What Happened to America's oldest Telephone Network? (History of the Telephone) - IT'S HISTORY

[@ITSHISTORY]

Big thanks to Keeps for supporting the channel! Here’s the site if you want to check them out! > keeps.com/ItsHistory

[@xxplosive656]

Might I suggest toning down the volume of your title sequence (in this case 00:41) to match that of the rest of the video? It seems to be significantly louder than the average volume for all of your videos. I'm sure I'm not the only one who would appreciate it. :)

[@LoneWoIfPack19]

Little known fact. Bell secured the patent first, on account of an error on the telegram Elisha Grey sent weeks earlier. *This is complete nonsense that I just made up. If this is true, somehow, it was a one in a billion coincidence.

[@edmondarmstrong1834]

"Translation Error" is a funny way to mispronounce "French Plot".

[@MrJoeybabe25]

@@LoneWoIfPack19 It is a shame that intellectual property is governed by the standard of who can get to the patent office first.

[@freetolook3727]

I remember when you paid a monthly maintenance fee for the privilege of using ATT's phone. You weren't allowed to own a phone and in 1981, it became possible to use your own phone. We decided, since their phone was indestructible, to buy it from the company. It cost as much as the monthly fee and we could spread out the payments over a year. Then it became possible to buy phones from places like Radio Shack and instead of $36, they now cost $12. Oh how many hundreds of dollars we spent on phone rental over the years! No wonder ATT stock did so well.

[@-oiiio-3993]

They were also hard wired to the wall. Modular plugs came to the area where I lived in the mid 1970s, along with touch tone phones. Remember paying by 'message unit' with different rates for day, night, and weekend?

[@CindyBradyTooh]

@@-oiiio-3993 Oh, yeah! :D ~Cindy! :)

[@kurt9395]

Very true. You rented your phone from AT&T and they were virtually indestructible. However, there were a few small companies that manufactured specialty phones, like those French-style decorative telephones. The catch was that you had to attach it yourself to the little telephone junction box and you still had to pay AT&T the rental charge for the Western Electric phone that you weren't using. One time I met a man who owned one of these companies and he had some choice words to say about AT&T.

[@jessemurray1757]

I remember my grandpa disabling the ringer on all of his phones but one. Apparently, they use to charge per phone as well and used the ringer to determine how many you had. LOL.

[@andyrob3259]

@@-oiiio-3993 and rates for long distance and overseas (that they sometimes discounted Christmas Day). Remember staying up to 11pm to make a cheaper international call.

[@Hykje]

The tower in the thumbnail is the Telephone Tower in Stockholm, Sweden. It was built in 1887 to hold the city's phone lines and was 45 meters (147 feet) high. It was torn down in 1952 after a fire.

[@uzaiyaro]

For anyone interested in the slightly clickbaity thumbnail, and I know I’d seen it before; it’s the old Stockholm telephone tower. Used until 1913, it contained 5,500 lines. In 1952, up to that point serving as a billboard basically, it was damaged by fire and demolished. Hope this helps!

[@heyitsme1534]

Just looked it up. I actually thought it was fake myself but part of wished it was real. And thanks to you my wish came true! Thanks buddy!!! I wish I could go back in time and actually witness some of these structures that we used when electricity first came out. Been an electrician for 25 years and I’m still running into some of the original equipment that was used back then. It’s not in service but still in place in the building it once ran.

[@DTD110865]

@@heyitsme1534 I didn't have that much of a reason to think it might've been fake. Between the 1920's and the 1980's, Rocky Point New York had the RCA Radio Central complex that was loaded with massive towers. They also had a facility between Riverhead and the Westhampton-Quogue area. So, if those places were real, so was that telephone tower in Stockholm. And thanks to the OP for identifying it.

[@timothystockman7533]

You intermix the manual exchange with the automatic (dial) exchange. In a manual exchange, lifting the handset from the hook lights an indicator next to the subscriber's jack and the operator inserts an "answering cord" into the jack and says "number, please". The operator then takes the corresponding "ringing cord" and inserts it into the destination subscriber's jack to complete the call. Or maybe a trunk line if the destination is in a different exchange. In an automatic exchange, lifting the handset causes the originating telephone to be connected to equipment which will accept the dialed digits, the automatic analog of the answering cord, at which time the caller hears a dial tone, the equivalent of "number, please". As the digits are accepted, a connection is built to the destination phone, similar to connecting the "ringing cord".

[@rayfridley6649]

What you have described is a "common battery' or "central battery" manual exchange, whereas, the source of electricity are either batteries, a.c. motors-d.c. generators, or both. In a local battery system, the subscriber's phones had their own dry cell batteries to provide their talking current. The ringing current was generated by cranking the phone's magneto or the exchange switchboard's magneto.

[@JohnWatkinsUK]

Yeah, that section explaining how telephones worked in the 1880s was a mess of imagery showing manual switchboards that were in use at that time, and description of an automatically switched system that hadn't even been invented until the end of the 1880s.

[@hbaykiwi]

What happens if the destination party is on a plugboard further down the aisle in the same telephone exchange room? Did the operators have to pass the cord down across the desks until it reached the operator that could plug it in to the destination line, or did they each operate as individual exchanges and pass it down through a daisy chain of plugboards? I imagine an operator would only have a feasible 10 to 200 lines in front of her so I am keen to know how that worked for say a 2,000 line exchange.

