1984-earlier telephones,MA bell era...

[cfz2882]

Who else here likes old telephones from before mountain bell was broken up in 1984?I have ~30: quite a few from WE from 1939-84, some GTE and a few other US made,an Italian made one and a Mexican one.The Western Electric one were of course superlative and they made most,if not all the parts in the phones themselves right up to the end-my newest WE phone made jan.1984.Cheap junk Asian import phones started flooding in after the breakup.Whenever I come across a vintage WE phone at a thrift shop,ETC. it is automaticly bought

 

[johnrk]

GTE

I bought my first home in Stafford, right outside Houston, in 1977 when I was in college. The shock was when I learned I was on General Telephone instead of Southwestern Bell. The telephone weighed maybe half of what my Bell phone had weighed, and even weighed less than my red Trimline rotary. Crappy, awful phone service--but luckily, my next door neighbor, Evan, worked for GTE so I could walk over and he'd fix things.

I grew up in the 60's with that style of wall phone and desk phone. We had white ones. They never broke. I always saw those cool ads in the Geographic for different phones but we never got any of them. The phone was just something to be relied on--and it could be.

Our exchange was Cypress-7. We went on a long vacation in the mid sixties and when we came back it was '297'. And we had to dial all 7 numbers...

 

[wayupnorth]

My mother and I both worked for the phone company. I have several original Bell dial phones and one orange trimline. Keep two hooked up that always work if the power goes out, like twice in the last 12 days over half a million here lost their power as up here, you cant trust cell coverage. So I will keep my landline that has gone from Ma Bell, to AT&T, to Lucent, to Verizon, to Fairpoint and now Consolidated in less than 20 years.

 

[gusherb]

My first collection was pre divestiture W.E. telephones. I have probably over 100 scattered about the house on display, in use, or in drawers. I have a black 500 on a phone table in the dining room, a beige touchtone square button (with LED backlight) Trimline in one of the bedrooms, an Ivory 2500 in the basement, and a beige touchtone Princess complete with dial light transformer in my room.
I used to have all rotary versions out but since going VoIP I've switched em to touchtone after discovering the pulse to tone converter I had bought introduces a buzz on the line when using it for the whole house, but doesn't do so when attached to just one phone, so the 500 is plugged into it. Surprisingly the little Obi100 ATA has no issue ringing two ringers. I keep just one ringer connected though.

 

[supersuds]

I've got a Stromberg-Carlson version of a Trimline, that seems as well made as a Western Elecrtric, though I'm no expert.

I've looked over the years at some much older phones on EBay, like a Kellogg Redbar from the Forties, or some of the fancy "movie star" Stromberg-Carlsons from the Thirties, but they always seemed too expensive to pull the trigger.

 

[fan-of-fans]

In the living room we have a beige rotary dial phone that looks Western Elecrric but it says Refurbco on the bottom. I think the year on it says 1980.

We kept it mostly for when the power was out but being on cable-phone now, it doesn't work anyway, and the rotary dial won't work with digital service.

It's still nice to have as its ringer is loud enough to hear outside in the yard.

 

[gusherb]

Stromberg Carlson phones were just as solid as Western Electric. ITT and Automatic Electric were not.
My first rotary phone was a Stromberg Carlson 1543. The yellow one in the second photo was a SC 500 from 1983. By then it was cheapened down considerably, everyone had done so by then including W.E. The white 500 and the two pink 1654's are SC as well.

 

[speedqueen]

I have a 1960 WECO 554 wall telephone. I purposely found the old metal dial one because I disliked how the clear plastic dial seemed to stick to my finger as I turned it.

 

[johnrk]

Ericophone

I remember seeing the Ericophone constantly in home decorating mags like 'House Beautiful' in the sixties and being intrigued. I bought one in the 70's in college. They were indeed a cool design from Ericsson and then they came out in digital instead of rotary. Comfortable? Not so much, certainly bulkier to hold than either a Trimline or a conventional phone. But boy, they sure looked good!

