Beyond FTS2000: A Program for Change Appendix A -- FTS2000 Case Study (1989) / Chapter Skim
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1 History of the Federal Telecommunications System
1 History of the Federal Telecommunications System
Pages 1-9
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federal government began formulating plans for a single telecommunications network capable of handling its day-to-day administrative needs as well as the emergency requirements of all civilian agencies. This network was to be a dedicated switched service through which the civilian (as opposed to military)
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The original cities served by the Phase I system were: Seattle Minneapolis Portland Des Moines Berkeley Omaha San Francisco Kansas City Oakland Oklahoma City Sacramento Fort Worth Los Angeles Dallas San Diego Houston Phoenix Denver Milwaukee Chicago Indianapolis St. Louis Louisville Nashville Memphis Birmingham New Orleans Detroit Cleveland Pittsburgh Columbus Cincinnati Atlanta Boston Newark New York Philadelphia Baltimore Washington Richmond Jacksonville Miami Even as Phase I was being placed in service, plans for Phase II were being made to expand the network to serve 8,000 government locations in 350 cities.
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THE FTS BY 1980 By 1980 the FTS intercity network served the contiguous United States, Alaska, Puerto Rico, Hawaii, the Virgin Islands, and Guam. final network had 52 major switching centers (rather than the 60 planned)
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Louis and intermediate points. This subsequently led to other milestone decisions favoring new entrants into the field of providing private line services (the Specialized Common Carrier Decision of 1971 and the Domestic Satellite Decision of 1972)
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Telecommunications managers also reported to a different part of an agency from ADP, usually reporting up the administrative services chain together with space management, buying of supplies, and personnel management rather than in any kind of technical infrastructure. However, no matter how ill-prepared technically or managerially agencies were, the problem quickly escalated through the budget process from telecommunications managers eventually to assistant secretaries-perhaps for the first time that anyone at that level had even heard of telecommunications.
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As the circuits were implemented, the resulting costs averaged a 20 percent reduction under the original AT&T prices on a total of just over 10 percent of the total network costs. SATELLITE CIRCUITS PROVIDE A HARD LESSON At the same time that competition for terrestrial circuits was pursued, circuits using communications satellites were tried on a pilot basis between Washington, D.C., and San Francisco.
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With the satellite circuit experience, it became apparent that the GSA technical organization was weak and that, while the organization may have been sufficient to operate with AT&T as a monopoly provider, it did not yet have the capability to manage complicated technology or major change (Note 10~. Attempts to manage the satellite problem also highlighted that GSA's technical priorities did not mesh with the problems being faced, nor did GSA have the necessary systems and structures in place to deal with challenges of the newly deregulated and coming divesture world.
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Cost cutting by buying components competitively could only be an effort to extend the system life slightly until the overall problem of how to replace the network was resolved. The main value of the cost cutting program was, in fact, the experience it gave GSA in conducting competitive procurements, dealing with the emerging telecommunications industry and regulatory environment, and testing where their own strengths and weaknesses lay.
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These initiatives led in subsequent years to: exploring the elimination of the topmost level of the network switching hierarchy; competitive procurement of tariffed tandem switching; implementation of a trouble handling system for quality control and improved customer relations; evaluation of handling off-net calls at the head end of the network rather than the tail end; moving network trunks and access lines to T-1 lines where economical and available; and reconfiguration of off-net egress under Feature Group A (Feature Group A tariff increases dominated FY 1985 and FY 1986 to an extent even greater than the original Telpak demise in 1981)
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