When was the last time you actually went to a telephone office to set up service? Nowadays people just call. Of course I could see how that would be difficult if you didn’t have a phone. Also, when was the last time you went into a service office and someone actually had a desk you could sit at? Now it would probably be a person behind a lexan shielded counter.

Good Neighbors
The Bell System serves the whole country, yet it remains close to the people. The people use it. Their savings built it. “It belongs to Main Street.”

The 270,000 employees of the Bell System live and work in your neighborhood and in similar neighborhoods in every section of the country. They are good neighbors. Thousands of times each day and night their activities bring friendly aid to those in need.

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Neal Stephenson wrote a huge travelogue for Wired in 1995 where he followed the progress of a new world girding fiber optic network being constructed. Along the way explores every aspect of the process and history behind laying communications cables underwater. It is a wonderfully interesting read and I highly recommend it.

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Thrills in Laying Deep-Sea Cable Across the Atlantic

WHILE, 57 years ago the world noted the fact that the steamship “Great Eastern” had completed its memorable work of connecting America with Europe by the first successful Atlantic telegraphic cable, the recent landing on the south shore of Long Island of a new line of communication attracted little attention.

Nevertheless, this latest undertaking marked the closer binding together of the New World and the Old, for, despite the advent of the wireless and the establish-ment of powerful radio stations, which are capable of spanning vast terrestrial distances, the fact remains that this newer method of electrical intercourse has not scrapped the older order of long-range telegraphy.

Traffic over the submarine cables linking North America with Europe has increased fourfold in the last decade, and yet, until recently, nothing has been done within that period to add to these undersea nerves of communication. The cost of the new cable, representing the present height of scientific knowledge concerning such things, has been put at $15,000,000; and to get it properly in place on the sea bed has required the service of specially constructed craft manned largely by a crew trained for that hazardous and extremely exacting work.

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PHONE CALLS ARE ANSWERED BY MACHINE

For the convenience of telephone users, an instrument has been devised to take messages and answer calls received when the owner is absent. It consists of a small cabinet containing records similar to those used in dictating or talking machines. If the person is not at home when the phone rings, the instrument repeats a message which has been dictated to it, stating that Mr. So-and-So is out and will the caller speak his message, or any other greeting the owner wishes to give.

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SECRET CONVERSATIONS BY RADIO “SUPERPHONE”

The apparently impossible feat of transmitting conversation while confining it to the speaker and the person for whom it is intended has been accomplished recently in Washington. It was done by a combination of the “superphone,” the invention of Maj. Gen. George C. Squier, chief signal officer of the army, and the principle of using electric light or telegraph wires, as in the receiving station at Chatham. Cape Cod.

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I’m not sure it would be possible to design a worse set of earphones…

EAR TUBES FOR PHONE MAKE WORDS DISTINCT
Persons hard of hearing, who have difficulty in carrying on a telephone conversation, are said to be aided by the new set illustrated above. When answering a call, the user places a receiver of conventional design (at right of photo) upon the base of an instrument resembling a physicians’s stethoscope. Tubes lead to a pair of earpieces that help to make every word audible. In speaking, the special transmitter, seen in background, is used.

Translation: At Bell Labs even our marketing drones are total geeks.

A MODERN SYLLOGISM

MAJOR PREMISE:
Bell Telephone System serves the American Public.

MINOR PREMISE:
Bell Telephone Laboratories develop the facilities of the Bell System.

CONCLUSION:
Therefore, Bell Laboratories serve the American Public.

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FIRST BROADCASTERS USED PHONE

Who were the earliest broadcasters? Ten years before the first radio programs were put on the air, a group in Chicago., 111., regularly delivered musical programs and news bulletins over the telephone lines of many subscribers. The rare old photograph reproduced below shows these pioneers broadcasting from their studio. Each singer is holding a microphone, while other individual microphones are attached to the instruments. To listen to the music, a subscriber had merely to sit beside the telephone and hold the receiver to his ear. If he received a ‘phone call while listening, the musical program was automatically disconnected.

PHONE-HOLDING BRACKET LEAVES HANDS FREE

Acrobatic skill in holding the receiver between shoulder and chin when telephoning, in an effort to free both hands for something else, is no longer necessary if a receiver-holding attachment is fitted to your phone.

The new appliance is merely a bracket that bolts to the phone back of the transmitter and holds the receiver at the proper elevatiou and angle for convenient use. Slipping back a latch releases the hook and opens the line. When the call is completed, pressing down the hook automatically- locks it shut. The holder attaches in place of the rivet found behind the transmitter.

The device should prove particularly welcome when it is necessary to “hold the wire” for a considerable time.

First Telephone Used to Help Escaping Slaves

America’s oldest telephone, pictured here, was used before the Civil War by abolitionists who helped negroes escape. It consisted of a wire attached between drumlike boxes containing diaphragms. A ringing bell announced that a message was to be sent.

AT&T’s monopolistic motto “One Policy One System Universal Service” sounds an aweful lot like the “One ring to bind them” stuff from Lord of the Rings…

Cave Life or Civilization

Civilized man is distinguished from the cave man by his habit of co-operation.

The cave man lived for and by himself; independent of others, but always in danger from natural laws.

To the extent that we assist one another, dividing up the tasks, we increase our capacity for production, and attain the advantages of civilization.

We may sometimes disregard our dependence on others. But suppose the farmer, for example, undertook to live strictly by his own efforts. He might eke out an existence, but it would not be a civilized existence nor would it satisfy him.

He needs better food and clothes and shelter and implements than he could provide unassisted. He requires a market for his surplus products, and the means of transportation and exchange.

He should not forget who makes his clothes, his shoes, his tools, his vehicles and his tableware, or who mines his metals, or who provides his pepper and salt, his books and papers, or who furnishes the ready means of transportation and exchange whereby his myriad wants are supplied.

Neither should he forget that the more he assists others the more they can assist him.

Take the telephone specialists of the Bell System: the more efficient they are, the more effectively the farmer and every other human factor of civilization can provide for their own needs and comforts.

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Rockets Lay Phone Lines

SIGNAL Corps linemen are adding rockets to their tool kits. The fiery missiles pull telephone wire from a new type of dispenser across streams, ravines, and other obstacles. One man, equipped with the dispenser, a few rockets, and a field telephone, can now set up communications in rough terrain faster than a large crew using conventional methods.

The new wire dispenser was developed from a model used during the war. With it. the wire-laying rocket may be fired without a launcher. The rocket is set off in the original cardboard packing case, which is placed in a wedge-shaped hole dug in the ground. Even when fired in this manner, the rocket will carry wire as much as 150 yards.

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Wow, that is one big ass speakerphone.

Phone Aids Free Hands

The busy executive can now carry on conversations over the telephone without even lifting a finger to hold it. With the Jordaphone (PSM, Oct. ‘45, p. 96), a wartime development of the Jordanoff Corp., he need only transfer the phone from its regular cradle to the special one in the top of the instrument. Here the incoming voice is picked up directly from the phone’s earpiece and amplified through a loudspeaker, eliminating actual wire connections. An ordinary microphone, placed anywhere in the room, transmits the outgoing voice to the mouthpiece.

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