Thanks to all who helped with the VCFMW telephone network!
I could not have done this without immense help from everybody above.
VCFMW 20 was September 13-14th, 2025. I once again offered telephony services at the show acting as Shadytel Midwest, the midwestern regional Shadytel operating company.
The information in these pages may be updated at any time leading up to, during, or even after the show, so check back for any updates.
See the various sub-pages for specific information:
There was a voicemail box set up as a guestbook at VCFMW 20. Listen to the recording and read a bit about it here.
The telephone directory includes a list of all listed subscribers and services, as well as general dialplan and numbering information.
This page includes information on how to use and access the services offered to subscribers.
See this page for information about services offered and how to order them.
See this page for detailed information on how the network is arranged.
The rest of this page is a post-show account of how everything related to the telephone network went. I'll cover statistics about the show network, preparation, setup, operations, teardown, and work for the future.
As you might expect, the telephone network grew again this year. We'll explore the data and see how the network looked this year vs. previous years.
Before we dig into the details, here are some quick facts:
Before we can talk about the telephone network, we must first talk about the size of VCFMW to set the stage. The first topic we'll cover is simply the size of the space.
In 2023, the space for exhibitors grew by only about 18%. We had basically filled our existing venue and we only accomplished this modest increase in space by moving the talks to another room in the basement of the connected hotel.
In 2024, we moved to a completely new venue. The exhibit space increased to 2.5x our previous space. It was orginally only supposed to be 1.6x, but we filled it faster than we thought possible and had to increase a month or two before the show. The new space came with more stringent fire regulations as well, like larger aisle sizes which meant we couldn't pack the space quite as densely. We also increased the size of the talks room by about 15% over the previous venue.
This year, we grew another 32% on exhibit space as well as adding a second talks track in a smaller room. For larger talks like the youtube panel and the VCFMW auction, we were able to combine the two rooms to form one larger one (about 33% more space than last year).
With the increases in space, of course our exhibit count grows as well.
Exhibit count has grown approximately 40-60 exhibits each year since 2022. It is an interesting point that, so far, this has been approximately linear growth rather than exponential. We'll have to see if the pattern continues.
Also notable for this year is the addition of a slightly new class of exhibitor. System source (area X on the map) had a whole area to themselves. They brought their own tables (as well as a variety of equipment that was floor standing and possibly doubled as tables) meaning they show up here in exhibit counts, but don't show up in the table statistics.
For the other exhibits, though, linear feet of table length is a good metric to measure. In years past, and again this year, we end up with a mixture of 6'x30", 8'x30", 8'x18", and occasionally other sizes of table depending on availability from the venue and/or rental companies. Rather than count tables, we've found it is best to think in terms of feet of table length.
Note that the above chart and information below counts space allocations for standard exhibits including spaces allocated without a table (used for floor standing equipment, or exhibitor provided tables/shelves/etc.).
In 2023, we filled our existing venue to capacity (and overflowed, realistically) only allowing an increase in table space of about 27%. This is despite an increase in exhibit count of about 64%. In order to fit everybody we could, we asked people to keep their requests to a minimum and, in some cases, reached out directly to exhibitors to ask if they could reduce their request to allow us to squeeze another exhibitor in. In 2022, the average table length per exhibit was about 12.5 feet while we got it down to 9.6 feet in 2023.
With the massive increase in space in 2024, we were able to fit everybody again with minimal needs to reduce allocations. The linear feet of table went up 112% and the average feet of table per exhibit rose to about 13.9 feet per exhibit. Note that out of a 150% increase in square space, due to the requirements of the new venue, this only netted us an increase in linear table of 112%.
This year, we increased table length allocation by about 26% and hit an average of about 14.6 feet per exhibit. Contrast this with a 32% increase in total square space. Part of this discrepancy is due to the one large exhibit not being counted as 'table' space, another piece is a number of late cancellations we were unable to fill. Overall, I do think we had about the same or higher density over last year.
With the growth in exhibit count, the demand for telephone services of course increases as well.
The chart above breaks down as follows:
There are some flaws in this counting method. It is easier to count this way, but it does not account for exhibits which were present on non-consecutive years, and it does not account for exhibits which use telephone services on non-consecutive years. In order to do so, I would need to look across multiple years of data all at once, which complicates the counting process.
Not counting the novelty-bill-only subscribers, subscriber count grew 47% this year. If we leave off the mobile-only subscribers (new for this year) we go down a bit to 41% growth. Growth was 29% in 2024, and 90% in 2023. Compare that with exhibit growth of 20% this year, 47% in 2024, and 64% in 2023.
The irregularity of the growth of telephone subscribers when compared to the growth in number of exhibits is odd. I don't have a good explanation for this currently. I had hoped to gain some insight by looking at repeat subscribers vs. non-repeat subscribers, but this didn't help either.
