Traffic Service Position System No. 1: Busy Line Verification Feature

1.1 The Traffic Service Position System No. The Traffic Service Position System No. 1 (TSPS NO. 1) was introduced into the Bell System in January 1969 to provide operator services more efficiently, to make the telephone operator's job more attractive, and to allow customers to dial many of their own operatorassisted calls.12 This operator services system employs stored program control to automate routine tasks such as recording originating numbers, recording and transmitting called numbers, recording call duration, and determining billing charges. 1397 This automation allows the operator to concentrate on the more complex judgmental tasks involved in communicating with customers. In addition, it results in faster call completion, higher operator efficiency, and more accurate billing. All these characteristics benefit both the customers and the operating companies. Originally, the capital expenditure necessary to provide TSPS service was more easily justified in a large metropolitan area than in a sparsely populated area with a low volume of operator toll traffic. By 1976, however, a means of providing TSPS benefits to small suburban and rural toll centers was developed and introduced into the Bell System. This TSPS subsystem, called the Remote Trunk Arrangement, 3 provides voice trunks and data links that connect the TSPS operators and stored program control to equipment located in remote toll offices. With this development, toll traffic generated over a large geographic area can be handled by a single centralized TSPS controlling up to eight Remote Trunk Arrangements.