[@PushingThroughThePain]

Fascinating! I worked at MCI during the dawn of VoIP and learned a lot about the history of telecommunications from my time there, but I learned so much more with this documentary. Very well done, sir!

[@dawnreneegmail]

Former Illinois Bell Telephone operator weighing in. Worked 5 position cord board local primarily though I did enjoy handling coin paid calls to 🇲🇽. BEST COMPANY I EVER WORKED FOR and anyone I chance to connect with says the same. I remember the plant closest for Western Electric, solid company there too. We had (minor) civil defense clearance. The building housing is had a 📡 early on & I departed by 1974. Great stuff

[@MSportsEngineering]

Do you have any WorldCom stories?

[@PushingThroughThePain]

@@dawnreneegmail thank you for sharing! Truly! I love tech of all levels, but there is something truly memorizing about the level of personal interaction to make this fledgling technology work. I have a lot of respect for all of you and your colleagues for literally working to keep the lines of communications open across the USA and the world. I honestly don't know how you kept all that information straight without the aid of computers! My time at MCI was similarly a terrific place to work. I was heartbroken when MCI was bought out by Verizon and they closed my location in Rockford, IL. I had no idea that Verizon used to be a Bell company... MCI acted so proud to not be associated with anything to do with Bell or it's regional offshoots. I guess they weren't too proud to be sold off to a Bell company 😂

[@PushingThroughThePain]

@@MSportsEngineering I worked there after MCI bought themselves back after the WorldCom debacle. Whenever I asked around, I'd be given thinly veiled threats of termination. Something along the way of, "the last guy who wouldn't let this topic go is still standing in the unemployment lines." 😳 They were pretty tight lipped about the whole thing. Probably due to some sorta NDA... Possibly in a trade for not being prosecuted 🤷🏽‍♂️

[@MSportsEngineering]

@@PushingThroughThePain wow, that's wild! Sensitive subject I guess. I can't believe all those smart people got duped by WorldCom.

[@davecasler]

The early history of the telephone company was abridged quite a bit in the video. Early operators (my mother was one) would ask "Number please" and then make the connection for the subscriber. Dial telephones came later, and with them, the dial tone. Dial telephones did not require operators to complete a local call. BTW, the Morse code chart you showed was a later code, now standardized worldwide for radio use. The old telegraph system used the old railroad code.

[@texan-american200]

@Lloyd Stambaugh Remember the old "phone numbers?" They always started with two letters like, UN, CA, etc. I still remember number prefixes like Capital -xxxxx or UNion-xxxxx to contact homes or businesses. I can still remember my original home phone number. UN-49049... 📞😬

[@rupe53]

@Lloyd Stambaugh ... you said area code, but I believe you meant local exchange code. (town / city) This was needed to do direct dialing of local numbers. Area codes came later and in many cases you still couldn't direct dial long distance till near 1960. Using area codes is also when they started moving away from using two letters at the start of each number.

[@techguy9023]

@@texan-american200 FEderal 54908! Continental code is used on radio, Morse was similar but used for land ( railroads, Western Union) and had a few different characters

[@sterlingodeaghaidh5086]

An old prominent business owner once told me this. A good business expands its market, a successful business controls it, but a true business benefits the market beyond its stake.

[@assessor1276]

This is very well done Tom - a touching and respectful tribute to a brave young man who died just as he became an adult. Peter

[@hugh007]

The Bell system built the oldest and biggest computer utilizing the distributed computing power of its thousands of telephone switching offices. Connections from anywhere to a anywhere in seconds, sometimes using various paths and switces. All transparent to the caller. RIP MA Bell. NYCMNYBW01T

[@whyjnot420]

When I was a kid I used to think the 'Ma" in that referred to Massachusetts (as I live in Connecticut).

[@Dong_Harvey]

@@whyjnot420 it probably was at first

[@whyjnot420]

@@Dong_Harvey But wouldn't that put it into the time when Ma. was Mass. like how Ct. was Conn.?

[@Chris_at_Home]

@@whyjnot420 I grew up in Ct and as a kid I always remember it as Mass. ....and then I retired from AT&T.

[@ericelsberry5585]

CLLI

[@robbicu]

Well done team! The look is MUCH better. Without the antique movie effects, the photos take on a life of their own. Thank you for making that change. Looks sooo much better!

[@eftalanquest]

you should really do a headphone warning for that intro jingle

[@kahleeguhhuh]

Even watching on my living room tv, it’s verrrry loud.

[@MSportsEngineering]

Yeah. Way too loud for me.

[@DoubleMonoLR]

Or ideally, just fix it. It's weird how so many youtube videos have volume problems.

[@amogusenjoyer]

Just use the sponsorblock add-on. It will auto skip most intros, sponsor segments etc. Life changer honestly

[@dj371212]

No shit

[@n7565j]

I was born in 1965 and I remember party lines where everyone in your neighborhood could pick up the phone and hear your conversation and there was always a little old lady talking to another little old lady when you wanted to make a call. I'm glad those days are gone ;-)

[@h-leath6339]

This ep was fascinating! It waybacked me a lot. I had completely forgotten about all those MCI commercials & never knew what MCI stood for! I also didn't know that whole bell/verizon link. Entire time couldn't stop thinking about all those twisted pairs stretching out from every home, spidering out across the map...

