Re: Bell Divestiture

One thing the pre-divestiture Bell System did well was to

1) Set specific, quantitative numerical standards for quality and reliability of service, and publish them internally. [E.g., how many service outages per year a residential customer could expect to experience and for how long; the average number of rings a customer would have to wait before a service or inquiry call was answered; and so on.] [I was once told that the standard for service outages, for example, said that no residential customer should be without dial tone for more than 18 minutes/year for any reasons under Bell System control (including for example line losses due to failure to trim tree limbs regularly).]

2) Then actually **measure**, record, and monitor their own performance (i.e., the performance of individual LBOCs) to these standards.

3) And finally, actually respond when their performance was below standard.

I once asked a Bell Labs old-timer, "So, did the career advancement of a local Bell company manager actually depend in any way on their performance against these standards?" Answer was, "You bet it did!!!".

Interesting to ask your current electrical power provider, for example, what their **published, quantitative standards** for power service outages are?

Or ask your airline frequent flyer plan when you call in seeking award seats what their published, quantitative standards are for providing you an award seat on the day you want to go.

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