I love a good telephone story. In true nerd fashion, I just want to object to one tiny detail, which is technically correct but misleading:
>In the worst case, even a humble single-party line could sap the capacity of the exchange's switching equipment if it stuck off hook.
This is true, to an extent - if the exchange did nothing about it, an off-hook phone could consume an expensive piece of hardware (a sender) that would otherwise only be in use during the time that a customer was dialing. However, because this was something that people could do _on purpose_ (and frequently did, to avoid incoming calls) as well as be caused by a relatively common fault (short circuit between the two phone wires), the phone company took steps to make this less expensive. In later switches, each line would have a dedicated relay to handle this.
If you want to learn more about this minutia, or about old telephone systems in general, the Connections Museum YouTube channel is an excellent resource:
this was already hitting 200% of its original intended length, so there were some things where I said "just not going to get into the details." Naturally I have come to regret these. Another is the brief mention of party line practice which is more applicable to GTE than AT&T (harmonic ringing), and in general mentioning that GTE and other independents continued leasing post-1982 as well but not going into any detail. The fate of the leased telephones of independents appears to be far more along the lines you would expect, with many of the independents quietly wrapping up leasing programs in the 1990s and letting people keep the phones. That said there were lots of exceptions and odd details.
Remarkable level of detail. Favorited so I can read sometime when I'm not at work, while I also ruminate on how many other submissions I've favorited for the same reason and never returned to.
I love a good telephone story. In true nerd fashion, I just want to object to one tiny detail, which is technically correct but misleading:
>In the worst case, even a humble single-party line could sap the capacity of the exchange's switching equipment if it stuck off hook.
This is true, to an extent - if the exchange did nothing about it, an off-hook phone could consume an expensive piece of hardware (a sender) that would otherwise only be in use during the time that a customer was dialing. However, because this was something that people could do _on purpose_ (and frequently did, to avoid incoming calls) as well as be caused by a relatively common fault (short circuit between the two phone wires), the phone company took steps to make this less expensive. In later switches, each line would have a dedicated relay to handle this.
If you want to learn more about this minutia, or about old telephone systems in general, the Connections Museum YouTube channel is an excellent resource:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaKGgDaApkM
this was already hitting 200% of its original intended length, so there were some things where I said "just not going to get into the details." Naturally I have come to regret these. Another is the brief mention of party line practice which is more applicable to GTE than AT&T (harmonic ringing), and in general mentioning that GTE and other independents continued leasing post-1982 as well but not going into any detail. The fate of the leased telephones of independents appears to be far more along the lines you would expect, with many of the independents quietly wrapping up leasing programs in the 1990s and letting people keep the phones. That said there were lots of exceptions and odd details.
Remarkable level of detail. Favorited so I can read sometime when I'm not at work, while I also ruminate on how many other submissions I've favorited for the same reason and never returned to.
God I love this blog. Thanks for submitting it!