Re: A Couple Points From Recent Discussions

Not all Centrex systems required consoles.

Actually, you did not need anything special for the attendant's console or even an attendant for the later Centrex generation, since Centrex II was an automated system. You could (and I believe some indeed did) have a plain telephone set as the general listed number, and simply transfer calls via hookswitch flash. Actually, you didn't need to have a general listed number at all. It depended on what level of customer service you wished to provide. There were organizations that were satellite offices and if you didn't know the listed number for a particular person, you probably didn't want to call the satellite office in the first place. IMHO, good business requires that an attendant be available to assist callers who may have lost a number as well as internal needs.

In old time dial PBXs, while many extensions were disabled from dialing 9 for an outside line, I believe any extension could dial 0 for the PBX attendant. Presumably an executive could get an outside call placed or in an emergency the attedant would connect to the police, fire, and/or rescue.

However in modern systems, there may be no attendant at all, and disabled phones merely give a fast busy if one attempts to dial 9 or

The usefulness of such phones in an emergency seems rather questionable.

[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But in small towns like ours, as > generally economically depressed as our town, and losing in > population, jobs, etc, the city fathers look at Walmart and think > it means a Savior has come to rescue the place.

This is a good point. For _some_ places, a Walmart is good because it is better than the alternatives, which are nothing.

Also, from the customer's point of view, whether we like them or not, the big chains do offer more hours, products, and lower prices.

I tried to support the independently owned drugstores in my town until they closed. But I must admit the chain (CVS) is more convenient for me since it is open much longer hours than the private drugstores could be. It also has a much greater selection of sundry items than the private stores. However, prices are the same, the CVS is not a discount store.

What bothers me now is that the big drugstore chains are merging together among themselves. So while we'd have a little competition from say CVS, Thrift/Eckert, and RiteAid, the numbers are declining due to buy outs. To me that is anti trust and should not be allowed.