 

[Ultramatic]

 

 

I have quite a few WE 2500's, a rotary WE Trimline, a WE 2702B, a WE A/B 500 set, a WE 554, 2554,  a GTE 80 rotary and a few phones from Canada, Germany, England.

 

And I do the same, if I happen to come across genuine phone company phones, I'll buy them right there.  

 

[rp2813]

CYpress 5 Was (and still is) Our Exchange (aka 295)

I bought a rotary Ericofon on ebay a while back.  I thought it would be perfect in the den.  It turned out to have switch hook issues and was so flimsy that attempting to correct the problem resulted in breakage.  I decided that if they were so poorly made, I wouldn't pursue another one.

 

That was just another affirmation of WECo's superiority in the telephone instrument arena.  Except for the Panasonic cordless/answering machine combo and the wall mount Trimline touchtone (an early model with round buttons) in the kitchen, all of my phones are WECo rotaries and they all work.  The oldest dates back to 1931, an oval base D1 type with retrofitted E1 handset and noisy 4H dial, connected to a 1931 ringer subset model 554C.  The ringer is disabled, since this phone is in the guest bedroom.  I have a few 302 models, the oldest dated 1938 with metal case.  I have several 500s, all of them black with metal finger wheels and bakelite handsets.  The oldest one is dated October 1950, when the 500 was still in very limited and haphazard production and the network block didn't yet have an integrated equalizer, and sits on my desk as a daily driver.  There is no question IMO that the 500's G1 handset is the most comfortable and well designed type ever produced.   I like the feel of it in my hand, the heaviness of the bakelite, and the solid sound it makes when placed back into a soft plastic cradle.

 

I own one Princess that includes separate ringer and AC adapter for the dial light.  It's not being used currently.   I also have a 201A "space saver" mounted on the wall above the work bench in my garage shop.  It's a manual type with no dial.  I use it for incoming calls only.  It's just a box for the switch hook and handset connections, with cradle for the handset to hang from.  The cradle is designed for an early type E1 handset, but will accommodate the later F1 type, which is what I had on hand to use with it.  The dial version was typically found under counters or in bars.  I have that set connected to a 634A ringer subset, but since I have a 500 on a nearby desk that rings loudly, I disabled the subset's ringer.

 

Other miscellaneous sets are a late '60s not-quite-modular green rotary Trimline, a '70s brown simulated alligator rotary desk set with K-type handset, a clean 1936 manual D1 oval base with F1 handset, and various other rotary Trimlines.

 

The two unusual WECo items are teamed up in the den.  The phone is a model 5302, which was produced after the 500 models were launched.   Demand for the 500 was overwhelming and exceeded supply for several years, particularly because it featured ringer volume control, which had never before been offered.   WECo had tons of 302 models that had fallen out of favor, so they designed a new case for them that resembled the 500 and modified the ringer so it could be adjusted.  They issued 5302s in place of 500s and subscribers were in large part none the wiser.  Some 5302s had the old style F1 handsets, which looked out of place on a 500 case.  Others (like mine) used the newer G1 handset that was retrofitted with F1 transmitter and receiver elements.   Just another way Ma Bell got every last bit of mileage out of their equipment.  I like the 5302 for its legacy of deceptive marketing and clever adaptation.

 

The one drawback to the 5302 is the ringer itself.  It's clunky and not as pleasing as a 500 ringer.   For this reason, I disabled the ringer and connected a '60s vintage WECo chime box along the baseboard near the 5302.  Problem solved. 

 

The only thing I need to watch is how many ringers that are active.  I'm at my limit currently for what the line voltage will support.  If I connect another ringer, the chime won't work and will revert to a regular ring that's very loud.  If I wanted the shop 201's subset to ring, I'd have to disable at least two other ringers somewhere else.

