When President Clinton came into office, his aides groaned about the antiquated White House phone system, dismissing it as a "tin can and a string." Early in the Clinton Administration there was an uproar over the outdated White House telephone system? President Clinton garnered attention early by sharing anecdotes about the antiquated "plug-and-play" switchboard from the 1960s. It was a comical image, unfit for a president striving to be on the cutting edge. Thus, a change was in order. As the Clinton administration took the reins, they found themselves lacking an instruction manual left by the departing Bush administration. While Clinton received briefings on matters like foreign policy, the intricacies of the phone system were left unaddressed. The system had been pieced together over the years, resulting in a convoluted setup that even those within past Administrations struggled to comprehend.
Contrary to popular belief, the White House telephone system wasn't solely reliant on a relic from the '60s. Each agency within the Executive Office of the President had its own voice mail system, with modern features like speed-dial phones and call transfer. However, these systems operated in isolation, rendering interagency communication cumbersome or impossible.
Additionally,
the public comment lines, usually staffed by volunteers, were left unattended
due to a lack of coordination during the transition. This left the outdated
switchboard overwhelmed, leading to tens of thousands of unanswered calls and
the declaration of a "failure" in the telephone system. In Clinton's early weeks the White House switchboard was
deluged with about 65,000 calls a day, compared to about 5,500 on a busy day
during the Reagan and Bush years. The main number - 202-456-1414 - stayed busy.
At the
time, White House officials acknowledged part of the problem was inexperience:
new staffers and volunteers manning the phones. But they also complained that
the system itself was a technical hodgepodge, a relic of past administrations.
They were
astonished to see how relatively primitive the White House communications
system was," Vice President Al Gore recalled recently. "President
Clinton and I took a tour and found operators actually having to pull cords for
each call and plug them into jacks."
In fact,
the old Admin phone system was set to handle 100,000 calls an hour but could
have handled up to 200,000 calls an hour, according to the congressional report
written by Republicans on the House Government Operations Committee who was
investigating the cost of the purchase of the new system.
The White House declared that the
phone system had "failed," and immediately began its hunt for a new
one. In an attempt to rush through the order for the system, the White House
claimed there was a dire need for the upgrade. The final straw? According to
documents obtained under the FOIA, the phone system "on a single day in
February" reached a "saturation point" of 65,000 calls, which
jammed the entire telephone network.
"The
system problem, which led to thousands of unanswered calls and busy signals was
not inadequate equipment, but rather a lack of personnel to properly man the
public comment lines and inadequate management procedures," the report said.
In
response, the White House Milatary Office expedited the procurement of the new
system, citing an urgent need. Under the guise of national security, they
sidestepped standard procurement procedures, opting to solicit bids from only
two hardware providers.
What really
transpired behind the scenes reveals more about chaotic transition and
mismanagement than technological failure. Through a thorough examination of
procurement documents,
The resulting $25 million system boasted improvements like expanded voice mail forwarding capabilities and enhanced conference calling, but fell short of expectations for a high-tech overhaul.
White House
memos obtained via Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, and materials
from a Congressional investigation which found that the existing system worked just fine and wasn't even
being used fully. In addition, the costly new system, selected without
competitive bidding, offers only minimal improvements over the old one, the
congressional report says.
An
investigation by the House Government Operations Committee revealed that the
American public may have been shortchanged in the deal. Contracts were awarded
in potential violation of federal law, raising questions about the handling of
taxpayer funds.
Then, in April, a full two months
after the "February Surprise," C&P Telephone sent in a team of
engineers and, with $600,000 of its own money, 'voluntarily" upgraded the
DMS-100 switch, White House documents show. Previously shielded from any
publicity surrounding its dealings with the White House, C&P saw a public
relations fiasco in the making and took the initiative to upgrade the switch, a
move that should have been made years ago, according to other telephone
engineers familiar with the improvements. "Before Clinton began
complaining [about the phone system), there was never really any need to put
all that money into the switch," quoting a C&P official The upgrade consisted of reconfiguring the
call-handling capability of the switch.
Despite
these revelations, the contract for the new system was signed, with costs extending
beyond the initial $25 million price tag. While touted as a cost-saving
measure, the intricacies of the 12,000-page contract reveal additional expenses
for wiring, staffing, and structural renovations.
"The
administration appears more concerned about getting what it wants when it wants
it than in saving the taxpayers money," said Rep. William Clinger of
Pennsylvania, the ranking Republican on the House Government Operations
Committee.
White House
officials defend the new phone system, saying it will save money by
centralizing telecommunications management and will include features such as a
voice mail system. They say they had to bypass competitive-bidding procedures
to protect national security and "urgent telecommunications
requirements."
"The
new system will be able to provide more in-depth statistical information of
calls received and hang-up calls," White House aide Patsy Thomasson told
the committee.
The White House Staff didn't know how to make the phone system
work. The taxpayers got taken for a ride because the staff didn't know what
they were doing," said Monty Tripp, the principal congressional investigator.