[@eliasthienpont6330]

MCI = Motor Coach International --- They make Buses!

[@Tigerskunk]

At the end you mentioned Verizon, but an interesting thing is Southwestern Bell. SW Bell (as it later changed to) started in a partnership to form Cingular wireless. Sw Bell changed to SBC and bought some of the former Baby Bell regions. SBC the bought AT&T Corp. The new company is called AT&T Inc. They claim the AT&T history but the corporational structure is SBC.

[@Hitek146]

To echo other commenters, AT&T Long Lines communications network was an essential part of this history...

[@michaelcole2649]

For those who think they remember the "old" phone system, I taught a class on the history of the telephone in the 80's. You missed a number of things; originally phone calls were only through an operator. The first automated switch was invented by a funeral home owner who didn't get calls because the wife of his competition was the local operator who directed calls to her husband. The law suit that finally brought the break up of the system was originally filled in 1949 and was settled because AT&T saw dollar signs in the unregulated market, they basically wrote the final solution. AT&T as a company finally went out of business and the AT&T of today came from a renaming of another company trying to capitalize on the name, that's when the logo changed. The day the break up was announced in 1983 we knew prices were going to increase which the did, by leaps and bounds. The 22 operating companies broke up into reginal companies and ALL the advantages that existed as a regulated monopoly when out the window. The public never understood the concept but no one was happy when their phone bills started going up.

[@fairwinds610]

At 2:49 you mentioned Samuel Morse' electronic telegraph; a single circuit with a key, battery, and telegraph receiver. The diagram shown is a spark-gap radio transmitter.

[@antilogism]

Many of the pics and vids didn't match the narration.

[@deathhamster_2213]

I’ve worked for the New Zealand Archives! Nice to see some of our footage being put to good use here.

[@whyjnot420]

I wonder how many people watching this video ever actually used a rotary phone in their lives. I don't think pulse service has even been available in my area for around 20 years. Let alone the fact that everyone I know ditched pulse in favor of touchtone phones back in the early 90s.

[@Aquatarkus96]

I'm 26, my grandmother had a rotary phone until 2010 and I used it almost every time I went over there

[@InterLinked1]

All real telephone switches support pulse dialing as they are backwards compatible. I've never had any issues with pulse dialing on any real phone line. If you have been moved to VoIP (or something that isn't a real POTS landline), that may be a different ball game.

[@alexm566]

I used rotary until 2006 or so.

[@tihspidtherekciltilc5469]

Guilty as charged, pun possible. The Nokia 3310 of corded phones. Indestructible and somewhere out there is a picture of one hanging out the huge plate glass window that was meant for my head.

[@eliasthienpont6330]

We still have rotary phones. MY phone is a rotary. Our first phones had a CRANK on them to wake up the operator.

[@ricoramos9864]

I'd like to add my "well done" to the many that were given. I retired as a central office switchman and saw many innovation's through the years. Well done.

[@zenolachance1181]

That is one of the best videos on the advancement of Technology that I have ever watched on KZbin! You did a wonderful job and I am fascinated that you found this much information! You must have spent a lot of time on this video! So I want to say thank you! Keep up the good work! How about a video on loran-c? Another technology change navigation and is now obsolete

[@jimdandy9671]

It's not "center office", the common term for the local switching center was "central office".

[@rayfridley6649]

@8:10- The earliest phones required the caller to spend a crank to call the exchange's operator to make a call.

[@NYCMNYBW01T]

I had a career with AT&T, first with Long Lines, and AT&T after LL became defunct. The Bell system by then had connected the continent for almost 100 years. MCI, Sprint etc. had limited infrastructure so they leased AT&T's lines, reselling them to customers at a reduced rate, but they didn't connect everywhere. They would have lost money on rural areas, so they only connected to heavy routes, leaving AT&T to service rural and sparsely populated areas. Most people noted that after the breakup, monthly rates for so-called dial-tone (local) connections rose dramatically, as revenue from Long Lines diminished and couldn't offset local service. Most of this is academic now as copper to to homes and businesses is evaporating as communication is moving to 'wireless. Good video. Thanks.

[@zenolachance1181]

I never thought for a minute that Verizon was just a rebranding of AT&T and Bell Telephone. I guess that's why their rates are higher than everyone else's. Old habits are hard to break

[@Elyseon]

Comcast and Windstream can go to hell too.

[@kennixox262]

Verizon is the combination of GTE and Bell Atlantic, one of the baby bells. GTE was the largest non AT&T phone network.

[@chuckandmax7313]

No mention of Mona Pitt, the first telephone operator, who was selected due to the fact that the rascally former telegraph boys who answered the line were rude and played tricks on customers, Mona started the phase of women as operators and the telephone company became a major employer of women for years to come.

[@SMac-bq8sk]

Interesting! I never knew that.