 

Here are some pictures of a few of my phones.  Except for the manual D1 oval base, all are currently in service.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[rp2813]

CYpress 5 Was (and still is) Our Exchange (aka 295)

I bought a rotary Ericofon on ebay a while back.  I thought it would be perfect in the den.  It turned out to have switch hook issues and was so flimsy that attempting to correct the problem resulted in breakage.  I decided that if they were so poorly made, I wouldn't pursue another one.

 

That was just another affirmation of WECo's superiority in the telephone instrument arena.  Except for the Panasonic cordless/answering machine combo and the wall mount Trimline touchtone (an early model with round buttons) in the kitchen, all of my phones are WECo rotaries (or manual) and they all work.  The oldest dates back to 1931, an oval base D1 type with retrofitted E1 handset and noisy 4H dial, connected to a 1931 ringer subset model 554C.  The ringer is disabled, since this phone is in the guest bedroom.  I have a few 302 models, the oldest dated 1938 with metal case.  I have several 500s, all of them black with metal finger wheels and bakelite handsets.  The oldest one is dated October 1950, when the 500 was still in very limited and haphazard production and the network block didn't yet have an integrated equalizer, and sits on my desk as a daily driver.  There is no question IMO that the 500's G1 handset is the most comfortable and well designed type ever produced.   I like the feel of it in my hand, the heaviness of the bakelite, and the solid sound it makes when placed back into a soft plastic cradle.

 

I own one white late '50s Princess that includes separate ringer and AC adapter for the dial light.  It's not being used currently.   I also have an early '30s 201A "space saver" mounted on the wall above the work bench in my garage shop.  It's a manual type (no dial) so is used for incoming calls only.  It's just a box for the switch hook and handset connections, with cradle for the handset to hang from.  The cradle is designed for an early type E1 handset, but will accommodate the later F1 type, which is what I had on hand to use with it.  The dial version was typically found under counters or in bars.  I have that set connected to a 634A ringer subset, but since I have a 500 on a nearby desk that rings loudly, I disabled the subset's ringer.

 

Other miscellaneous sets are a late '60s not-quite-modular green rotary Trimline, a '70s brown simulated alligator rotary desk set with K-type handset, a clean 1936 manual D1 oval base with F1 handset, and various other rotary Trimlines.

 

The two unusual WECo items are teamed up in the den.  The phone is a model 5302, which was produced after the 500 models were launched.   Demand for the 500 was overwhelming and exceeded supply for several years, particularly because it featured ringer volume control, which had never before been offered.   WECo had tons of 302 models that had fallen out of favor, so they designed a new case for them that resembled the 500 and modified the ringer so it could be adjusted.  They issued 5302s in place of 500s and subscribers were in large part none the wiser.  Some 5302s had the old style F1 handsets, which looked out of place on a 500 case.  Others (like mine) used the newer G1 handset that was retrofitted with F1 transmitter and receiver elements.   Just another way Ma Bell got every last bit of mileage out of their equipment.  I like the 5302 for its legacy of deceptive marketing and clever adaptation.

 

The one drawback to the 5302 is the ringer itself.  It sounds clunky and not as pleasing as a 500 ringer.   For this reason, I disabled the ringer and connected a '60s vintage WECo chime box along the baseboard near the 5302.  Problem solved. 

 

The only thing I need to watch is how many ringers that are active.  I'm at my limit currently for what the line voltage will support.  If I connect another ringer, the chime won't work and will revert to a regular ring that's very loud.  If I wanted the shop 201's subset to ring, I'd have to disable at least two other ringers somewhere else.

 

I'm pretty much done buying phones, although it's tempting when I come across a WECo phone in a thrift store.  If anything, I need to get rid of some phones!

 

Here are some pictures of a few of my phones.  Except for the manual D1 oval base, all are currently in service.

 

1:  1950 500

2:  1931 D1

3:  1938 302 (metal)

4:  1936 D1 (manual)

5:  193? 201A (manual)

 

 

 

 

 

 

[johnrk]

CYpress-7 is my exchange

and I certainly had no 'flimsiness' issues with my Ericofon, though I didn't manhandle it or the digital set that I bought afterward. I won't pretend, though, that it's in the same league as the boat-anchor Western Electric phones; it wasn't designed to be.

