Number PULEAZE! Part Five:

[48bencix]

Don't like talking on Cell Phone

We still have the Land Line here, stopped the long distance. I use a calling card for Long Distance which requires dialing an access number and a pin number. But then you get the excellent fidelity and comfort of a handset. It does seem stupid that the POTS has the fee structure from the past. Most if not all Cell Phones have free long distance. About 1/3 of the cost of the Land Line is fees and taxes. The legislators added about a tax of $3 to Cell Phones but I suppose they would like to add more with the constant loss of taxes from all the cancelled Land Lines.

 

[iej]

Irish 500 phone

There’s a Northern Electric (Nortel) 500 phone built in a plant in Galway for P&T decades ago.

https://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/claremuseum/acquisitions/northern_electric_telephone_lge.htm

We didn’t use letters on dial phones, as we never used letter based exchange codes. It was always numerical only.[this post was last edited: 8/14/2021-19:14]

 

[rp2813]

I ditched my Long Distance service with AT&T a couple of months ago.  I was being charged almost $12 a month just for the privilege of having access.  I use my cell phone to make all toll calls now. 

 

At some point I'll probably switch to VOIP since my land line dial tone, which still comes from the central office, is carried over fiber, but it goes through my gateway for internet access so when the power goes out, I lose my dial tone.  If the dial tone still ran through copper, I'd not be as likely to switch to VOIP, which in my experience (talking with my sister, who has Vonage) is inferior to switched network service.

 

[iej]

I moved to fibre a few years ago and got rid of the physical landline service. It's provided as VoIP through a FritzBox router. 

 

It's a quirky little device, but slightly overkill these days. It's a really excellent router with a mesh network, but also has a heap of VoIP functions, including a built in PBX with support for 5 DECT based handsets and a plugged in analog phone (with dial tone).

 

Even contains its own voicemail server (supporting multiple mailboxes), fax service (who's gonna use that?! I know some doctors still seem to use fax..) and can support multiple VoIP accounts and do all sorts of complex routing.

 

You can even set it to do a 'dial through' service so it'll recognise your caller ID when you call, present a dial tone and give you access to a VoIP account.

 

That and it has soft phones for iOS and Android.

 

Oh and it can control your lights, operate smart plugs and even has modules to control your radiators ... 

 

I'd rate the call quality as being as good or better than a PSTN line though. It's using a HD Voice codec, so it sounds great.

 

[whitewhiskers]

dropped POTS years ago

For several years now I've been using an Obihai OBi202 (now owned by Polycom), Google Voice, and my high speed broadband connection, to make and receive calls. The voice quality is EXCELLENT. This month Poly released a firmware update for the Obi202, so there's still support for this wonderful box. I can call anybody in the United States and talk for as long as I want for FREE.

 

[Ultramatic]

 

 

Now how cool is that? A 500 set with only numbers.

 

[iej]

Probably our most memorable 1980s phone from Telecom Éireann (Ma Bell’s Irish equivalent)

Built by Nortel in Galway

 

[iej]

Based on Northern Telecom (Nortel) Harmony

That Ireland map phone was based on the chassis of a very standard issue Nortel Harmony phone that were one of their more popular rental models in the 1980s. I still have one plugged into VoIP and it works a charm despite being probably close to 40 years old.

Also including a photo of another common model that was rented here in the 1980s. Can’t remember what Telecom called it, but it was quite a famous Danish design, and I think manufactured by a Kirk.

The “R” (Recall) button is the hook flash for call waiting / 3 way calling. The timing is a bit different to the US and closer to pulse dialling 1.

If you used the “Flash” button on a US phone on an Irish landline it was too long and cleared the line, as it was interpreted as hanging up by the switching system.

R1 = answer incoming call waiting & hang up on current call.
R2 = toggle between calls.
R3 = conference call.

If you wanted to add a call, you dialled “R” which put the call on hold and gave you a dial tone. Then made the second call and R1 / R2 / R3 could be used to end one call, toggle between or merge the calls.

A lot of late phones had at least R 2 stored on a button.

A lot of European PSTN switches did it that way.

 

[Ultramatic]

[No message]

 

[rp2813]

That phone is a lot more than 40 years old!  No * or # key on it means it's a 1960s Western Electric model 1500.  The later and infinitely more common and useful touchtone phones with the * and # keys are 2500's.

 

[iej]

To be fair, the comparison is a bit ridiculous. A modern mobile phone is an ultra compact, very powerful computer primarily with a data connection that is faster than many large cities had in their entirety in the 1970, and it only incidentally makes phone calls.

I can’t even find an analogy that fits. A wash board has more in common with a brand new digital front loader washing machine than a smart phone has with a rotary dial phone and a steam engine certainly has more in common with a 2021 hybrid car.

If there’s one set of technologies that’s changed beyond all recognition it’s telecommunications.

Actually some of the concepts in microchips would have more in common with some of the concepts found in crossbar switching matrixes and their registers, but only at the most macro level.
So you could say a smartphone has more in common with a Western Electric No 5 crossbar or an Ericsson ARF than it does with a dial phone.

Also some of the software run on smartphones, including Unix has its origins in early digital switching systems and many computer and digital transmission technologies come from telecommunications research in the 50s-70s.

So you’d recognise more of the echos of old phone network equipment in the hardware of your smartphone than you would find anything in common with an old rotary dial PSTN telephone itself.

 

[vacerator]

When I was in

primary school, Kids still said their phone numbers with the alpha prefix. Those first two letters were the abbreviations for the central switching officees.
In our locale, we had AV for Avennue, DU for Dunkirk, LI for Lincoln, WO for Woodward, etc.

 

[Ultramatic]

Western Electric 1939

 

 

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Bell Telephone System 1963

 

 

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General Telephone & Electronics 1962

 

 

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Bell Telephone System 1958

 

 

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[iej]

A slightly unusual public arts project using the telephone as a medium.

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/dial-a-seanchaí-irish-folklore-on-your-phone-1.4673952



If anyone would like to listen to a very retro art project, replicating one done in 1988 by the County Clare Arts Office, you can dial a Seanchaí, a traditional historian/poet/musician, who will tell you a tale and sing you a song. They’re prerecorded, but quite well produced.

It has an Irish, U.K. and US number.

This is a public art project. The calls are not premium rate, nor are there any charges or for profit motives. It’s publicly funded by a county council.

 

[Ultramatic]

Bell System 1965

 

 

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American Telephone and Telegraph Company 1933

 

 

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Southwestern Bell 1963

 

 

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Western Electric 1956

 

 

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Bell Telephone 1983

 

 

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[iej]

Well that’s the end of an era. I’ve just permanently hung up on the last vestige of the PSTN.

I upgraded to fibre to home and they used the copper phone line as a draw wire to pull the fibre though the ducts under my lawn lol

Seems the old policy was to leave them in place but they’re not planning to continue copper services, so now they’re convenient draw wires.

She was explaining the plan is to continue to support dial tone service using an MSAN but only for existing customers and they’ll be incentivising people to get off the copper network before switching it off.

 

[Ultramatic]

 

 

Sad. Nothing will be as reliable as copper wire. We are paying more for inferior service.

 

[Ultramatic]

American Telephone and Telegraph Company 1911

 

 

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Western Electric 1962

 

 

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Stromberg Carlson 1905

 

 

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Bell Telephone System 1960

 

 

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General Telephone and Electronics 1963

 

 

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Phinney-Walker 1962

 

 

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