[@davidjames666]

I would have done the same as those guys. probably commenting on the ladies sexy voices, and asking them to moan or breath heavy for me. In other words, I would have made a terrible operator too

[@chuckandmax7313]

@@davidjames666 I was a 411 information operator in the GTE mega center before we became Verizon, and I took calls from AT&T and other mobile customers, it was 1998 so there was not as many cell customers. Anyway we had guys call in all the time and ask the girls what underwear they had on and the occasional breathers, I had a guy that called about once a month on a Friday night saying he was going to kill himself, I’d say, you know I have to send the police to check on you and he’d say I know but could you ask them not to use their sirens. It was an extremely monotonous job as we took one call after the other and had 20 seconds to complete the call, so around 2000 calls on an 8 hour shift. I worked there for 17 years than took an early retirement package.

[@edmondarmstrong1834]

Sounds absolutely terrible how this kickstarted the acceleration of female hypergamy.

[@rupe53]

@@davidjames666 in that era, "phone sex" hadn't even been thought of yet. Most likely because if it was a local call you might actually know who was on the other end.(and they charged by the call) Calls to another city were not cheap and cost a bunch extra.

[@jontooke846]

Love your history of things so great educational and interesting. Thanks so much for the work you do.

[@AsbestosMuffins]

The one thing you could appreciate about AT&T vs the crappy ISPs we have today is they plowed money back into their network constantly, not the piddly few percents of profit the current ISPs do

[@mmhoss]

Not out of the kindness of their heart. DOJ understood that while ATT created the societally transformative technology and earned their monopoly for the time being, the technology became so fundamental that it needed to be treated like a public good. Thus ATT were allowed to behave monopolistically so long as the consumer were being benefited by a quality product and service. The preferential treatment from DOJ ended when ATT increasingly engaged in predatory behavior, and that was kind of the last time DOJ did anything about predatory monopolies in any sector. That responsibility now lies largely with the FTC/FCC/SEC and all they every do is fine companies for 20% of the profits the predatory behavior alone brought in. So they calculate the risk and do it ad infinitum, because they're basically incentivized to.

[@Ralphie_Boy]

*I'm enjoying the channel almost every day, thanks for bringing all of us back to school...* 👨‍🎓

[@bretthibbs6083]

One thing I want to add is AT&T had a system of long line communications by the way of microwave radio we have at least 1 or 2 here in Minnesota and the towers were all over the U.S. and AT&T owned those and those were used for long distance or government use and I think for television broadcasts over phone lines I think

[@CocoHutzpah]

I watched this video on a computer running Ubuntu, which would not exist if not for these events. It's impressive to see the trail from the first telephone to this video and how AT&T held it all for so long.

[@goodecheeseburgers6320]

Y u N0t U5e K4L1?

[@whyjnot420]

Sounds like you would enjoy science historian James Burke and his take on the evolution of technology. His Connections series are a little old now, but not really dated. He does a great job tracing a modern thing back through time.

[@Dong_Harvey]

@@goodecheeseburgers6320 Kali is a PenTesting distro, that being said, its not really even secure (per the creators itself, it is not meant to be secure).. Its also not even that user friendly for day-to-day purposes, its meant to be used for work purposes Also, if you are trying to meme, you are wayyy too late, the original joke was 'Install Gentoo'

[@Dong_Harvey]

I watched this on an Android device, also Linux, if I watched this on an Apple device, they would owe their progress to UNIX (BSD) as well

[@Chris_at_Home]

I retired from them as a technician. My last position was working at gateway earth station. We also did the communications along the pipeline which I did for many years. When I first started in electronics I also learned vacuum tube technology.

[@leonb8991]

One day, I’ll never have to find the end of a keeps ad again. Seriously, I’ve seen more in the past week than I ever did of raid shadow legends

[@28ebdh3udnav]

I'm getting addicted to this as it's American History. It's History that most Americans have forgetten. We need to preserve this channel for ever

[@roadtoad7704]

Up until the early 1960s, phone numbers began with 2 letters then the remaining 5 digits. Our first number (Franklin OH) was SH7-xxxx. SH stood for "Shaker." Our 2nd number (Middletown) was GA4-xxxx. GA stood for "Garden." Don't ask me the why's on this.

[@marstondavis]

I always wanted a line that started with 'Tu'. That was for Tuxedo. They had that in San Francisco.

[@eliasthienpont6330]

Those were the locations of the local switches. We were (at one time) FReeport-9-1588

[@edpodellis]

They were called " exchange " and was usually associated with a part of a town area .

[@rupe53]

you guys must live in the big city. We didn't get full 7 digit phone numbers till well after 1960. You simply called the operator and gave them the town plus another three or four digits. When I started working at a gas station the owner had his hand written phone book on the desk with the local numbers we used on our new rotary dial, but many of the numbers still required an operator because not everyone has switched to the new system yet. The next gas station up the road had the only wrecker in town and the number was painted n the door. (Wilton 1) In our phone book there was a notation that if nobody answered we should call the police, because the PD would know where the tow truck was! Yup, small town.

[@atallguynh]

We had the two letter system well into the 80s, maybe not officially, but that was how everyone said their number when I was growing up. And it was printed that way on the phones too - a hand typed tiny paper label to remind you of where you were calling from.