I grew up with two white phones like #1 above at home, and a white wall phone from the same era. When I went to work in an old hospital in college as a teenager in the 70's we still had rotary desk phones with those old buttons with little lights behind each one. Those little lights were constantly burning out and getting replaced. We had to click the hook buttons twice to get the operator to transfer calls. The operators still had big push-pull switchboards. I was friends with a lady who'd worked there for 40 years as an operator; she had permanently red places in both palms from pulling cords. All got replaced with the hospital when we built and opened a new one in Houston in 1977. Replaced the elevators with ladies running them, too.

 

[iej]

Ericsson is basically the closest thing to a European counterpart to Western Electric that you could possibly get. Their switching systems have formed the backbone of many networks for a very long time.

They'd an extremely successful crossbar switch system called AR. It was sold as ARF (large local switch), ARK (local remote switch for small communities), ARM (transit/ gateway) and ARE (where it was upgraded up partially computerised.) They then had a system called AKE a so called "code switch" with computer addressable cross points.

They rolled out the Ericsson AXE in the 1970s which was a fully digital system and would go on to become the world's best selling central office system. It's been through lots of versions offer the years and is still hugely popular in mobile and fixed networks.

In the old days in Europe you had what were collectively called "PTT" monopolies. They were usually public companies that evolved out of the post office and in the 1970s and 80s most adopted the band Telecom.

Unlike MaBell, they weren't vertically integrated to the same degree. So they shopped around for equipment. So I think we had a far more competitive market at the vendor level. That's possibly why Europe ended up developing systems like GSM mobiles.

Ericsson is still huge but now Nokia's acquired a lot of other companies and is similar.

Nokia bought: Siemens Networks, then merged with Alcatel Lucent (a merger between the very large French Alcatel Group and Lucent (Western Electric and Bell Labs).

So Nokia now contains three huge European R&D houses and equipment vendors and Bell Labs...

 

[gyrafoam]

I never paid the slightest bit of attention to who manufactured the phone we used on the old Southern Bell system. (I just went and looked, they are Western Electric, except one that must have come from Florida marked GTE Automatic Electric and it dials funny.)
All I know is that the service was PERFECT, no dropped-calls, and they NEVAH,EVAH stopped working or needed repair. Ever.

I still have four rotary telephones. A few from the family business back in Atlanta, we used to use as door-stops they were so heavy.
If I knew how to do it properly I would hook them back up and use them.

 

[johnrk]

Today?

I've watched with enjoyment the many Bell Telephone vintage videos they have on YouTube, including the ones demonstrating party lines, when dial phones came to some towns in the fifties, direct long-distance dialing, etc. The ones that fascinate me are from the forties showing how long-distance calls went through long-distance operators, and the umpteen steps along with little hand-written cards that were required. No wonder those calls were so expensive!

We probably have good reason to be nostalgic about how well our telephone system worked in this country back before the government broke it up. However, I remember well how expensive it could be to get service back then, my granny in the country was on a party line until the late 70's, we couldn't own our phones, etc. My parents spent two years in Brazil in the 70's as my father was an engineer for Dow. Once a month he got a call from there at company expense; to call me for that 3-minute call was $33/minute.

I replace these crappy Panasonic cordless phones at my house about every 3-5 years, but I do own them and I can choose what I want. So I suppose it balances out.

And that doesn't even get into cell phones and 'smart' phones...

 

[jamiel]

IEJ--exactly right about Ericsson. They had a large presence in Latin America landline service (the business was to a degree split up between them and ITT). In Stockholm, Sweden is the Telephone Museum which was very interesting to tour (given my background working in that business)...Ericsson is to Sweden what AT&T is to the US (and what Northern Telecom/Nortel is to Canada). Being in the business for the last 25 years--it's been a great run!

