BELL LABORATORIES HISTORY OF LONG DISTANCE AMPLIFICATION & TELEPHONE SERVICE 44084

Made in 1973 THE FAR SOUND examines how technologies invented at Bell Laboratories and developed by the Bell System and AT&T contributed to making direct-dial, long-distance telephone service possible. The film was directed by Jerry London and produced by John Sutherland and features Fred Holliday. Holiday was also known as Fred Grossinger and starred in over 1,000 TV commercials from the late 1950s through the 1980s.The title of the film comes from the problem that Bell Labs surmounted in the early era of telephony, amplifying telephone signals so that long distance communication was possible. The "far sound" is also the alternate translation of the Greek “Telephone.”
The film depicts how the various fields and departments at the Labs came together in this singular enterprise, culminating in common service for all. At the time the film was made the Telstar satellite was under development. BellComm was about to be spun off, to work with NASA on the moon project. Technologies involving the transistor, laser, and the solar cell were underway. Scientists were just starting to explore what a computer was and what it might accomplish. In the middle of this wave of innovation was the Bell System’s core business-providing telephone service to almost the entire country.
A decade earlier, a few cities had been given direct dial long distance telephone service. Now, 10 years later, direct long distance was a novelty in some communities, while taken for granted in others. But this film showed how technologies at the time like the "electronic central office" (later to become the ESS), the optical MASER (aka laser), and satellites would later converge to form the modern telephone and data network. The film includes early fiber optics and transistors as well as images of an early picture phone and vacuum tubes.
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This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD and 2k. For more information visit www.PeriscopeFilm.com

[@bonnieblueflag5104]

I began working at the Bell System a few years before this video was made. This was during the time that the Bell System was indeed a System. I long for those "old days". Touchstone was just beginning to be installed. Then the government broke up the Bell System.

[@765kvline]

There was "good" and there was "bad" about the System. The "universal" in Vail's "universal service" was little more than the creation of a monopoly. The "good" was the service effort that AT&T expended upon the operating units of the Bell System. I don't think there are very many companies whose service was as good and the comradery with the customers as favorable as back then: 1950s-1970s. The "bad" was the ownership of all telephone instruments and utter control which AT&T expounded upon any connections to their system. This led to limited choices and few opportunities for smaller companies making equipment to interconnect. The good of the system was that quality for the most part was maintained in equipment and consistency of operation. The AT&T company had the FCC in their back pocket, so very little could be done by the "little guys" such as the Independents, the smaller GTEs and Rural Telephone Cooperatives to throw their limited political weight to lessen AT&T's stranglehold over regulation in their favor only. In fact, the REA's telephone division even hired a majority of former AT&T personnel to create specification and drawings for cooperative use. At one time, AT&T wanted to extend their domain beyond the U. S. and Canada to Japan and elsewhere. The problem with any monopoly is the "bullying" tactics employed to prevent competition. If AT&T had allowed (prior to the judgment of the Carter Phone Decision) to permit quality (but not Western Electric) equipment on their system and had been open to increased competition, I don't think the Justice Department would have embarked on the course it set out and completed in 1982-83. I worked with both Bell operating companies and Independents. I see both sides. Independents, especially the cooperative rural systems, have negative views against the Bell System for many good reasons. Competition has improved customer service and technical performance. Like you, I do feel the "service" aspect of the old Bell System has been lost; witness automated customer service, neglected priorities of people over profits and some companies' indifference to customer needs. However, you have a more competitive, seasoned business environment where you can simply . . . leave your consumer relationship with poorly maintained and supported communications utilities. Also, while Western Electric is touted by these "infomercials" as the greatest manufacturer of phone systems, I can recall Northwestern Bell people complaining that a major order for switching equipment, cable, remote terminals or such which had been in wait for over a year, could be circumvented by New York Telephone or similar company experiencing a need and their order switched over to them, while NWBell had to suffer the consequences of another lengthy wait. So, priorities were not necessarily equal within the System either. This generated many angry RBOC people in various regions. On the good side of AT&T, I read the reports submitted as court documents on the proposed break-up and the impact on the Bell Laboratories to future innovation. In one lengthy report, the comparison was made between the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) and Bell Labs (BL). The critics felt that with the break-up of the system, a major research laboratory would lose its ability to maintain its dynamic strength of innovation, by separating it from the Bell System and consequently the large budget which AT&T bequeathed it's innovative history.