[@MSportsEngineering]

The music at the start is very, very loud. Otherwise great video.

[@PBGetson]

The 'problem' with these videos is all the time I spend downloading original patents and reading through them. Thank's for the addition to my collection. I'm up to 805 so far, which I began downloading as PDFs in 2007.

[@stephenmoerlein8470]

Very interesting look at technology history. Thanks for posting

[@willmatic84]

Its crazy we came a long way and now we all have cellular phones 5g networks and who knows what's next in the future great video man I love history

[@robertcuminale1212]

Telepathy. we'll communicate with brain waves.

[@MikeHarris1984]

I like how KEEPS has become the next "Hair club for men" Commercials on every freaking youtube... for SNAKEOIL!

[@JoeFeser]

Thanks!

[@ITSHISTORY]

Thank you so much for supporting the channel!

[@BulldozerNDF]

this channel has been cranking out videos super often lately im loving it

[@brianarbenz1329]

Very thorough and information packed video. Great job. And stopping to review every half minute or so is essential to keep up. At points, the history is so complex I wanted to shout, "Just use 2 tin cans and a string for christsakes!"

[@kohZeei]

For anyone wondering what the thumbnail is of, it is of the old telephone tower in stockholm and has nothing to do with this video.

[@James_Knott]

In 1972, I started working as a technician for a Canadian telecom, initially overhauling Teletype machines, but over the years worked in other positions. Bell was our competitor. Incidentally, A. G. Bell's first long distance experiments, between Brantford and Paris Ontario, were conducted over the telegraph lines of a predecessor company of the one I worked for.

[@Peter78730]

Wow! Makes me dizzy. Great presentation. Sounds as though you did it with one breath. Anxious to see more of whatever you offer!

[@pedropuckerstein4670]

No mention of all the inventions by Bell Labs, cell phones, transistors, etc. You missed a very important aspect of at&t especially government work. Did

[@21jimmyo]

I'm old enough to remember that every phone was owned by Ma Bell. You rented your phone. Local and long distance were separate charges. Phone calls were relatively expensive. When you went on a long trip, you would dial home, let it ring once, and hang up to let them know you got to your destination. No computers, no pagers, no cell phones.

[@westtell4]

the Dark ages Of human communications

[@kennixox262]

Not every phone! We had GTE on Florida's Gulf coast.

[@kingxcamm]

@@kennixox262 did you still have to pay long distance and phone rental with GTE or was it an alternative to AT&T like T-Mobile is today? Was it just as evil as ma bell?

[@paulwarner5395]

Thanx for the great video. I worked as a tech from 1963 to I retired in 2018 in the industry in various rolls. Sure has changed from those old manual boards, Western Electric Rotary and Panel systems to today's modern VOIP and cell tech. A few memories there.

[@robertcuminale1212]

I recognized the crossbar and panel frames but the one with the spinning wipers I've never seen. I was surprised not to see a Step by Step (Strowger) switch. I worked on Automatic Electric (GTE)Step by Step, Stromberg XY Dial when I was in the Navy. In the field as a repairman I worked on 740, 800A, 801, 756 and 757 PBX Switches. We even had a few 501 and 555 manual switches when I work in New York City. I'm glad I was nolonger in New York when I was laid off in 1985. I was back at Southern Bell when the split came.

[@mistervacation23]

Richard would you believe the Hooterville Telephone Company switchboard does not have a Fargo hole?

[@gkprivate433]

Around 1975, my oldest sister had some boyfriend down in Maryland or Delaware. We lived in Rhode Island. I remember us getting a $ 347 phone bill from long distance calls! Sis moved down to Delaware shortly after that! 347 was a monstrous un heard of phone bill at that time and well outsie any normal house budget. I also remember years before that always re wiring phone wires in my grand parents house to add extensions because as some others have mentioned, plugs were not common and all the original phone wires just came out of the wall

[@tonybolognamacaroni383]

very cool coverage thank you

[@warrenjohnknight.9831]

I remember visiting the last manual telephone exchange in 1968 here in my town as my brother was the foreman of the local post and telegraph line depot. And then in 1978 the last telegraph delivered to my house by a person, now I spent all day on KZbin 😆😆.

[@snowwhite7677]

I remember in the 1980's I had to RENT a land line Telephone from Bell Pacific.

[@coolizmc]

8:30 in the late 19th century and early 20th century the operator asked you who you wanted to call and connected the line manually. Dial telephones didn't debut until 1919 and manually operated switchboards will still common for a few decades afterwards therefore instead of getting a dial tone you would get a "number please"

[@ronalddevine9587]

The biggest loss of breaking up AT&T is the loss of Bell Labs. It has taken til recently for the phone system to work as well as it did under Bell.

[@MarinCipollina]

Bell Labs was never lost. Bell Labs became LUCENT TECHNOLOGY after the breakup.

[@Live2ride2live54321]

I work in bell labs building! It was renamed lucent technologies and then the massive building laid abandoned for a while before becoming “Bell Works” which it is today

[@kd1s]

I recall my fist phone line with touch tone dialing and phone rental cost $12 in 1980. You see Bell used long distance rates to subsidize local service. After the breakup that rose to $50. Oh yeah and Shannon's Information Theory spelled the end of the Bell System.

