direct dialing was removed from non-management telephones, there is a steady stream of people through the department heads’ offices asking to call abroad."

Electronic Documentation: "The pictures are very pretty but it’s not very professional-looking.": "The pictures are very pretty but it’s not very professional-looking."

Electronic Mail (bis): "If we install an E-mail system we will have to put filters on it, like the telephone, so we won’t be submerged with messages." "If we install an E-mail system we will have to put filters on it, like the telephone, so we won’t be submerged with messages."

Exercise: "People tend to stay holed up in their offices all the time. This is why we do not give them the latest in telecommunications. Without it, they have to get up and out of their offices, walk around and see each other. The exercise is good for them.": "People tend to stay holed up in their offices all the time. This is why we do not give them the latest in telecommunications. Without it, they have to get up and out of their offices, walk around and see each other. The exercise is good for them."

Facsimile: "People already send out memos without any number, signature, date or distribution list. Imagine what it would be like if they had a fax!!": "People already send out memos without any number, signature, date or distribution list. Imagine what it would be like if they had a fax!!"

Facsimile (bis): "You’re not going to go and put fax machines in the plants are you? They should be reserved for managers.": "You’re not going to go and put fax machines in the plants are you? They should be reserved for managers."

Installers: "All incompetent and the manufacturers are all sold on them. Their only interest is selling their equipment and they wire things up any old which way." (a consultant; see Consultants).: "All incompetent and the manufacturers are all sold on them. Their only interest is selling their equipment and they wire things up any old which way." (a consultant; see Consultants).

Instructions: "You have been cut off. Your number can be redialed automatically. Please check the operating instructions." (message recorded on the PBX at a research center specializing in telecommunications).: "You have been cut off. Your number can be redialed automatically. Please check the operating instructions." (message recorded on the PBX at a research center specializing in telecommunications).

Instructions (bis) : "People will never read the instructions and it will be impossible to get them to a training session on telephone usage. Only the secretaries would go. The managers wouldn’t want to look like idiots." : "People will never read the instructions and it will be impossible to get them to a training session on telephone usage. Only the secretaries would go. The managers wouldn’t want to look like idiots."

ISDN: "ISD what??" (a manager of a large company)

ISDN (bis) : "The National Bank told me that there was no ISDN in France because Numéris was not quite the same as ISDN." (a foreign businessman).

ISDN (ter): "What good is ISDN other than for group 4 faxing? I wish some one could tell me!" (an installer).: "What good is ISDN other than for group 4 faxing? I wish some one could tell me!" (an installer).

ISDN (quater) : "I don’t even want to hear the word ISDN. It’s telephony and I’m not interested." (the first computer scientist; see Telephony). : "I don’t even want to hear the word ISDN. It’s telephony and I’m not interested." (the first computer scientist; see Telephony).

Microcomputer: "No manager would ever be caught typing. My secretary is the one who uses a PC. Incidentally, she finds it extremely useful.": "No manager would ever be caught typing. My secretary is the one who uses a PC. Incidentally, she finds it extremely useful."

Microcomputer (bis) : "In my opinion, PC’s should work by themselves. If I don’t understand a machine, there must be something wrong with it." : "In my opinion, PC’s should work by themselves. If I don’t understand a machine, there must be something wrong with it."

Microcomputer (ter) : "Of course PC’s should be made to communicate, but leased lines and the X25 are all I need." (a computer scientist). : "Of course PC’s should be made to communicate, but leased lines and the X25 are all I need." (a computer scientist).

Microcomputer (quater) : "Who needs uniformity? What’s wrong with everyone doing his own thing? A little anarchy never hurt anyone, it’s great!" (a second computer scientist). : "Who needs uniformity? What’s wrong with everyone doing his own thing? A little anarchy never hurt anyone, it’s great!" (a second computer scientist).

Paging: "I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing a ‘beeper’; I wouldn’t want people to think I was the resident fireman.": "I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing a ‘beeper’; I wouldn’t want people to think I was the resident fireman."

Pornographic messages: "We don’t have "Minitel" videotex terminals since people would spend all their time reading the pornographic messages.": "We don’t have "Minitel" videotex terminals since people would spend all their time reading the pornographic messages."

Responsibility: "People have no sense of responsibility. If you don’t make them go through the switchboard, they will spend all their time calling abroad to see if the rest of the family is enjoying their holiday.": "People have no sense of responsibility. If you don’t make them go through the switchboard, they will spend all their time calling abroad to see if the rest of the family is enjoying their holiday."

Supplementary Services: "I’ll try to transfer you."

Telephone Answering Machine: " Answering machines are useless. When I call and get an answering machine, I hang up.": " Answering machines are useless. When I call and get an answering machine, I hang up."