Using Magnetic Bubble Memories to Provide Recorded Announcements

In the Bell System, audio recorders and announcement systems are used for a variety of applications to provide customers and operators with information. One group of applications are those associated with calls that cannot be completed. Announcements in this group tell the customer why the call was not completed. Examples of problems explained by these announcements are: non-working numbers, incorrectly dialed calls, damaged equipment and heavy traffic conditions. In general the announcements associated with these conditions are non-revenue producing. These announcements are fairly brief, many lasting only twelve seconds. Another major group of announcements are those which are customer requested. These announcements are longer, often about a minute in length. Examples of these are: the weather, stock market quotations, the news, department store sales, jokes, sports phone, etc. In general this group of announcements are revenue producing. Traditionally, the machines used to provide these announcements have been categorized as being either light-duty or heavy-duty ma1841