[@robertcuminale1212]

We also used the business equipment leasing to subsidize local rates. Whenever we asked for an increase the Public Service Commissions or Utility Commissions would make Bell raise the equipment fees to a higher rate while passing very little on on telephone service. This hurt AT&T' when competition became heavier in the 1980s and 1990s. The high equipment leasing costs made AT&T unable to compete against it. The same with Long Distance rates. Against MCI and SPRint. (Southern Pacific Railroad) Plus AT&T had to lease it's network to them at a huge discount. They argued that access to their services was unequal because their customers had to dial a telephone number plus a billing code to use them while AT&T was accessed with the digit 1. That was because under the Kingsbury Commitment Bell was to be the nation's long distance carrier in return for accepting regulation of its rates.

[@rayfridley6649]

When the long distance call was made between a Bell company and a non-Bell company, 90% of the revenue went to the non-Bell company. This may no longer be true since the break-up of AT&T of 1984. Anyone know more about this since the break up?

[@JMM33RanMA]

Another excellent video. I have forwarded the site location to my best friend.

[@JimFortune]

"We don't care. We don't have to. We're the phone company." Lily Tomlin, Laugh-In

[@fredflintstoner596]

Mrs Richards: "I paid for a room with a view !" Basil: (pointing to the lovely view) "That is Torquay, Madam." Mrs Richards: "It's not good enough!" Basil: "May I ask what you were expecting to see out of a Torquay hotel bedroom window? Sydney Opera House, perhaps? the Hanging Gardens of Babylon? Herds of wildebeest sweeping majestically past?..." Mrs Richards: "Don't be silly! I expect to be able to see the sea!" Basil: "You can see the sea, it's over there between the land and the sky." Mrs Richards: "I'm not satisfied. But I shall stay. But I expect a reduction." Basil: "Why?! Because Krakatoa's not erupting at the moment?

[@calbob750]

Another significant development relevant to the network in the latter part of the twentieth century was digital carrier and the acquisition of modems from Sykes Datatronics by the Bell System in the early 1980s. Now you could connect your computer to the network. Once connected to the network data could be exchanged freely between computers.

[@edpodellis]

Sure at the high rate of 6 bits per second !

[@robertcuminale1212]

@@edpodellis he lowest speed I remember as an installer was 300 baud. It got faster over time, 600 then 1200, 2400 and on a conditioned line 4800 baud.

[@Bobrogers99]

Ma Bell may have been a monopoly, but it was well regulated for a long time. The phone rates were affordable for most people, even in rural areas that were expensive to service, and the Western Electric phones were rugged and practical. Perhaps breaking up the monopoly encouraged innovation, but today's multiple companies that duplicate services in order to compete are not efficient. Instead of having one cell phone service that is required to cover everybody, we have many companies that serve the profitable markets well and large areas of the country that have poor or no cell service.

[@alexx123ify]

watching on my telephone

[@PushingThroughThePain]

Ditto 😅

[@-oiiio-3993]

The future is now.

[@johnw2026]

Same. 👍

[@charliekelly3173]

I am more informed by this video than the person at the Telephone Museum a couple blocks from my apt that's only open for 2 hours on sundays lol great video!

[@waterearthmud4116]

21:53-broke em up into 7 parts and today those 5 parts are sbc southern bell company and 1 company and at&t

[@dadavisual]

Keep posting New York history videos!!!

[@richardnelson64]

Great story man ! Really enjoyed it!! 🖖♥️☮️👍🌻🌻✝️🔆💠❗✌️

[@kerzwhile]

This was Really well done!! 👍

[@fokkerd3red618]

Very well explained, but this issue was still very complex back in the day. Like who owned what. Quite frankly I miss the landline days & payphones. Cell phones are a curse to the human race. I'd be willing to bet that more people have gone to prison using smart phones than they ever did with a landline, because of Social Media.

[@campkohler9131]

Technically, the telegraph was electric rather than electronic. The latter uses control of electrons by vacuum tubes (and later transistors), which of course was not invented until much later.

[@BodyworkByJon]

So informative!

[@pmd1973]

OMG! Loud noises alert at 0m42s... Take off those headphones!

[@ITSHISTORY]

Thanks to Keeps for sponsoring this video! Head to keeps.com/ItsHistory to get 50% off your first Keeps order.

[@brianholt3567]

Really enjoyed this documentary. Question. You did not mention fiber optic cables that was around in the 1990s. Today with voice over ip the transmission lines for.this service and internet are fed by fiber optical cables on the poles. Fewer and fewer POTS plain old telephone service lines are being used today.

[@eliasthienpont6330]

Optic Fiber cables on not on telephone poles. We have power poles in town, but no telephone poles. All of our telephone lines were underground long before fiber was installed. Fiber optic must be buried usually in a conduit or similar. These are GLASS fibers and are about the diameter of a human hair. Blowing in the North Dakota wind would destroy optic fiber cables. CABLE systems are hung on poles, but the connection to most buildings is under ground. TV cables are very sturdy.

