1876
Number PULEAZE! Part Four:
- Thread starter Ultramatic
- Start date
Help Support :
The first transatlantic cable
This is the great great grandaddy of all the fibre that came since.
The first Transatlantic Cable, linking Valentia, County Kerry in Ireland with Trinity Bay in Newfoundland - interconnecting the North American and European telegraph networks.
It relayed the first message, sent successfully on 16 August 1858 from Queen Victoria to President James Buchanan.
(Ireland was still part of the UK 1801 until 1922 hence the Queen's involvement)
post was last edited: 11/26/2020-18:14]
This is the great great grandaddy of all the fibre that came since.
The first Transatlantic Cable, linking Valentia, County Kerry in Ireland with Trinity Bay in Newfoundland - interconnecting the North American and European telegraph networks.
It relayed the first message, sent successfully on 16 August 1858 from Queen Victoria to President James Buchanan.
(Ireland was still part of the UK 1801 until 1922 hence the Queen's involvement)
post was last edited: 11/26/2020-18:14]
Bell System 1979
<script async src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<script async src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Bell Telephone System 1960
<script async src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<script async src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Love that graphic. Having worked in telecom nearly all my career, I think one of those "looking glass" moments for me was in about 1999, sitting in a hotel lobby in Buenos Aires, talking on my normal cell phone back to my folks in St. Louis (we put in the network to make that happen for Movicom)...this was when GSM and SIM cards was an rather exotic system from Europe which had just come to the US for about 2-3 years.
Ericofon 1957
<script async src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<script async src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" charset="utf-8"></script>Classic Ericsson. Lots of old Ericsson phones around in Europe.
Their US subsidiary was North Electric.
Ericsson were (and still are) one of the largest switching system and telecommunications equipment makers in Europe and globally.
The PSTN network here in Ireland was full of Ericsson ARF, ARK and ARM crossbars from the 1950s to the 1980s. They were computerised somewhat with the markers being replaced by computers in the 1970s but were replaced by Ericsson AXE digital from 1980 onwards.
A rather geeky product launch for AXE:
The other big European crossbar system was the Pentaconta (and later Metaconta) designed in France but manufactured by lots of ITT affiliates.
Also a rather amusing vision of the future from the UK's GPO
post was last edited: 12/27/2020-22:01]
Their US subsidiary was North Electric.
Ericsson were (and still are) one of the largest switching system and telecommunications equipment makers in Europe and globally.
The PSTN network here in Ireland was full of Ericsson ARF, ARK and ARM crossbars from the 1950s to the 1980s. They were computerised somewhat with the markers being replaced by computers in the 1970s but were replaced by Ericsson AXE digital from 1980 onwards.
A rather geeky product launch for AXE:
The other big European crossbar system was the Pentaconta (and later Metaconta) designed in France but manufactured by lots of ITT affiliates.
Also a rather amusing vision of the future from the UK's GPO
post was last edited: 12/27/2020-22:01]
I'm not sure of the association between Ericsson and North Supply except for the Ericofon... as opposed to (nearly) every other country the US had a significant non-Bell (i.e. non-PTT) telecom ecosystem both on the telco side as well as on the supplier side. Companies like GTE/Contel/Alltel/United Telespectrum/Century had significant subscriber numbers (multiple millions of landline customers each), plus there were literally thousands of smaller LECs. The level of diversity within telecom has had its good points, (high teledensity) as well as bad points (no such thing as calling-party-pays when you've got that many telephone companies to settle with). It was very interesting how cellular followed the differential paths (with the EU coalescing around GSM to replace NMT, with north America coalescing around a dual technology path (CDMA and TDMA).
Ericsson owned 60% of North Electric from 1951 until 1966. Which was when they started manufacturing Ericophone.
They continued to licence Ericsson technology after 1966, for example they produced a toll / tandem electronic switch which was called ETS4, but was actually just an American adapted version of Ericsson AKE “code switch” which was a pre digital electronic switch that used analogue pathways.
They were ultimately sold to ITT in 1972 and more or less disappeared.
Ericsson ARM crossbars were used in international gateway switches in Canada and AXE digital switches appeared to some extent in the US network. They tended to be the dominant platform for GSM mobile switching centres so several of the US networks would have had them from the 1990s onwards as MSCs, but you’ve definitely got more than a few Ericsson AXEs in the US PSTN too.
The odd 5ESS made it to Europe too, mostly through Philips who licenced the platform to replace their own PRX system in the 80s. Canadian designed Nortel DMS switches were used to some extent too, especially by European cable operators and alternative providers in the 90s.