 

[johnb300m]

johnrk, I've watches those old ATT vids too! Very fascinating.
The whole production they did when the NYC exchange burned down, really showed the Bell system at its best. (Of course that was their propaganda point)....nevertheless, they pulled it off!
I dont' know any company today that could recover from a catastrophe like that today.

The vid where the woman had a literal meltdown because her named exchange was going to 7 numbers was hilarious too. LOL.

 

[48bencix]

I like the ATT phone

I got this one a year ago on EBay. I used these phones in business in the 1980's. I like the style.

 

[rp2813]

Steve,

Hooking up vintage telephones is easy.  I can walk you through it, or you can search through the Classic Rotary Phones site's forums for information (access via link below).  

http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php

 

[iej]

The landlines here, at least since digital switching rolled out beginning in 1980, were split 50:50 between Ericsson and Alcatel systems. Before that we used Ericsson crossbars and code switches assembled and localised in Ireland and Strowger step-by-step made mostly by STC I'm England.

In Europe generally in the digital era: Ericsson AXE. Alcatel's E10 and S12 (originally ITT System 12), Siemens EWSD (originally developed by Siemens, Bosch and DeTeWe), Nokia DX and then you've smaller national ones like : GPT/Plessey Marconi System X (UK), Thomson MT 25 (France), Italtel (Italy) and a few others. You'd find some non European, mostly Nortel, Lucent, Fujitsu and NEC equipment in some maskers too.

In recent years Huawei is the BIG challenger to those companies.

For phones here in Ireland they were mostly made by Northern Telecom, including an Irish version of their interpretation of the classic 500 phones, LM Ericsson, Kirk Telecom of Denmark who made some very cool ones, Hagenuk or Germany and and the UK's GEC and STC.

I just miss the old classic vibe the old marketing had. Yea, it cost ridiculous money to make a call compared to today and there was no competition, but it still had a sort of "solid" high quality feel

1987 Irish Telecom advert:

Lots of Irish locally made Northern Telecom Harmony phones.
I still have one in daily use! It's over 30 years old.

 

[iej]

Special offer Ireland-USA for "less than a pound a min.&



They used a very classic 1980s phone that was common here in those days. It was a licenced Daniah design.

With inflation (used an online calculator). That's €2.39 per minute or about $2.80 in 2017 money!

 

[firedome]

We have pre-80s WEs strictly...

with the steel bottom plates and bulletproof construction... a few Trimlines, some Princesses, in varying colors, some '60/70s wall phones, some rotary jobs. I absolutely HATE cellphones, and if the PTB get rid of landlines, they will have to pry the WEs from my cold dead hands.

 

[48bencix]

Sound quality

Of course I have a cell phone, for safety when I am out driving, if nothing else. But the sound quality is crappy compared with my landline. And the landline handset is much nicer to hold. Obviously there is not much enthusiasm for sound quality in anything. Much music is listened through Bluetooth speakers, and not in Stereo. Or earbuds from mp3's. Even "landlines" that are voip using the internet have crappy sound. I know the technology allows for better sound, there must not be a great demand for it.

 

[gusherb]

In the Bell System prior to the break up everything was of course WeCo, after the break up there was a large push to transition all switching over to digital. This push was to greatly reduce operating costs, as all electromechanical switching equipment/offices required on site crews at all times constantly maintaining the equipment. With the switch to digital the crews were reduced dramatically, which nowadays is typically down to 1 person if that even.
But with that change was opportunity to use different network vendors, particularly Northern Telecom and Siemens. Those are the vendors Ameritech used in my area.
The earliest digital switch gear were WeCo 5ESS, then after the breakup and into the 90s they used Northern Telecom DMS100's, and in the late 90s and up into the current decade they used Siemens DE4 switches. Now believe it or not we had several switching offices remaining in Chicago that weren't digital, still using the 1AESS switch which was the last of the digitally controlled electromechanical switches. They took the last few out of service sometime between 2012-2014. The CO that served our house was 1AESS from when it was built in 1977 until the late 90s when it was replaced with a Siemens switch.