[@edpodellis]

@@eliasthienpont6330 I live outside of Boston and I have a fiber wire from the pole to my house with FIOS from Verizon ! It was installed about 10 years ago .I know this because I was a tech for Verizon . The fiber drops are all pre-made so the tech just plugs in on both ends and coils up the extra on the pole .

[@JeffDeWitt]

This was very well done, thank you. While the breakup of Ma Bell was called for and overdue one of the unintended consequences, and real tragedies of it, was the loss of Bell Labs. (Now owned by Nokia and a shadow...at best, of its former self). My Grandfather worked for AT&T and searching for patents under his name I found one from 1932 that would let an operator type in a message and the device would output it in Morse. That certainly goes along with trying to deal with the accuracy issue. The irony is that even with landlines fading many of us, including me, are still using AT&T for cell phone service. AT&T also came through my neighborhood recently and installed fiber for internet access. They keep pestering me to change, but my cable internet is plenty fast and I don't see how it's worth the bother to change.

[@James_Knott]

Another loss was Western Electric. They set the standard for much of the telephone network construction in the U.S. and Canada. In emergencies, such as an office fire, the local phone company could call in techs from across the continent, including Canada, if necessary, to help them restore service. As all the equipment and installation standards were the same, it was very easy for a tech from one area to drop into the job and start working just as though he was at his home area. Same with obtaining equipment needed to restore service. It was all there, somewhere, in the Bell system.

[@NoTraceOfSense]

Fiber optics are about as fast as you can get, and aren’t affected by electromagnetic interference. On the other hand, landline is dependent on the ONT having power, so you’d need a battery for that if the power goes out. (Cable (as in the thick coax cable) also has this problem.)

[@chasmader]

8:34. Wow. Dial Service wasn’t in use until the 1920s.

[@alanperry8676]

The only thing AT&T about the modern AT&T is the name. AT&T was a mere shell of its former self when what had been Southwestern Bell bought it.

[@SlowMenThinking]

And Good Old NZPO footage from New Zealand anybody notice the dial is backwards for the rest of the world?

[@johnw2026]

I remember having to dial 1 (0 for collect calls), then the area code, prefix and telephone number for long distance. And if you didn't have a long distance plan, extra fees would show up on your next bill. I also remember that if you did a regular long distance call from a payphone, every few minutes that irritating voice would come on there, interrupt your conversation, and tell you to put more money in the phone, or it would disconnect your call! I also remember that if you lived in town near a county line, you could call clear across town, no problem. But if you called across the country line, even if it was closer, it was still long distance. Thank God for modern cell service! I won't ever have those headaches unless I make an international call. 😅

[@OfftheWallTales]

I was born in 1990 and yup, all vivid in my mind. What I remember most strongly though is that before 2000, the long distance charges were so high that sometimes we couldn't afford to call my dad's side in the south. But my great gram would let us make a call in her apartment, since we shared a duplex and each floor had their own number and plan. Now it's amazing to me that international calls even on a landline are pretty much that same rate as long distance was then. Also, I kind of miss how often we got to hear other conversations when the phone lines would cross. I can't cut my landline as I'm pretty rural, only have a bar of service and the local cable company has such old lines laid that Spectrum service just goes around my county due to how often they malfunction. But I remember it happening like once or twice a month in the 90s. Now it happens less than twice in a decade. But as a household who purchased a computer and dial up in 1995, a single year after the internet literally started... I'll never miss that damn dial up tone, or the AT&T logo and the man walking as it took two minutes to connect. And .2 seconds to shut down if someone picked up a phone :( but it does sort of amaze me that that was the most normal thing in the world for at least as long as the area codes replaced telephone workers, until improvements were made slowly due to the internet.

[@Stache987]

To this day you can live in the borderline rate centers of the Kansas City metro calling area, call 50 miles for free, that in some cases in even the 70's you could be charged a toll within that area, E.G. Blue Springs, if you called 229 numbers it wasn't a toll but 228 was, and Grain Valley could "become" a 228 number to set a cheaper toll, as it and Blue Springs used the same Wire Center. If you wanted to call, say Buckner, served by United Telephone then, it was always a toll. Then in the 1990's they created a Metropolitan line scheme, different than what I sold at work in Pennsylvania, where if on the outside of the metro calling area, your number would have to change (sometimes keeping the last 4 digits) to a office code recognized as local, this was a tiered system, MCA3 phone numbers could call (and be called) any metro number, as well as the non MCA3 selectees but MCA4 non selectees would still be toll, and so on to MCA5, thought was made to include Lexington and Warrensburg, as well as possibly Higginsville into MCA6 but that never materialized with people having a all long distance monthly fee.

[@rupe53]

growing up semi rural put us in a position where if you lived close to the next town you might get your phone line from there because it was the closest trunk to a central office. I had friends who lived on opposite sides of town who both had this situation and they always had to pay an extra fee to call each other because the normal circle of calling was only one town over, not two.