On that point, however, we can see that telephone service retention was 75% in 2023, 63% in 2024, and 80% in 2025. In 2025 and 2023, established exhibits becoming new subscribers makes up for the attrition. In 2024, however, only the combination of established and new exhibit subscribers together is able to overcome the attrition.
Next, we'll dig into the services delivered. Most of these services are described on the telephone service ordering page, however some will be explained better below.
In the above chart, analog phone service is a POTS line intended for use with a telephone, analog modem service is a POTS line intended for use with a modem (or other equipment where it is desireable to have call waiting disabled), and of course ADSL is internet access utilizing ADSL technology. We will go into more detail on the 'Other Services' category later on.
Service count grew by 134% from 2022 to 2023, another 111% to 2024, and just 30% to 2025. The massive increase in 2023 can be explained by massive subscriber count growth as well as an increase in number of services requested by each subscriber from an average of 1.6 services per subscriber to 2.0. The massive increase in 2024 is, of course, also partly related to an increase in subscriber count, but also a large increase in services per subscriber again from 2.0 to 3.2. In 2025, subscriber counts grew more than they did in 2024, but a drop in services per subscriber to just 2.9 snubbed some of the service growth.
Analog phones almost always outperform analog modems. In 2024, the modem line count did exceed the phone line count, but the loss of one exhibit with a large modem line count coupled with the realization that some equipment could be consolidated in the shadytel CO resulted in the loss of 14 modem lines this year. The subscriber turnover and churn didn't make up for that, meanwhile phone line counts increased by more than 50% meaning that in 2024, phone lines again exceeded modem lines.
ADSL service, first offered in 2024, gained popularity this year probably after people realized the venue doesn't have any actual usable wifi service (without the show paying an obscene amount of money anyway). This year, we did set up our own wifi network for exhibitor use, but didn't heavily advertise it considering this to be a soft-launch pilot run. That said, our expectation is for continued demand for DSL service in the future based on survey results. In 2024, we had just 11 ADSL subscribers. With 21 DSL subscribers this year (including one test line for the CO), we're at risk of needing an additional DSLAM as well.
We can have a more in-depth look at the less common services delivered over the years as well. We can see as the years go on, more and more services are offered by Shadytel and the other LECs.
ISDN BRI service has generally been low to zero demand from the general exhibitors, but this year we intended to demo ISDN video conferencing phones which resulted in provisioning 6 BRI lines. We also had a request from an exhibitor for a line and to borrow an ISDN TA.
T1 voice and data services have been available at VCFMW since the early days of my involvement with the telephone network. Demand was historically sporadic (an ISDN PRI in 2022, a data T1 in 2023), but has been increasing the past couple of years. In 2024, two ISDN PRIs were provided to customers as well as a T1 for a channel bank. This year, an ISDN PRI customer and the channel bank customer returned and a new set of customers utilizing an additional 4 ISDN PRIs, 3 data T1s, and a T1 leased line were added.
One ISDN PRI was used for another LECs phone system, another two were used for PBXes brought by exhibitors, and the last was for a Cisco AS5200 acting as a modem bank brought by another exhibitor. The channel bank T1 was used with an Adit 600 brought by an exhibitor for some analog lines at their table. The data T1s were used to provide internet service to one exhibit that had their own equipment and two that borrowed equipment from Shadytel. The leased T1 line was used for frame relay connectivity from one exhibit to another forming a mock corporate network.
With 9 T1s delivered outside of the CO (a pair of them forming the one leased line) we were close to full utilization on our HDSL2 equipment. In the future, we may need to consider utilizing an additional H2TUC shelf.
For the past 3 years, the step switch demo (brought by incompetel) has used 3 analog trunks: one for placing calls into the step switch from the rest of the network, one for placing 9+ calls into the rest of the network from the step switch, and one for dial-0 operator access from the step switch.
In 2022, one dry pair was leased to deliver a digital telephone line from a Comdial PBX. In 2024, one dry pair was used for a similar arrangement serving a digital telephone from a BCM50 while another dry pair was set up for use with an IBM 5250 terminal using baluns to transport the signal over twisted pair wiring. I don't know if the 5250 terminal was ever set up.
Across all of the years, a few digital telephones have been used in the CO for ACD queue purposes, as well as outside the CO by exhibitors or for telephones placed at the VCFMW central command tables.
New this year, AMPS cellular telephone service was preconfigured for 5 accounts.
Music trunks are generally used to provide hold music to a PBX. They have been used for this purpose at VCFMW, but this has not been counted as a service since it constitutes an internal piece of the network. However, in 2022, a music trunk was used for an audio feed from the talks room. In 2023 and beyond, this was not possible since the talks room was now outside the service area. This year, however, a music trunk was utilized for a talking clock.
The M2250 attendant console has been used to provide operator services by Shadytel since at least 2022.
