Reader response to "Bauhaus telephony"

In response to last week’s column soliciting suggestions for masterpieces of network architectures, readers came up with the following...

Jim Barry from Stamford offers these suggestions:

• "The telephone dial. Although superseded by the touch-tone pad, it is still in general use with the original basic design for close to 100 years.
• "The Distributing Frame. Holds all of those twisted pairs in some chaotic sense of order.
• "The terminal  box. Permitting flexibility of cabled pairs for over 100 years.
• "The dialing plan. With its growth from 'Central' and 'Number Please' to named exchanges like BUtterfield 8, then all 7 digits, then area codes and 011, this masterpiece is in its twilight years, about to be usurped by non-geographic, non-descriptive boring IP addresses."

David Taylor said: "Thanks for the great articles. Your perspective always provides interesting, enjoyable reading. I particularly enjoyed the 'Ludwig Mies van der Rohe' commentary, because it inspired me to consider the aesthetic success of telecom's treasures in a new light. I think you'll find that an appreciation of architectural elements is based on personal taste meaning that every element will have its supporters and its detractors. I submit for your consideration both perspectives of a major telecom system: The Number Portability Administration Center Service Management System (NPAC SMS).

"The NPAC SMS was deployed to keep routing information in the PSTN synchronized when consumers change service providers and keep their telephone numbers. The NPAC SMS is well conceived (looks good on paper). It is a two-tier system featuring upstream (ordering) and downstream (network synchronization) gateways providing access to a centralized database system that stores telephone number routing information. NPAC SMS implementation was made very difficult by decisions the industry made during the planning stages. Specifically, the industry decided to use CMISE as the protocol for communicating with the NPAC SMS. Most technologists will tell you that CMISE is a bad choice for a transaction-based interface.

"The working version of the NPAC SMS proves that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  If you are an incumbent local telephone company you think the NPAC SMS is a thing of beauty because it makes the companies competing for your business suffer to implement the difficult interfaces before they can win your customers.  A few software companies will agree the NPAC SMS is a thing of beauty because it gave them a competitive advantage in the implementation of the upstream and downstream gateways.  I have a great appreciation of this perspective because I am a co-patent holder of software that implements these gateway systems.  Of course, competitive local exchange carriers think the NPAC SMS is one of the ugliest nightmares they have ever witnessed.  They will tell you that the NPAC SMS doesn't need a bust to commemorate it - it is a bust!

"The NPAC SMS, like a traditional structure, is functional and serves a purpose. And like a traditional structure, judgment of the aesthetic success of the NPAC SMS depends on an individual's perspective.

"Thanks again for the thought-provoking article."

Suggestions from Stephen Yadre (possibly after a dash of purple haze):

• "Ludwig drums
• "My beautiful daughter (TM: never seen her, but I’m sure you’re right)
• "The SR71 (TM: assuming he means the spy plane and not the Baltimore/Washington based rock band or the Felt racing bike)
• "Jimi Hendrix's 'Little Wing' (TM: absolutely)
• "'GoodFellas'
• "A well-made sausage and peppers her
• "Sophia Loren"

Bobby Hughes suggests:  "The telephone handset. Or maybe the curly cord that connects the handset. Both have been around for years, and sure beat yelling into a mouthpiece attached to the phone!"

Luis Aguilar offers these wireless masterpieces:

• "Microwave, Radio Communications (limitless bandwidth)
• "Radio (satellite, say goodbye to commercials)
• "HDTV over air
• "Infrared/remote control (aaaah, the easy chair)
• "Wireless networking (no more cable pulls/runs)
• "The fax machine (what a way to get teleported)
• "The modem (what a beautiful converter)"

Mr. Slama says: "I believe the greatest single event is : Robert Metcalfe, inventor of Ethernet."

And David Dittemore offered this:  "As my supervisor at the time, E.C. Anderson, said back in the late 70's, T-1 carrier was a great technological leap, because for the first time cost was reduced and transmission and reliability improved, where before there was always a trade-off.  The choice of 24-channels of course (TM: of course!) came from the previous technology of N-3 carrier, since all our trunk groups were sized in that format. But the T-1 is still the building block of all digital technology."