THE COMMERCIAL BRANCH, INTERPLEX AND OTC'S NEW YORK OFFICE.
By Tom Barker

When George Maltby established the Commercial Branch, in the 1960's, his intention was to get OTC involved with its customers more closely and to establish a better public recognition of OTC by showing an interest in business customers and learning of any problems which they may have encountered in their international communications. At that time, our closest customers were those businesses which regularly sent telegrams to the overseas offices of their principals, customers or suppliers. These firms usually operated "Four Figure Accounts" which were used to identify the customer to OTC and simplify billings. Many of these customers were moving from telegrams to telex, as OTC's international telex facilities became more efficient and more generally available.

Prior to the opening of the COMPAC cable, telex channels were derived from Hasler TOR equipment, operating on HF radio paths and the circuit switching was performed manually by OTC operators, who supervised each call to ensure satisfactory service delivery. With the opening of the COMPAC and SEACOM cables, telex channels were provided via FMVFT equipment operating over cable voice channels (24 channels per system) which not only provided more reliable services, but at a much lower cost to OTC.

The Australian domestic telex network, provided by the PMG Dept. at that time, was also growing quickly and after subscriber dialling between all Australian subscribers was introduced (using keyboard signalling, rather than rotary dials), the customer take-up was very fast. This presented OTC with an opportunity which had never existed before, to offer its customers an automated service, for which OTC could bill, within the terms of the Overseas Telecommunications Act of 1946. This proved to be the most profitable service which OTC ever offered and was the basis for the its very politically popular Annual Reports and handsome dividends to its shareholder (the Australian Government) over many years. It was also the motivator for OTC to engage in vigorous debates with the PMG Dept and later, Telecom, about the introduction of International Subscriber Dialing for telephone services.

The first stage of OTC's Automatic International Telex service was achieved by a novel use of Siemens and Halske tape reperforators (FRXD's in the S & H language) which monitored each call, recording the answer-backs of the caller and the called number and the time of connection, plus a "MOM" entry at each completed minute of the connection. The tapes from these machines were analysed by OTC Accounts Branch and the customers were billed directly by OTC.

The operating procedure for Australian telex customers was to dial 020, which would connect them to the international telex exchange (at Paddington) which would indicate by signalling "INTLX" that an international number could be called. Such calls had to prefixed with the appropriate country code, which was an opportunity for OTC to produce and distribute customer literature, which provided operating instructions, country codes and rates for OTC telex services. These booklets were not mailed out to customers, but hand-delivered by OTC Commercial Branch representatives, who used the opportunity to establish a relationship with the customer and arrange for future regular visits to enquire about service related matters.

The first stage of this program was the opening of twenty automatic telex circuits to London and the customer response was so good that it was necessary to embark on a major engineering program, to meet the demand. From my (imperfect) memory Ross Beaumont was the engineer who carried that first project, but it lead to the acquisition of the first international telex exchange with toll ticketing.

Once established, the automatic telex service became a vehicle for OTC to involve itself in customer service matters in a way which was never possible before. One of the things which developed out of that involvement was the realisation that OTC was being out-smarted by a competitor. With the benefit of detailed customer billings, which identified all international telex calls, Commercial Branch staff were able to identify customers who were making many calls to the same number, on a regular basis, which would justify their leasing a private line service to that particular overseas destination, which was often the office of their principals. International Private Lines were almost invariably "sub-speed" telegraph circuits, at that time, a normal 50 baud (66 wpm) telex circuit being divided into four "quarter-speed" circuits by Hasler equipment. OTC staff would analyse customer billings over several months, and prepare a written analysis for the customer's information. This would be followed up by a sales proposal, which would cost-justify the customer leasing a private line to his most frequently called destination. OTC Commercial Branch Staff took this work very seriously and there was good-natured competition between staff, to achieve the best sales figures. It was at this point that we would often become aware that the customer was installing a private line, not to London or New York, or where-ever his main overseas correspondent was, but to Hong Kong. The customer would use this line to transmit all his overseas telex traffic, not just to London or Hong Kong, but to everywhere.

OTC had become the unwitting victim of the Cable and Wireless MSC (Message Switching Centre) in Hong Kong, a battery of Univac 418 mainframe computers, engineered to handle private telegraph networks, customised to the needs of each individual company. Such systems and services were being offered by many international carriers, at that time, but the C & W MSC had embarked upon a campaign to target Australian telex customers, probably because they knew that OTC did not have this capability. It was apparent that OTC would continue to lose business this way, unless it had a computer-based message switching system to offer its customers, so that a network of private lines, connecting to every major office of any corporation around the world, could communicate, via the Sydney-based switch. This entailed selling the service, not just to our Australian customers, but to the corporations (usually multi-national) whose headquarters could be based anywhere in the world.