The past two years, a paging trunk has been configured to reach the overhead PA announcement system from a telephone (although it got almost no use last year, and only slight use this year). This trunk is protected from unprivileged users and can only be reached by show and telephone company staff.
Lastly, a SIP trunk was used to link the AMPS system back to the rest of the network and some IP phones were used by one of the other LECs.
We can see how the pair and listed DN count track with service and pair count above. The small discrepancies are explained by some of the following:
Above, we see the distribution of pair count by subscriber. We have a concentration of subscribers with 0 pairs, these are a mix of the novelty-bill-only subscribers and the AMPS-cellular-only subscribers. Past that, we see, similar to last year, that most subscribers are concentrated at the lower pair counts. There is a bump at 6 pairs, which seems to be common for those demonstrating BBSes for whatever reason. Finally, the one subscriber with more than 6 lines is, of course, the phone company themselves.
This year, Shadytel had just 12 pairs. This is fewer than last year, partly because some of the pairs were placed on other LEC accounts and partly because this pair count doesn't count wiring between CO equipment.
Increases in space and service count plays a big role in the amount of outside cable plant used at VCFMW. For a description of the VCFMW cable plant, see the OSP diagram.
Since the cable plant consists of a mixture of 4 pair cable and 25 pair cable, the metric used is 'pair-feet'. This is a straightforward calculation: the number of pairs in a given section of cable multiplied by the length of that section in feet produces the number of pair-feet for that section. The chart above shows the sum of all sections, grouped by 25 pair or 4 pair cable type.
In 2023, we used primarily 25 pair cable with breakouts spaced periodically. To reach some more distant subscribers, 4 pair cable was used.
In 2024, the cable plant design changed to take more advantage of the 4 pair cable along with shadyrate interfaces as a NID. As such, the 25 pair cable was used more efficiently and the 4 pair cable saw substantial increase in usage over prior years. Overall, the number of pair-feet of cable increased about 43% owing to growth in subscribers, pairs per subscriber, and the size of the venue.
This year, the number of pair-feet used for telephony increased about 76%. The usage of cable was somewhat more efficient this year (more on that later), but the increase in cable can be directly correlated to the multiplicative increase in subscriber pairs and exhibitor floor space.
We also used an additional 4300 pair-feet of 4 pair cable (not counted in the telephone cable growth above) for the wifi access points, which were new this year.
To make some attempt to calculate cable utilization, we consider the total number of pair-feet vs. the pair-feet that were actually used to deliver services. For each pair in use, I calculated the length of the pair from the subscriber through the cabling back to the CO. End stubs were not counted if they weren't part of the path to the subscriber, and unused pairs were not counted. Overall, this gives an idea of how efficiently the cable was used.
Due to the increase in subscriber pairs, we were better able to utilize the pairs in the 25 pair cables resulting in increased utilization from 44% in 2024 to 55% this year. The 4 pair telephone cable, on the other hand, fell from about 63% utilization in 2024 to 59% this year. Overall, the utilization improved counting both 25 pair and 4 pair cabling together from 50% in 2024 to 56% in 2023.
I did not attempt to calculate cable pair utilization for 2023, however due to the major design change in outside cable plant, I suspect there was a substantial utilization improvement. A quick estimation suggests the cable pair-feet utilization in 2023 may have been as low as 20%.
We can also use some of the data from the cable utilization to find the average cable pair working length. It was about 113 feet in 2024, increasing to 149 feet in 2025. The longest single working pair this year was 336ft, a substantial increase over last year's longest pair at 271ft.
There is a lot of info that can potentially be derived from the CDRs that were collected at VCFMW. We collected over 5400 CDRs, although many of these are effectively duplicates or even triplicates (the same call appearing on multiple switches) and just over 2550 are remaining after a simple attempt at deduplicating these CDRs.
The total sum of all call duration time is over 7.8 days without deduplication, and over 3.6 days with some deduplication.
Lastly, those numbers don't account for internal calls on the step switch demo which clocked 1373 first-selector-cutins, a modest increase of 5.6% over last year at 1300, which was a substantial 56% increase over 2023 which had just 850.
The top ten longest calls are briefly described below:
A lot of those are dialup internet (x3000), Steve K's BBS, Never Never Land BBS, or MoBATCH's BBS. This trend continues down the list for a ways.
There are two angles from which to consider top destinations: number of calls and number of minutes. The destinations that terminated the most billable minutes of traffic are as follows:
The destinations that terminated the most billable calls are as follows:
As a final point to this section, looking only at billable calls is a bit flawed to see destination statistics. There were calls placed from outside the show in some quantity, and those calls may not have been billable but that doesn't mean they're not real traffic. Filtering for billable calls is an attempt to eliminate the influence of duplicated CDRs.
(If a destination is what you called, is an origination what you called from?)
Similar to the previous section, these are the top ten originations. First we'll look at top ten by minutes:
And here are the top ten by calls:
OK, that was actually 12, but there was a 3 way tie for 10th place!