Wednesday 30 September 2009
Saturday 5 September 2009
The present, and the future are myname.tel and mycompany.tel.
1876: The first telephone numbers weren't numbers, they were names: The name of your company or you as an individual.
2009: Back to myname.tel and mycompany.tel.
Alexander Graham Bell Telephone.
2009: Back to myname.tel and mycompany.tel.
Alexander Graham Bell Telephone.
.
The first telephone numbers weren't numbers, they were names. The name of your company or you as an individual. That was too confusing to build a telephone system on since many people in a town might share the same name. Starting in 1879, then, scarcely three years after the telephone was invented, the switch to assigning a customer a number began, with a four digit code being typical. Calls were not dialed by the customer, indeed, there were no dial telephones yet. All calls were connected manually by an operator at a switchboard. But dial telephones would come along.
AT&T's operating companies started installing dial telephones in the mid to late 1920s. Customers could now dial numbers themselves, instead of having an operator place them as before. Rather than use all digits to indicate a telephone number, AT&T hit upon a hybrid system of letters and numbers. Instead of a number like 351-1017, the Bell System referred to it by a name like ELgin 1-1017, ELliot 1-1017, or ELmwood 1-1017. Something like that. The two letters and a number indicated a customer's switching office or exchange, the last four digits the actual customer's number. But why use letters?
The Bell System thought abbreviations would prevent misdialing, a mnemonic device to help callers unaccustomed to using dial telephones. AT&T's William G. Blauvelt designed a dial with the letters and numbers we use today, one without a Q or Z, one without letters for the digits 1 and 0. The assumption was, therefore, that customers could dial four or five numbers correctly but not six or seven. And that somehow they needed letters as well.
I've never understood, though, why PEnsylvania 6-5000 should be easier to remember or dial than 436-5000.
Source:
Link:
http://www.privateline.com/mt_telecomhistory/
Wireless Telephony
The Technical World, March, 1905, page 71:
ELSEWHERE in this issue will be found a description of the various wireless telephone systems which have been proposed, together with a brief history of the general subject, by A. Frederick Collins. The first suggestion of a wireless system was by A. G. Bell in 1880. Professor Bell conceived the idea--after the discovery of the variation in resistance of the selenium cell according to the variation in light thrown upon it--that this principle might be used to reproduce spoken words, and such proved to be the case. The speaking arc is another very interesting experiment described; but, as both of these methods depend upon an uninterrupted visual line and more or less accurate alignment of apparatus, it is hardly possible that they can attain much practical importance or be operated over very great distances. In a recent article Mr. Tesla states that "within a few years a simple and inexpensive device, readily carried about, will enable one to receive on land or sea the principal news, to hear a speech, a lecture, a song, or play of a musical instrument conveyed from any other region of the globe." Aside, however, from this prophecy, wireless telephony offers an interesting field for research and experiment, although after 25 years much still remains to be done to place it on a sound commercial footing.
Link:
http://earlyradiohistory.us/1905col.htm
ELSEWHERE in this issue will be found a description of the various wireless telephone systems which have been proposed, together with a brief history of the general subject, by A. Frederick Collins. The first suggestion of a wireless system was by A. G. Bell in 1880. Professor Bell conceived the idea--after the discovery of the variation in resistance of the selenium cell according to the variation in light thrown upon it--that this principle might be used to reproduce spoken words, and such proved to be the case. The speaking arc is another very interesting experiment described; but, as both of these methods depend upon an uninterrupted visual line and more or less accurate alignment of apparatus, it is hardly possible that they can attain much practical importance or be operated over very great distances. In a recent article Mr. Tesla states that "within a few years a simple and inexpensive device, readily carried about, will enable one to receive on land or sea the principal news, to hear a speech, a lecture, a song, or play of a musical instrument conveyed from any other region of the globe." Aside, however, from this prophecy, wireless telephony offers an interesting field for research and experiment, although after 25 years much still remains to be done to place it on a sound commercial footing.
Link:
http://earlyradiohistory.us/1905col.htm
US telephone companies
Wireless Telephony:
http://smart90.com/soulfind.com/frederickcollins.htm
Wireless Telephone Demonstration 1902.
Although the Bell System is the most well-known of US telephone companies, our industry began with hundreds of local companies all trying to deliver telephone services to their subscribers. In 2005, there are again hundreds of companies competing for our telecommunications business.
This area of the museum highlights the histories of those companies, large and small, historic and contemporary.
http://smart90.com/soulfind.com/frederickcollins.htm
Wireless Telephone Demonstration 1902.
Although the Bell System is the most well-known of US telephone companies, our industry began with hundreds of local companies all trying to deliver telephone services to their subscribers. In 2005, there are again hundreds of companies competing for our telecommunications business.
This area of the museum highlights the histories of those companies, large and small, historic and contemporary.
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