Instead of seeking bids from a number of companies, the White House limited competition to three vendors - American Telephone and Telegraph, Northern Telecom Inc. and the local phone company, Chesapeake and Potomac. It ended up signing contracts, worth $25 million over 10 years, with AT&T and C&P.
"...
Only the three vendors allowed to compete for the award could meet the
Executive Office of the President's delivery and security requirements,"
Thomasson wrote.
The
congressional report disputes that, saying the White House could have delayed
the purchase to allow other vendors to obtain White House security passes.
Thomasson
said bids were limited because "it is impossible for President Clinton to
carry on truly private telephone conversations since the White House operators
have access to all phone lines," the report says. This is also not true,
if the President wanted a private line all he had to do is ask for it and it
would have been provided within 24 hrs.
In the end, while the White House may have a shiny new phone
system, the saga exposes deeper issues of mismanagement and bureaucratic
inefficiency. And as investigations continue, the true cost of this
technological upgrade remains to be seen.
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| The White House Admin Switchboard |
The new system upgraded both the White House Admin Switchboard and WHCA’s Signal Switchboard which consisted of 4,000 leased Centrex lines that will feed three AT&T Definity G3R PBX switches with digital consoles (to do away with that 608D Cord Switchboard from1960s plug and-play front end).
The White House bought three in order to insure the “survivability" of the system. What did they do before for survivability there was no backup hardware for the White House Admin Board in case the system failed. The system’s purchased isn't backed up either, though the administration at first claimed it was and used that excuse in attempts to deny FOIA requests. (The Secret Service later told the administration that the system isn't classified, hence the success of retrieving the FOIA documents.) That doesn't mean President Clinton couldn't make calls during a crisis. Fact is, the WHCA Signal Board had been upgraded and for secure calls, he would use another system ran by WHCA, which is classified.
In 1988 the WHCA Signal switchboard, a modified Western Electric 608D Cord Switchboard (pictured below) was replaced by an AT&T System 85 which utilized the MAPP terminal to make changes using individual procedure codes. The System 85 was the precursor to the Definity G3R with Dual Port Networks connected via multimode fiber and was called the White House Switched Network (WHSN) during the Clinton Administration.
The WHCA Signal Switchboard
The new system was adequate, but it's no monster central office switch like the Northern Telecom DMS-100. This was a mid-1970s switch. Although more than 40 percent of the nation's central office switches were in this class, no telephone company has bought an analog central switch since the late 1970s. They've all turned to digital switches, like the AT&T flagship 5ESS. Now, stuffing a 5ESS in the White House basement would have been impressive and it would have given the Clinton administration the telecommunications power of a city roughly the size of New York. Sensing overkill: the Clinton administration went with the cheaper Definity G3R PBXs.
Here's the sum total of the improvements added for President Clinton's vaunted high-tech cyberelite:
1. A voice mail system that can be forwarded throughout the entire Executive Office of the President, an improvement over the current voice mail system that has only limited message forwarding capabilities.
2. End users can now set up six-way conference calls from their desks without operator assistance. 2he current system permits only three-way conference calling without operator assistance.
3. Moves and changes as well as rerouting the phone number can be done via a computer terminal; the current method entails having a C&P technician come out and rewire the telephone junction box for the end users phone.
This is why a subsequent Congressional investigation by the House Government Operations Committee, which has oversight of the White House budget, determined that the American public was being ripped off in the deal. The House Gov Ops investigation found that it "appears" new contracts were given "in clear violation of the federal Competition in Contracting Act." The House Gov Ops committee ranking minority member, Rep. Bill Clinger said: "In reality, busy signals and unanswered calls during the early days of the Clinton administration were caused by inadequate management and a failure to adequately staff the public comment lines. It's hard to understand how limiting competition and saddling the taxpayers with a $25 million bill solves the problem of mismanagement:'
Upon completion of the House Gov Ops committee investigation in November of 1995 did turn up some interesting facts the public hadn’t previously known. The old setup, which uses a Northern Telecom DMS-100 central office switch, is currently configured to handle 100,000 calls per hour and can technically handle twice that capacity. But back in February when the system burped and went belly up - on a mere 65,000 calls in an entire day - the switch was set up to handle only 1,000 calls per hour.
It sounds like a typical government-contractor snafu, but at least there's a cost savings with the new system, right? Well, it depends on how you look at it. The White House argues that the present old system is more expensive, and would cost approximately $27 million over the next ten years. On the face of it, the new contract is a deal, saving the taxpayer about $200,000 a year. But look again. And you'll have to look closely, because the contract for the new system is 12,000 pages long.
The $25 million didn't even include such essentials as, wiring, construction, round-the-clock staffing of a brand new White House department called the Telephone Service Office, cabling and installation of new PBXs, and structural renovations to the White House for the new equipment. Of the $25 million, C&P gets $10 million for handling the local service; AT&T gets $15 million for the PBXs, which includes maintenance.
But at least now, if you want to call into the White House and complain, you shouldn't get a busy signal. .
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