[@Stache987]

@@rupe53 a states public utility authority authorized boundary lines, that's what defines where you get your service from. Some operating companies offered a second line where you could get a number from across a boundary to be toll free for more people, and be able to call more places, there were two requirements to get this line, maintain a line in your own wire center, and the other, make no tolls on the second line. When I went to school up to 9th grade, the footprint of the school district was k-6 3 schools had one wire center (and still do) and another was across a boundary for another telephone company, all its upper education was about 5 miles from any of its elementary schools, but toll calls, so they had to get foreign exchange lines to permit two way calling toll free, eventually to replace those with MCA-3 lines which FWIW gave a broader calling area

[@rupe53]

@@Stache987 ... just remember that rules were different 50+ years ago and some of that infrastructure was already dating back into the 30s when we first got telephone in this area If you lived on a dead end road at the edge of the district you got a number from wherever the nearest trunk line ran. I have an older friend who still has a number from another town (a half mile away) and that dates back to around 1960. Since then they added lines and expanded the district twice, but he's 80 years old and refuses to change his number.

[@gkprivate433]

My grand parents did come from Greece to the USA. I remember in the 60s Mom had to call back to Greece for some reasons (probably to notify my grandparent's relatives back there when my Yai ya died. I remember her trying for several days, waiting until 11 PM, trying to get the overseas operator, etc.

[@fohseytv]

I love these videos but please for the love of God turn down the volume on the intro scene. I get all comfortable and then boom blaring trumpets.

[@BradHouser]

There are quite a few inventions we can thank the Bell System for. Transistors, Unix, Electronic switching, cellular phones, microwave and satellite communications, and discovery of the cosmic background radiation that led to our understanding of the big bang and how the universe was formed. While there were monopolistic practices on the business side which deserved to be addressed, the technologies that resulted from the Bell Labs research cannot be disputed.

[@NYCMNYBW01T]

And Cold War national defenses. NORAD, the Dew Line, Cheyenne Mountain, etc. Much of those defense systems were designed, built, installed and connected by Western Electric and Bell.

[@pedropuckerstein4670]

Google stands on the shoulders of bell labs

[@mackfisher4487]

Well done

[@toecuttre]

Who or what has the longest, still in use telephone number?? I know the Hotel Pennsylvania in NYC has had theirs for quite awhile, but does anywhere else beat their record?

[@rupe53]

Who has the longest standing number? Part of that question will hinge on when their system went from 3 to 4 and then to 7 digits... then there's the aspect of area codes. While parts of NYC have retained the same 212 area code, many sections have since been broken down. I know Queens County got changed and so did Westchester, and eventually up-state.

[@dustbunnys]

I love your channel

[@tonymanzo3766]

Even after the breakup of ma bell, my family still paid rental for the wall rotary phone that was there since I was a kid, I removed that phone and put a Panasonic phone with 30 spaces for one touch dialing, i took the old phone to the local pharmacy that served as a collector of old AT&T western electric phones. Saved 9$ a month rental charge, even though that phone hadn’t been connected in many years.

[@Destilight]

0:41didn't expect a jumpscare

[@KayvonJavid]

AT&T got broken up to slowly merge back together again. That is comical to be honest.

[@moriver3857]

Great video. I've always been fascinated by how those ladies in the early exchange, could figure out which wire to pull, and where to plug it in next. Someone should make a video on how those exchanges worked.

[@rupe53]

at the switch board they had flashing lights to show which cord to pull up and a series of plugs that were in number sequence. There was also a switch to connect the operator that they flipped off after you got connected.

[@MrJoeybabe25]

The U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that the FCC has no powers to regulate any Internet provider's network, or the management of its practices: "[the FCC] 'has failed to tie its assertion' of regulatory authority to an actual law enacted by Congress", and that the FCC lacked the authority under Title I to force ISPs to keep their networks open, while employing reasonable network management practices, to all forms of legal content. In wake of the rulings, the FCC stated it would continue its fight for net neutrality.

[@MomMom4Cubs]

Can we spare a moment to commemorate Communication Workers of America, and also Pioneers of the Rochester Telephone Workers Association? The innovations from R&D implemented by these resourceful folks drive many oft-relied upon communication features today!

[@coolsnake1134]

Didn't realize there was a time when AT&t was trying to prevent ham radio operators from doing a phone patch under their rules of no non AT&t bill system provided equipment on their networks

[@campkohler9131]

Nooooo! There was no tone with the telegraph; there were only the clicks of the sounder. Tone only arrived when Morse was sent over radio.

[@MarinCipollina]

120 years later, AT&T is back on top. They are number one in wireless communication customers. I'm one of them, ever since they were the ONLY cellular cell service providers that had the Apple iPhone. I got the second generation the day it was released in Summer ''08. I thought the first gen would be buggy and I thought it was really overpriced at the time. With the second generation, the price was lowered and memory was doubled, 8 gb or 16 gb, compared to 4 gb or 8 gb in that first iPhone. Of course, now we're in the terabyte range.I always go for maximum local storage since iPhone 4S. There's no such thing as too much local storage.

[@alanrobertfisher]

Intro music is way too loud compared to the rest of the video.

[@JourneysADRIFT]

Me, falling asleep to random stuff on KZbin. Intro: *let me introduce myself*

[@brianwilson8836]

Nice video

[@gj8683]

I remember the breakup of the Bell Telephone monopoly in the 1980s. We'd say, "That's no lady! That's Ma Bell!"

[@warrenjohnknight.9831]

Strangely enough just been watching a telephone system from my country New Zealand on this video ha ha.