After OTC management were made aware of the competitive disadvantage that OTC was suffering, in this situation, it was decided to install a message switching centre for private line networks and it was to be called Interplex. At first the Interplex system comprised a number of small, stand-alone computer systems, allocated on a one-per-customer basis, but this arrangement proved too inflexible to meet all our customer needs, so an arrangement of General Automation (GA16/64) mini-computers, called "Mini-Plus" systems, was installed at Paddington, and these were capable of meeting a much wider range of customer requirements.

From that time on, the competition between OTC's Interplex service and the C & W MSC was very keen. We won some very good accounts and we lost some important ones to our competitors. It was an area of OTC's business which was truly engaged in competition for business with an aggressive alternative supplier, an unfamiliar scenario for many who had spent their entire careers employed in monopoly carrier situations.

One of the facts which became apparent to those of us engaged in this business, was that 45% of OTC's corporate business was with companies based in the USA. We began to participate in International Telecom Expos, (such as the ICA) in the U.S and we soon realised that OTC needed to have a permanent presence in the U.S. if we were to succeed in this area of business. At that time, OTC management was not enthusiastic about having a representative office in another country, to talk to customers, because there was a mindset that OTC was a monopoly and didn't need to compete for business. Fortunately this did not apply to people like George Maltby, who took the proposal to establish an office in New York, to the board a number of times, before finally gaining approval, in 1984.

The proviso which we were obliged to work with, was that no capital expenditure could be made, so everything had to be leased (presumably so we would not have to write anything off if the venture failed). I walked the streets of New York, trying to find somewhere to hang up OTC's shingle, and finally took a space in a serviced office business, located in Fifth Avenue, near the Rockefeller Center. I was assisted in the task of setting up this office by some good friends in British Telecom International, who were setting up their own New York office at that time, a much more elaborate, permanent and impressive affair than OTC's modest presence.

This being OTC's first overseas-based office, a number of things had to be considered which were unprecedented in its experience. One important detail was the selection of staff and the length of their terms in that post. I decided that three years was probably the most sensible term length, as it takes some time to become accustomed to working in a foreign country and also time to prepare for ones return home, so three years would allow a useful time in the job, once settled in. Trevor Duff was selected to fill the Manager position and Ravi Bahtia his assistant.

For our official opening, George Maltby prevailed upon an old friend, the Australian Ambassador to the United States, Sir Robert Cotton, KCMG, to officiate, and George selected the Waldorf Astoria as the venue. Our OTC PR section arranged for a New York firm to set up the location (the Ballroom) and the catering for the event. Inviting Sir Robert to officiate was a masterstroke. Although Americans are proud not to be part of the British Empire (or what's left of it) they salivate at the presence of Royalty or British Nobles. Their responses to our invitations were overwhelming. On the night of the event we were blown away by the number of industry leaders who attended. It was a stunning success. For me, the two biggest thrills were when I talked for some time to Warren Buffet (about his buying Western Union Telegraph) and when Mike Ford, the head of British Telecom International, said to me (very quietly) "You beat us, Tom". They had held their New York Office official opening a week before us and we both knew that what Mike said was true.

The opening of the NewYork office not only gave OTC a permanent presence in the USA, which was appreciated immediately by our many corporate customers and US correspondent carriers. It made possible the scheduling of regular visits to them and also set the stage for the opening of OTC representative offices in London and Wellington shortly afterwards, which were to be followed by others in Japan and Vietnam, etc, in the years that followed.

The serviced office facility which we leased in Fifth Avenue served as OTC's office for nearly two years, by which time any doubts about the success of the project were long gone and Trevor Duff was able to move to a much nicer and better equipped facility in the main street of White Plains, outside Manhattan, but located very conveniently to many of our customers and US correspondent carriers and much cheaper than a downtown Manhattan location.

As fate later destined (unexpectedly), I was to spend the last two years of my OTC career in that office and I was able to observe, first hand, the advantages of being in a position to deal with issues which were important to OTC's business, in the same time-frame as those people with whom we were dealing.

Sadly, a number of OTC's corporate customers were located in the World Trade Center twin towers and we would spend many days in meetings there, with those people, so it was horrifying to witness the destruction of those towers, on television, from my home in Australia, many years later and to hear the stories of friends who lost members of their families in that tragedy.