ABSTRACT
The telecommunications industry is geographically dispersed, and a single company's operations, serving many millions of people, may be spread across a province, a country or even a hemisphere. Typically, training in telecommunications companies needs to be well-standardised and to some extent decentralised. This is true whether the trainees are managers, technicians or sales representatives. New training needs constantly arise in the telecommunications industry as new technology is introduced. In particular, the phasing-in of electronic exchanges and their associated equipment has required substantial retraining of large numbers of engineers, technicians and operators. American Telephone and Telegraph, and British Telecom, are both very large companies, the latter carrying almost all British telecommunications traffic. Pacific Bell is part of the United States telecommunications network in Northern California. Most of Pacific Bell's training is of its own employees, although the company has developed computer based training for customers that simulates the software used to operate a large corporate Centrex telephone system.
