Last month, I discussed two separate, but tightly coupled, telecommunications issues: 1. What seemed to me to be Southwestern Bell's attempts to differentiate--and charge accordingly--between voice and data traveling across the phone lines; and 2. the phone company's efforts to charge BBS operators business rates, not residential rates, for BBSs running out of their homes.
Southwestern Bell hoped to get its online cash registers ringing by filing a petition with the Missouri Public Services Commission to phase out "information terminal services," while phasing in more stringent residential/business rate guidelines. I wasn't alone in interpreting the phone company's action in this way. Martha Hogerty, public counsel representing Missouri consumers, told the Kansas City Star, "This looks like anybody with a modem would have to be on a business rate." A few days after we went to press with our February issue, however, Southwestern Bell withdrew the petition, citing consumer confusion; BBS operators say it was because of public outcry. In any event, both issues have been put on hold, although they're far from resolved.
In a related matter, the Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs) have launched newspaper and radio ads professing that if they can't pursue new nonbasic telephone ventures (such as information services), the health and well-being of children in rural Montana will be in jeopardy. (Okay, the gist of the ad is that a naked baby, suffering from a rare blood disease, can't get up-to-date medical care in Montana, but can be saved by a RBOC-developed interactive information system that will enable specialists in Pittsburgh to supervise the work of GPs in Montana. Of course, the ad ignores alternative technological breakthroughs--such as airplanes that could fly the child to Pittsburgh.)
If you really want evidence of the RBOC's benevolence, check with St. Louis resident Barbara Clements. Barbara, who has cerebral palsy, runs a BBS that's become her chief means of communicating with the world beyond her walls. "Six years ago, before I got my modem," she told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, "I was a total hermit." By charging business rates instead of residential rates for her BBS, Southwestern Bell will force Barbara to shut down the system, isolating her once again. (Note that the RBOC's Montana infant is allegorical; Barbara isn't.)
In his July and August 1991 "Programming Paradigms" columns, Michael Swaine presented an interview with Bob Jervis, developer of Wizard C, the precursor to Borland's Turbo C. In their conversation, Jervis briefly discussed his new C-like language. Michael entitled the columns "The Language Without a Name" because at the time, Jervis hadn't settled on a name for it. He now has.
Jervis calls the language "Parasol," short for "Parallel Systems Object Language," and he's written about it in a multipart article in the December 1991 Journal of C Language Translation (2051 Swans Neck Way, Reston, VA 22091, phone 703-860-0091 or Internet jct@aussie.com).
In September 1991, I wrote about upcoming changes in the allocation of the radio spectrum. (See also the letter on page 12 of this issue from Henry Crawford, who attended the FCC hearings.)
The most recent development is that the FCC has proposed changes in how the spectrum might be reallocated. In the proposal, new spectrum users would buy spectrum space from existing users as well as paying the costs of existing users moving to new frequencies or wired networks.
The $64 question is, which frequencies will be reallocated--and who gets them. The FCC is proposing that the existing users be from the public service sector--police and fire departments, electric utilities, railroads, and the like. Presumably, these agencies would move to higher-frequency, shorter-range spectrum areas.
In any event, the FCC will be receiving comments over the next few months before drafting its final rule. As reader Crawford says, now is your chance to have a say in shaping the future. The next opportunity may be a long time coming.
And finally, the New Year was scarcely underway when we got the sad news that computer science pioneer Grace Hopper passed away. During her long career, Hopper was known as "the first lady of software," "Amazing Grace," and (more formally) "Rear Admiral Hopper."
Adm. Hopper, who is credited as being the codeveloper of COBOL, began her programming career during World War II at Harvard, where she learned to code on the Mark I, the first large-scale digital computer. She is also credited with leading the team that coined the term "bug" to describe program bloopers. (The first "bug" was, in fact, just that--a large moth that found its way into the Mark I's circuitry.) The most recent of Hopper's many awards was a National Medal of Technology bestowed on her by President Bush last fall.
Copyright © 1992, Dr. Dobb's JournalThe Language Without a Name Gets a Name
The FCC Makes its Proposal
Grace Hopper, R.I.P.