User:Billhorne

Bill Horne

Professional Life

Life is funny sometimes: I read in the Board's general info page something to the effect that you had to use Lynx under Sys V to really be on Usenet.

I attended Northeastern University in the early 1980's, and I used Lynx, under Sys V, to read and post to Usenet! I actually maintained an email address at my alma mater until well into the 1990's, when Northeastern retired the "lynx" machine, but if you do a search on bhorne@lynx.dac.neu.edu, you'll come up with lots of posts I made to lots of places.

In other words, I go back so far that we had to write on the disks with a chisel!

I was a technician at New England Telephone & Telegraph Company during the 80's, and I helped to put in the very first "high speed" data lines that ran from M.I.T. to Bolt, Beranek, and Newman in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Those ARPANET links were quite an achievement for their time: they used specially made modems and analog copper-wire connections that were equalized to 50 Kilohertz, which was about three times higher than the "broadcast" lines that were used to carry FM programming from studios to transmitters. The modems and the equalized lines combined to deliver a data transfer speed of 50 Kilo-bits-per-second (50 Kbps).

During my time at N.E.T.&T., I also worked on microwave links used for "R" carrier, and coaxial-cable lines that were used for "L" carrier and TV Video. It's funny, looking back, how incredibly fast the data rates are now compared to then, and how fiber-optic lines have raised the capability of the public network so high that some telephone company switches are no longer needed.

Sic transit technology: the analog circuits and modems and equalizers and test equipment are now in museums, and it has become a digital world.

In the early 1990's, I left the "craft" workforce and transferred to computer programming at NYNEX, which was N.E.T.&T.'s parent company. As a programmer, and then a Systems Analyst, I coded PL/I, COBOL, Assembler, Dialog Manager, and REXX applicaitons in both IMS and DB2 environments, as well as in "Batch" processing chains. I ended that phase of my career in an applicaiton that billed over Six Billion (correct) dollars a year, but I realized (if I do say so myself) that programming would go overseas, and I sought and was selected for a postion in the NYNEX Engineering department.

While an engineer at NYNEX, I worked on several different aspect of the "back room" operations that make the telephone network function:

SS7
E911
800-number portability
Local Number Portability

During that time, I shared responsibility for the E911 network with a partner in New York, and I was also a member of the RFP (Request For Proposal) teams that selected Tekelec, Digital, and other vendors for LNP and similar data-processing tasks.

NYNEX became Bell Atlantic, which became Verizon, and I accepted an early-retirement offer from Verizon in 2002.

The next phase of my career was as an independent consultant: I started William Warren Consulting in 2002, and have kept at it pretty much continuously since then. I'm a Sole Proprietor, and my customers are mostly small firms which hire me to improve their network security.

Personal Life

I've been married to the former Susan Saunders since 1987, and our son Henry is now Twenty-Two: he overcame severe neurological impairments and became an Eagle Scout before choosing a career as a plumber.

My hobby is Ham Radio: I hold an Extra Class Amateur Radio license, and my call sign is W1AC. I'm active on two meters and 70cm, and 80 and 40 as well. I'm currently restoring a Class-E AM transmitter for use on 75 meter phone.

You can see my blog at http://billhorne.com/, and my consultancy's home page is at http://www.william-warren.com/.

Contact info: E. William Horne; 43 Deerfield Road; Sharon MA 02067-2301; 339-364-8487; email bill at horne dot net