[@MsJamiewoods]

@@765kvline The Northwest Bell electronic switching equipment sent to New York City occurred due to a major fire at the Manhattan central office. The fire took out the underground wire vault and the first two floors of switching equipment.

[@tucosalamanca7148]

So many jobs lost to simple transistor, tho simple but complex... Alexander Graham Bell was a great inventor of our history.

[@jblackjack]

I’m watching this through bell fibre optic to my house at 500up 500 down unlimited.

[@V0YAG3R]

J Black no

[@JustAboutTime]

Ah it’s good to live in the future where frickin’ laser beams are everywhere!

[@uselesscommentrary6960]

This is a lot later than 1961. The date is covered by the PF# mark, but it looks like 70-something. The Saturn V launch shown at 14:47 is Apollo 11 from 1969.

[@OldsVistaCruiser]

I would say 1972-73. LED displays came out around 1974 in calculators and wrist watches.

[@jackdavis8992]

Thought it said 1973 in the title

[@Hubjeep]

18:56 Where is that storage battery today?! 19:02 LED lights!

[@MsJamiewoods]

19:55 The narrator talks about the future potential of fiber optics in transmitting telephone signals. ATT was using fiber for long distance and even local calls between central offices since the mid 1980s. However, ATT is now dropping fiber into subscribers homes -- in some communities -- for UVerse talk, television, and internet service. I remember the contractor having to come into my former apartment autumn 2018 to install the cable between studs in the wall and to install a dummy connection plate. This was at a modest-rent apartment complex in Oak Creek, Wis. The fiber was installed whether we subscribed to any ATT service or not. I had the low-income version of UVerse internet which came in by gold old twisted pair of copper wire.

[@markarca6360]

That is DSL version of UVerse.

[@johnhopkins6260]

As the hermit mountain man declared: "why in the hell would I want a bell in my house that any goddamned stranger in the world can ring??"

[@jrb_sland5066]

Today we are expected by society to carry that bell around with us to be interrupted 24/7. Some few of us still don't have a cell phone & get strange looks when we admit to this heresy. My landline home phone is bad enough, thanks. I let my answer machine do its job nights and weekends. I value privacy and time for myself.

[@mrflamewars]

@@jrb_sland5066 You just have to be willing to go "oh huh someone's calling" and put it on silent when you don't want to be bothered.

[@scottdodge6979]

It is weird though. By making cell phones the norm we've created this social obligation to answer those phones.

[@johnhopkins6260]

@@scottdodge6979 never knew of such an obligation... oops, my bad.

[@billruss6704]

So we know when to renew our car warranty.

[@fromthesidelines]

Jerry London also directed episodes of several popular TV situation comedies, several movies and miniseries.

[@danpatterson8009]

Just looking at the mod-design opening credits I guessed 1972. The sideburns clenched it. Later in the 70s you would have had wider ties and lapels, maybe even a mustache.

[@johnhopkins6260]

Groovy art... way wavy, even hip, music...

[@parcans]

9:37 - I wonder what the original number was when they shot the film, and what changed so much that they needed to edit in a hurried "seventeen thousand" voiceover.

[@johnrigler8858]

The presenter looks familiar. does anyone know who he is?

[@zelphx]

Still waiting for fiber optics to speed-up our internet.

