History with Paul Lloyd: The Switchboard

[@dbvnyc]

Love the presentaiton. It's amazing how far answering services have come. In the UK, AIRCALL was one of the biggest service providers, handling not only answering services but also paging and mobile telephones (before cellular). I worked there for a time after the GPO telephone company.

[@PeopleAlreadyDidThis]

Interesting explanation. I have a newer 557A answering service board, a veteran from a multi-position answering service in California. It was #3 of at least three boards in the service. It’s also optioned so that it can be split between two attendants. One could answer calls on the left half of the jack field, another the right half. Like the one in this video, it includes 80 secretarial lines, the extensions from clients’ business or home lines on their premises. It also has a number of administrative station lines, but these are actually lines within the building, connected to staff phones onsite-perhaps the answering service owner, clerical staff, or similar. These lines are helpless without making a connection through the switchboard. There are then 10 two-way central office trunks, and these are where the fictitious Dr. Smithers would call in. They might have been assigned separate phone numbers in the city directory, or could have been multiple lines assigned to a single number. All public incoming calls to the service would ring one of these trunk jacks, and the attendant could connect any of the administrative phones. The admin stations also alert the attendant when someone lifts a receiver; the station can then be plugged into a trunk line to call out; either the staff person could dial such a call from the station, or the attendant could dial for them using the switchboard dial. The client secretarial lines could be arranged for “secrecy,” and could prevent anyone placing a call using the secretarial lines-essentially abusing the system, possibly even making costly long distance calls using a client’s phone line. Using a digital PBX system, I have made all 100 or so switchboard lines active. It’s a convincing demonstration to call a lot of secretarial lines at once. The board comes alive with buzzer and flashing lights. It’s quite a challenge to answer in a timely fashion.

[@kernow9324]

I enjoyed that. Thank you.

[@MJK1965]

🎶 We've come a long ways, baby. 🎶 Roll on Amtelco Intelligent Series.

[@prestoncheapbtheadphoneste3010]

5:00 so no one can use their phones 📞 on the weekends?! 😐