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Posted by Herb Stein on November 22, 2007, 12:23 pm
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>> As I've had time I've been reading back issues of this newsgroup. It
>> still amazes me how far we've come in such a short time span.
>>
>> I came across a posting from 1993 (sorry, I can't find it on Google
>> Groups) about a college without phones in the dorm rooms and how the
>> local telco was balking about the free phones (to call the campus
>> exchange only) competing with the pay phones.
>>
>> I went to college in the late 1980's. Phones in the students' dorm
>> rooms was still a recent event. There was a blank spot on the walls
>> where the free and pay phones used to be located. I also remember the
>> campus having to do away with the free phones in other buildings that
>> called the two campus exchanges only because they were competing with
>> the then Southern Bell payphones. I figured out that the call boxes
>> across campus could be used to dial off-campus. It was like using a
>> speaker phone, but I once even used my AT&T calling card to place a
>> long distance call on one just to show it could be done.
>>
>> I got to be thinking. Today almost all college students have cell
>> phones. I visited a local college campus recently and was amazed to
>> see no one was speaking to another human being. They were yacking
>> into cell phones. Do colleges still need to have land lines in the
>> dorm rooms? Sure, there's going to be that odd student here and there
>> without a cell phone.
>>
>> Just thinking today... :-)
>>
>> John
>> --
>> Austin, Texas, USA
>
> Ha,very interesting.
>
> But you could not imagin how is it in China only in 1980's.
> If one wanted to call your parents in another city,You should walk to
> the telephone house,and hang up the phone,then dial "114",the
> operator would ask you: "where?" you told her the no. of your hometown
> city, then the operator there would pick up your calling after about 30
> minutes,then you would be transfered to your father's office after 10
> minutes.........
>
> of course, it is history. Now,even kids got their cell phone.
> but how about the trends and the future? No one konws.
I was in West Germany in 1971 for 6 months. Not long enough to
actually get a phone installed. We would go to the post office (Bundespost)
and schedule a phone call and then go back 3-4 hours later. The operator
would place the call and direct us to a particular phone in the phone bank.
I hope things have improved.
PS - In northern Michigan I had no phone in my dorm room from 1965 to 1969.
--
Herb Stein
herb@herbstein.com
| ![Re: [TELECOM] Telephones and dorm rooms](/images/header.jpg)
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