|
Posted by Rich Greenberg on April 14, 2008, 10:30 am
If you were Registered and logged in, you could reply and use other advanced thread options
>Wes Leatherock wrote:
>> With all due respect, Bell/W.E. did not design
>> SxS. That was done by, or at the behest of, a Kansas
>> City undertaker named Strowger, as I recall.
>Correct. And, his incentive was to stop his competitors from spying on
>his business via the manual system.
Not quite Sam. The way I heard it was that the competion were bribeing
the manual board operators to send his calls to other funeral homes.
--
Rich Greenberg N Ft Myers, FL, USA richgr atsign panix.com + 1 239 543 1353
Eastern time. N6LRT I speak for myself & my dogs only. VM'er since CP-67
Canines:Val, Red, Shasta & Casey (RIP), Red & Zero, Siberians Owner:Chinook-L
Retired at the beach Asst Owner:Sibernet-L
|
 
| |
Posted by Geoffrey Welsh on April 14, 2008, 3:16 pm
If you were Registered and logged in, you could reply and use other advanced thread options
Rich Greenberg wrote:
> Not quite Sam. The way I heard it was that the competion were
> bribeing the manual board operators to send his calls to other
> funeral homes.
... and the way I heard it was that the town operator was the wife of a
competing undertaker who, when a caller asked to be put through to "an
undertaker", would send a disproportionate fraction of the callers (and
business) to her husband.
But here's a (possibly more interesting) followup question: what made him
think that it would catch on? After all, he designed it to suit his needs,
not the needs of the customer at large. Why would people want to look up an
undertaker's number and ail it themselves when they can just ask to be put
through to one?
How much of the way people used telephones have changed as a result? Did
people have telephone numbers 120 years ago, or did you ask the operator to
put you through to Hiram's Blacksmith on River Road? If there were telephone
numbers, were there telephone directories, or did you call the operator to
find out the number (which would seem to make noting the number redundant,
since you had to call the operator to complete the call anyway)?
It would seem that automated switching changed many aspects of how we use the
telephone ever since, but also some of these changes were required for
automated switching to become viable. How big a risk did Strowger - and the
companies that bought automated switching equipment - take when they
concluded that people would accept it and it would work well?
--
Geoffrey Welsh <Geoffrey [dot] Welsh [at] bigfoot [dot] com>
***** Moderator's Note *****
According to the Wikipedia article about Strowger, the accounts of a
competing mortician's wife being a telephone operator might be
apocryphal. My speculation is that he, as someone used to a quiet
working environment, was displeased with having to work through a live
operator.
Of course, only Almon Strowger knows for sure, but they don't publish
the phone number for his current address.
Bill Horne
Temporary Moderator
(Please put [Telecom] at the end of the subject line of your post, or
I may never see it. Thanks!)
|
|
Posted by on April 15, 2008, 3:58 pm
If you were Registered and logged in, you could reply and use other advanced thread options
> But here's a (possibly more interesting) followup question: what made him
> think that it would catch on? After all, he designed it to suit his needs,
> not the needs of the customer at large. Why would people want to look up
an
> undertaker's number and ail it themselves when they can just ask to be put
> through to one?
One of the difficult questions the Bell System wrestled with was how
the public would accept dialing over manual switchboards and the
resistance (not 'if' but 'how much'). People saw themselves doing
what used to be the work of the phone company and the phone company
knew that.
In big cities, there was no option: they simply could not hire enough
girls to be operators at a wage they could afford. Big city traffic
was so high they needed thousands of operators. Turnover was large as
the girls left to get married. [I don't think there was any
consideration to go back to boys who were too boisterous and wild; I'm
not sure if married young women were permitted to stay on, not
socially acceptable in those days.]
But in many small towns, the operator(s) were like Sarah in Mayberry.
They doubled as an answering service, pager for the town doctor and
police, coordinated emergency actions, etc. Even if a town was big
enough to require numbers, there was still very much a personal
intiimate level of service. [Our small town operator, who transferred
to a city when we went dial, told me the city board was a world
difference, very strict, very uniform procedures.]
In the early cutover days Bell would actually send out trained reps
house to house to explain how to use the new dial telephone. (They
might also quietly pitch the benefits of an extension phone or upgrade
in service class and did make some sales that way.)
When the DC Capitol went dial around 1930, many Senators were angry
and felt the company was making them do the company's work.
Complaints made the NY Times.
The flip side is that many customers felt dial was more private and
faster. Many also thought it was more modern. So, many customers
welcomed going to dial.
> It would seem that automated switching changed many aspects of how we use
the
> telephone ever since, but also some of these changes were required for
> automated switching to become viable. How big a risk did Strowger - and
the
> companies that bought automated switching equipment - take when they
> concluded that people would accept it and it would work well?
In big cities the operators did nothing but connect the call; if the
line was busy they plugged in a busy signal. Going to dial meant no
change in service.
In small towns, more services were provided.
|
| Similar Threads | Posted | | Re: Origin of SxS [Telecom] | April 14, 2008, 12:50 pm |
| [telecom] Need some guidance on telecom easements [Telecom] | August 16, 2008, 9:08 pm |
| Re: [telecom] Radio Shark and Laff-At-It (was Calling Features and LATAs) [Telecom] | July 10, 2008, 11:28 pm |
| Re: [telecom] Road Runner pulls USENET access [TELECOM] | June 27, 2008, 5:50 pm |
| Re: [telecom] Road Runner pulls USENET access [TELECOM] | June 27, 2008, 5:55 pm |
| [Telecom] Telecom stuff--"Three Days of the Condor" movie | January 9, 2008, 10:17 pm |
| [telecom] Manual and Magneto Phone Systems [Telecom] | August 16, 2008, 9:05 pm |
| Telecom rollouts raise ire over utility boxes [telecom] | August 23, 2008, 3:59 pm |
| Re: [telecom] Re: Telecom Re: Analog Cell Phones | September 30, 2007, 10:23 am |
| Re: [telecom] How's Pat? [Telecom] (now Old Bell System) | April 13, 2008, 8:22 pm |
|
|
![Re: Origin of SxS [Telecom]](/images/header.jpg)
Yahoo! 
Google 
Windows Live 
del.icio.us 
digg 
Netscape 
XML site map