A few ideas for America - and a COswitch Alan Smith, Esq., had an occasion to call 911 from his home. Coming from a family where medical issues are discussed with at least one doctor at the table - Alan knew something was wrong when police in full combat gear were first in through the door. They ordered him on the floor. They inspected the premises. Then advised the medics that it was OK to tend to Alan who was getting closer to his feared demise. In thinking about this it makes sense. Too many 911 calls have resulted in emergency people being assaulted for drugs or other factors. So, the cops with heavy hands may be first in the door. Nice to know. Big time 911 Chuck believes that every airliner should have a clip-on stun gun taser device over every seat. Anyone who acts up would get hit by a half dozen high voltage impact probes. So hit, the person would fall to the floor from the electric shock. Tie wraps would be available to bind the bad guy(s) while the crew decides what to do next. Release from liability would be automatic and anyone who pulled the taser down and fired in anger or fun would go directly to jail without passing go. On the other hand, I think anyone who has a license to carry a gun could (if they wanted to) go through a training course and be made a volunteer assistant Air Marshall. And carry while on the plane. The bad guys would be nailed and the shooters awarded as good guys doing their duty as a US Marshall. And it goes without saying that like the captain on ocean going ships - pilots should be armed. They would look to see that all is OK before opening the door. There's only one problem, though - how to go potty? And consider the Coast Guard. They know most ocean-going small boats carry a gun - say a shot-gun. The first thing said by every Coasty who boards small boats at sea is: "Where is the gun?" Taqua I've mentioned the field trial of a new generation CO switch from Taqua. We've been evaluating it in Ibapah, Utah, for a couple of months now. The hardware is doing the job. It's a great switch. This report is six weeks old, but as of today we wonder why remote access to the switch is maxed out at under 19K? Doug routed a DS0 off the carrier to the old switch. That permits routing direct to the Taqua processor port at close to 56K! Then there is a problem with supervision and the sending of ANI in a feature group C format. On FGD it works OK, but FGC won't send ANI until it sees answer supervision. So the called party answers the phone and hears the ANI. In the meantime we built a software patch to make the system work. Timing of calls is close, but not accurate. By now this should be solved. When Taqua gets all the bugs out - I'm going to buy nine more. In the meantime, we are keeping the old switch hot and won't shut it down until later. Emergency Monday 5 a.m., adjacent to I-80, 10 miles east of the Utah-Nevada state line. Some 266 folks were riding Amtrak to get to California on day two of the airlines being shut down. As the Union Pacific system controllers in Omaha routed a freight train to a side track, the passenger train did not slow down enough. Crash. Every car on the Amtrak derailed. Both locomotives were on fire and laying nearly crossways to the tracks. Local school busses were used to haul the folks to the Wendover Community Center. No phones. Mutiny. Although not my service area, four of my Beehive Telephone guys installed two phones off our tandem, and we gave free LD calls all day.   Copyright 2001 by A. W. Brothers and Americas Network magazine. All rights reserved.   © Beehive Telephone Co.