Ericsson AXE was and still is hugely dominant in Europe. Even today they’ve a platform called TSS which is basically a virtualised AXE switch in all IP networks.
The historical differences were fairly significant. European PTTs (Telecoms) until the 1990s retained a monopoly or near monopolies, but there was a bigger range of equipment makers. None of them were vertically integrated like Bell / AT&T / Western Electric, so your typical European PTT sourced switching and other equipment from companies like Ericsson, ITT, Alcatel, Siemens, Philips, Telenokia, etc and also some smaller companies like GPT, Plessey etc in the U.K. and Italiatel in Italy who primarily were suppliers to just their own PTT. So there was a really vibrant and competitive telecoms equipment sector in Europe and a lot of open standards developed to facilitate interoperability, as it was demanded by PTTs who didn’t want to be stuck with one vendor.
Ericsson is probably the closest thing to a European counterpart to Western Electric though, as it’s switches tended to be found in almost every network. Most European PSTNs were full of Ericsson AXE switches, often 50% of all switching sites with Alcatel, Siemens, Nokia, GPT etc having had the other half.
The market opened bit by bit in the 80s and then completely in the 1990s, with mandated carrier preselect and the growth of alternative operators, especially cable companies. Then you’d unbundling with mixed success.
At present, the market is probably more competitive than the US, as you’ll typically have an old incumbent that is required to open its access networks fully to competing ISPs and telcos and you’ll have cable operators and alternative FTTH networks.
Here for example, the main power company setup a fibre access network, competing with both the cable company and the former PTT. So on both FTTH access networks, you can connect to a heap of ISPs, telcos, IPTV providers etc. The old former PTT and the power company’s networks are both open wholesale access networks, so any communications company can sell services through either or both of them.
The mobile companies in Europe largely exploded after GSM and it was get much designed to be competitive and smash monopolies. The SIM card itself was designed to allow consumers to easily switch networks for example. By the mid 1990s you’d fairly serious numbers of competing networks and that has grown to include lots of virtual networks.
Mobile systems in Europe before GSM weren’t just NMT. There wasn’t a single standard. You’d the U.K., Ireland and Italy using TACS (Total Access Communications System) (which was a europeanised version of AMPS), France had a system called Radiocom 2000 that was just unique to France and there were several versions of NMT in use.
Both NMT and TACS provided limited roaming services.
GSM was developed initially as an EU facilitated project to come up with an open tech system foot pan European use. The fact that it was built around open standards is probably why it became internationally very popular beyond Europe, as you weren’t locked into any single equipment maker, so it rapidly became the basis for global standards, with even Cingular / AT&T opting for it and it’s still the same family of standards that’s led to LTE and 5G. It was always intended as a system that prevented vendor lock-in and to smash the old monopoly PTTs.
The charging models have really become somewhat irrelevant though as it’s fairly normal to have bundles of unlimited or almost unlimited minutes, so you’d typically no longer really pay per minute for calls.
Landline services have increasingly become an afterthought that’s bundled with your broadband and use of landlines is plummeting, They majority of telcos are moving to being FTTH providers with telephony now just being delivered as VoIP though a router in many cases. Some countries have even completed the shutdown of their classic PSTN services.
Here in Ireland for example, it’s destined to disappear in 2024. It doesn’t mean the end of landline numbers or services, but dial tones won’t be produced by central office switches anymore. Landline users are being shifted to VoIP products delivered over broadband (from umpteen providers) and and whatever remains will just be left on dial tones from much smaller IP based MSANs for the laggards. Services like ISDN are being ceased entirely.
On the mobile side of things the other huge change in Europe was the end of roaming charges within the EU a few years ago. So typically now you can just use your call plan as if you’re at home, including most of the data allowances, without incurring any extra charges. There are some fair usage limits, like you can’t use a roaming phone as permanent solution (although I’ve never had an issue after months and months with an Irish phone in France for example) but it’s made a massive difference to travelling around the EU, as you no longer have to think about the cost of making / reviving calls or blasting through data.
You’d typically expect unlimited calls and data these days at fairly reasonable prices.
[this post was last edited: 12/28/2020-21:20]
They continued to licence Ericsson technology after 1966, for example they produced a toll / tandem electronic switch which was called ETS4, but was actually just an American adapted version of Ericsson AKE “code switch” which was a pre digital electronic switch that used analogue pathways.
They were ultimately sold to ITT in 1972 and more or less disappeared.