When it comes to wireless networks in the US, Nokia and Ericsson are the dominant equipment vendors. All four carriers use them. AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint use Nokia in various regions via Nokia's merger with Alcatel-Lucent. Those carriers are now replacing that ALU gear with Nokia gear as time goes on. T-Mobile used Nokia when it was known as NSN, and continues to use them as well as Ericsson. Sprint, Verizon, and AT&T use Ericsson in various regions as well. Samsung also has a presence here as a network vendor via Sprint.
In the Chicago area for instance, Sprint uses Samsung and Nokia, Verizon & AT&T use Ericsson, and T-Mobile uses Nokia.

When I traveled overseas to Taiwan I discovered two of the largest carriers on the island use Ericsson. The Taiwanese will not let mainland Chinese gear into Taiwan due to concerns about them using it to spy on them.

 

[johnrk]

phone quality

I was paying, a few years ago, a little over $40/month for my landline through AT&T. I purchased an Ooma Telo, and use it now with my cable internet. It costs me roughly $3.45/month. Does it sound as good? Probably not. And, of course, should my internet die, so does my phone service. However, I do have a cell phone, and being retired, that's a big monthly difference in cost for very little difference in usable quality. My friends and acquaintances didn't even notice when I switched services because Ooma kept my old, decades-long land line number.

 

[iej]

VoIP varies depending on how it’s done.

Some of the best physical phones you can buy these days are all high end VoIP desk phones. The stuff they make for PSTN is usually very cheap junk in comparison.

Also depending on how the calls are being handled and routed, VoIP sound quality is potentially vastly superior to POTS services. If you’re using good hardware and wideband audio codecs, it sounds at least as good as FM radio.

PSTN uses pretty horrible codecs and companding algorithms to process audio.

If you’re using “over the top” VoIP service on a public internet connection with suboptimal conditions, then VoIP is painful. If it’s properly setup and using low latency connections and QoS (quality of service) management, it’s far superior to ISDN.

G.729 = bad quality VoIP and is commonly used. It’s what gave VoIP a bad reputation.
G.711 = same CODEC as the digital PSTN uses. Comparable to a single channel ISDN line.
G.722 = wideband voice. This is also possible on the ISDN networks. It’s much superior to PSTN.

The problem is a lot of people experience bad quality VoIP and then assume it’s all awful. In reality you’re likely to be already using VoIP as a lot of voice providers already use it in their core networks.

If VoIP is done right, your old Western Electric phone, plugged into an ATA that can handle pulse dialling, should sound as good or better than on POTS.

And a well built high end SIP phone should be as good as any of its ancestors.

 

[polkanut]

The 1930's WE 201A pictured in Reply #11 photo #5 is exactly what the parents of my mom's best friend had in their bathroom.  As a kid, I thought it was the coolest thing ever to be able to answer a phone call while on the john. 

 

[cadman]

John, I'm also running an OOMA here and upgraded so that all calls to my cell number ring through to the house. Coupled with a vintage Panasonic PBX, all the rotary phones in the house are now touchtone capable, and all ring at full strength. Plus I can call any other phone by dialing a 2-digit extension.

I've actually got a vintage outdoor phone booth from an independent (red enamel panels) that I need to setup and wire into the network. Should be fun once it's all wired up.

 

[cornutt]

Land lines

A lot of land lines don't go directly back to the CO anymore. They go through muxes or concentrators that are powered at the site, and have batteries for backup. If the utility service and the batteries fail, you no longer have service, even though the CO is still operating. We found this out the hard way in the 2011 tornado outbreak, when our land line failed the next day and didn't come back until power to the neighborhood was restored five days later. So the reliability advantage usually touted for land lines isn't necessarily there. Cell service in the neighborhood kept working, although you had to try for a while to get a call through.