Phone service; was; 10 forgotten wonders of 1980s homes

Today, while on on my walk, I ran into my favorite two Century Link techs at the lcoal DSLAM. When you see just one guy, maybe he's installing subscriber service, but two trucks generally means something's afoot. All the cabinets were open and there were various bits of gear scattered around. So I took the time to ask the guys about ATM vs. IP and got an interesting answer. It seems that the stuff in the boxes is part IP and part ATM--and they're having a devil of a time figuring out how to interface the two. Essentially the new IP stuff and the fiber are hooked up, but not servicing any subscribers--everyone is still running off the buried cable and ATM--and as the rainy season is upon us, this is proving to be problematical. Apparently, among other problems, it's getting difficult to find ATM gear anymore. They did apologize for the false "Real Soon Nows". So, maybe, if I live long enough, one of these days... --Chuck