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Word: kappel (lookup in dictionary) (lookup stats)
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Hotter Meetings. When it comes to the customers, Kappel is often more puzzled than angered by complaints. He admits that A.T.&T. made a tactical error in pushing all-numeral dialing without a public educational campaign. By abandoning the familiar exchange prefixes (Klondike, Pennypacker, Gypsy) and forcing users to dial seven numbers, A.T.&T. raised the possible total of phone numbers in any area by 50%. But it also raised an uproar, was soon accused on all sides of an Orwellian scheme to dehumanize everyday life-even though it would really have had to dehumanize life by ultimately limiting service...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Corporations: The Bell Is Ringing | 5/29/1964 | See Source »

...York City and Philadelphia; Cinemactor Tony Randall, who can well afford it, has dodged the charge by listing his number under a phony name, Irvine W. Tishman. As in many another company, A.T.&T.'s officers also are getting more and more harassment at annual meetings. Kappel has special controls behind the rostrum at which he stands to cut off any speaker who becomes too windy or unruly. But he delivered his most effective cut with out benefit of switch at the April 15 annual meeting, where a professional meeting-goer asked a seemingly endless round of questions, including...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Corporations: The Bell Is Ringing | 5/29/1964 | See Source »

Hooray! For all the complaints, big and small, A.T.&T. has given the U.S. the world's least frustrating telephone service with the world's most trouble-free gadget. Kappel points out that the average U.S. phone needs a repair only once every five years; except in times of flood or other natural disasters, no A.T.&T. switching office in the past 40 years has been out of order for as long as ten minutes. No place is too inaccessible, no service request too small for A.T.&T.'s telephone men. They have put up phone booths...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Corporations: The Bell Is Ringing | 5/29/1964 | See Source »

...Kappel and his long-nosed engineers never cease devising comely new gadgets to hook onto this computer to bring more profit to A.T.&T. and to add luster and convenience to what they call "p.o.t."-plain old telephone service. They have successfully sold the idea of color for telephones: 21 million colored phones are now in use in U.S. homes. For a monthly charge of $25 to $35 apiece, they have installed 17,000 telephones in cars and trucks, including several in Lyndon Johnson's autos. Though 37% of the nation's telephones are already extension phones...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Corporations: The Bell Is Ringing | 5/29/1964 | See Source »

...more than 50,000 kinds of communications gear, and buys parts and materials from small businesses in some 3,000 U.S. towns. U.S. trustbusters complain that Western sells equipment to A.T. & T. at half the price it charges competitors, point out that it earns only 5% on its sales. Kappel argues that if A.T.&T. did not have Western, its own costs would jump by hundreds of millions...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Corporations: The Bell Is Ringing | 5/29/1964 | See Source »

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