He started outside as an installer, spent about 25 years in the old mechanical switch 4-A, and when it went ESS under AT&T he went back outside with Bellsouth into what was called then Special Services working on data circuits. He retired in about 1992 or so. But the equipment then is pretty much the equipment now. A&T bought Bellsouth in our region. Within a year there were very few Ladderback Unicorns out on the streets and it's starting to show.
One or two guys now cover what about two dozen men used to. The two dozen insured maintenance got done and there was sufficient manpower for major outages. AT&T is in all respects a dysfunctional communications company. The customer service robotic line stinks. You don't get a chance to say "hey you have a cable break".
AT&T is likely fixing to go out of the landline business except for providing trunking service {backbone} to cell companies. If the economy picks up within a year most lines will be wireless. Thus AT&T isn't upgrading anything landline they don't absolutely have to. A few years ago the SLICK that feeds our area would die about once a month. Finally they ended up replacing it and about 3 miles of buried cable. A school being served by the SLICK likely placed a huge factor in that though.
CVA66snipe, first please give your Dad a hug for me and thank him for his years of service. AT & T and the old Bell companies served my family and our country well.
Thank you for sharing his story here. It is quite remarkable and sad what has transpired since then. I don’t understand why in one decade they were sued as being a monopoly, then decades later after being nearly decimated, they returned and became a monopoly again. It all seems like a waste. I’d love to believe that someday years in the future, fiber optics will replace the old cables, yet it seems impossible today that such a big company would ever invest the money again.