[@Legend813a]

The host was named Fred Holliday not Chet Huntley

[@PeriscopeFilm]

Thanks you are right! Fred Grossinger (January 1, 1936, in Pittsburgh - November 21, 1995, in Los Angeles), best known by his Hollywood name, Fred Holliday, was a stage, film and television actor renowned for his all-American face[1] who starred in over 1,000 TV commercials from the late 1950s through the 1980s. Holliday made guest appearances on more than 150 television shows.[1] He was one of the Mighty Carson Art Players on NBC's The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson for 12 years,[2] performed in the daytime dramas as Ron Wyche in Days of Our Lives,[3] as the manager at the Capwell Hotel in Santa Barbara,[4] in nighttime dramas such as John Atherton in Dallas[5] and was host of a short-lived daytime show, The Girl in My Life, on ABC in the early 1970s.[6] His movie appearances included Airport, A Patch of Blue, Edge of the Axe and A Guide for the Married Man.[3] He played in more than 50 Broadway and regional theater productions.[1]Professionally, Holliday served on the local board of directors of the Los Angeles chapter of AFTRA for 10 years, as well as serving on the national board of AFTRA.[7] He was also active in the Screen Actors Guild.[8]Holliday was married to Judy Kapler. He had one daughter, Debra Jeanne (Grossinger) Rouse, from his first marriage to Nancy King.[1] He died of a heart attackwhen he was 59

[@charlesbonkley]

17:51. The disappointment in his voice is real.

[@mitchdakelman4470]

This is the updated and revised version of the original 1962 John Sutherland production

[@gyrgrls]

Inter-office trunking these days is mostly done with microwaves and fiber optics. Good riddance to bundles and bundles of 50-pair copper cables.

[@charlesmak534]

Fiber optics from 47 years ago...

[@Wildstar40]

17:49 The Tel Star looks like the Death Star but Tel Star was first !

[@SureshKumar-dh8cz]

Google added several programs continue working.......

[@SureshKumar-dh8cz]

Medical records science software research as being ctc banking&non banking foundation financial services act

[@pantherplatform]

This guy must be some kind of fortune teller. He's actually correct tho...

[@ericadams2851]

So prophetic huh?

[@SplashyOperator]

6:38

[@kurtnowak8895]

Worst description / analogy of the function of a transistor -ever. If these producers made safe sex-ed videos, every teenage girl would be pregnant.

[@vectorconcepts1]

i thought it was pretty good

[@PL-VA]

@@vectorconcepts1 Problem is, "that's not how it works" ... to repeat an old Geico commercial.

[@dorothygale5896]

Fleming, not DeForest, invented the vacuum tube, DeForest invented the multi element tube.

[@IndependentBear]

So you never heard of a 'Fleming Valve'? As in many things, including the incandescent light bulb, development happened in two different places at the same time.

[@videolabguy]

Edison discovered the one way nature of a two element tube. He was trying to collect the carbon coming from the early filament and blacking the inside of his light bulbs. He placed a charged metal plate inside and it worked to collect the carbon. Then tungsten was discovered for this and the collector became unnecessary. Edison was too uneducated to realize the potential of his own discovery. Since he could not do the math required to understand AC, and ALL of his systems were DC, he declared it useless. Since Edison's systems were all DC, he had no need for a rectifier. Fleming understood the implications of the Edison effect and applied it to create the "diode" tube as detector in crystal radio sets. DeForest added the control grid that made the tube into an amplifier. Funny side note, DeForest never truly understood how the triode worked either!

[@robarnum7180]

@@videolabguy and without realizing it Edison discovered thermionic emission, Flemming took it farther the diode rectifier Deforest the triode and amplification. Then everything took off FAST! Of. Course you know that. But there's bound to be some newcomers to all this, and yes I'm trying to bait some of them into learning more!

[@jrb_sland5066]

@@videolabguy ...Indeed. DeForest not only didn't understand how his triodes worked, but his early vacuum tubes were gassy and unstable. It took the researches of Dr. Irving Langmuir at General Electric to improve the diffusion pump and create the first true high-vacuum diodes and triodes in the late 1910s. Many useful inventions are made by engineers, then scientists come along to explain how things work. We need both kinds of thinkers working together to make progress.

[@frelema]

tomorrow is Yesterday

[@christianmccollum1028]

Yeah, it is for the day-after-next.

[@anandha12]

Not as vibrant and cutting edge as some of the older documentaries.

[@johnhopkins6260]

But wait! It has been said that the Russians invented electricity... and the British invented gravity... so Bell labs??

[@shoa2285]

Curse that tiny transistor. Look at what we have become. Smart device addicts.