Ericsson ARM crossbars were used in international gateway switches in Canada and AXE digital switches appeared to some extent in the US network. They tended to be the dominant platform for GSM mobile switching centres so several of the US networks would have had them from the 1990s onwards as MSCs, but you’ve definitely got more than a few Ericsson AXEs in the US PSTN too.
The odd 5ESS made it to Europe too, mostly through Philips who licenced the platform to replace their own PRX system in the 80s. Canadian designed Nortel DMS switches were used to some extent too, especially by European cable operators and alternative providers in the 90s.
Ericsson AXE was and still is hugely dominant in Europe. Even today they’ve a platform called TSS which is basically a virtualised AXE switch in all IP networks.
The historical differences were fairly significant. European PTTs (Telecoms) until the 1990s retained a monopoly or near monopolies, but there was a bigger range of equipment makers. None of them were vertically integrated like Bell / AT&T / Western Electric, so your typical European PTT sourced switching and other equipment from companies like Ericsson, ITT, Alcatel, Siemens, Philips, Telenokia, etc and also some smaller companies like GPT, Plessey etc in the U.K. and Italiatel in Italy who primarily were suppliers to just their own PTT. So there was a really vibrant and competitive telecoms equipment sector in Europe and a lot of open standards developed to facilitate interoperability, as it was demanded by PTTs who didn’t want to be stuck with one vendor.
Ericsson is probably the closest thing to a European counterpart to Western Electric though, as it’s switches tended to be found in almost every network. Most European PSTNs were full of Ericsson AXE switches, often 50% of all switching sites with Alcatel, Siemens, Nokia, GPT etc having had the other half.
The market opened bit by bit in the 80s and then completely in the 1990s, with mandated carrier preselect and the growth of alternative operators, especially cable companies. Then you’d unbundling with mixed success.
At present, the market is probably more competitive than the US, as you’ll typically have an old incumbent that is required to open its access networks fully to competing ISPs and telcos and you’ll have cable operators and alternative FTTH networks.
Here for example, the main power company setup a fibre access network, competing with both the cable company and the former PTT. So on both FTTH access networks, you can connect to a heap of ISPs, telcos, IPTV providers etc. The old former PTT and the power company’s networks are both open wholesale access networks, so any communications company can sell services through either or both of them.
The mobile companies in Europe largely exploded after GSM and it was get much designed to be competitive and smash monopolies. The SIM card itself was designed to allow consumers to easily switch networks for example. By the mid 1990s you’d fairly serious numbers of competing networks and that has grown to include lots of virtual networks.
Mobile systems in Europe before GSM weren’t just NMT. There wasn’t a single standard. You’d the U.K., Ireland and Italy using TACS (Total Access Communications System) (which was a europeanised version of AMPS), France had a system called Radiocom 2000 that was just unique to France and there were several versions of NMT in use.
Both NMT and TACS provided limited roaming services.
GSM was developed initially as an EU facilitated project to come up with an open tech system foot pan European use. The fact that it was built around open standards is probably why it became internationally very popular beyond Europe, as you weren’t locked into any single equipment maker, so it rapidly became the basis for global standards, with even Cingular / AT&T opting for it and it’s still the same family of standards that’s led to LTE and 5G. It was always intended as a system that prevented vendor lock-in and to smash the old monopoly PTTs.
The charging models have really become somewhat irrelevant though as it’s fairly normal to have bundles of unlimited or almost unlimited minutes, so you’d typically no longer really pay per minute for calls.
Landline services have increasingly become an afterthought that’s bundled with your broadband and use of landlines is plummeting, They majority of telcos are moving to being FTTH providers with telephony now just being delivered as VoIP though a router in many cases. Some countries have even completed the shutdown of their classic PSTN services.
Here in Ireland for example, it’s destined to disappear in 2024. It doesn’t mean the end of landline numbers or services, but dial tones won’t be produced by central office switches anymore. Landline users are being shifted to VoIP products delivered over broadband (from umpteen providers) and and whatever remains will just be left on dial tones from much smaller IP based MSANs for the laggards. Services like ISDN are being ceased entirely.
On the mobile side of things the other huge change in Europe was the end of roaming charges within the EU a few years ago. So typically now you can just use your call plan as if you’re at home, including most of the data allowances, without incurring any extra charges. There are some fair usage limits, like you can’t use a roaming phone as permanent solution (although I’ve never had an issue after months and months with an Irish phone in France for example) but it’s made a massive difference to travelling around the EU, as you no longer have to think about the cost of making / reviving calls or blasting through data.
You’d typically expect unlimited calls and data these days at fairly reasonable prices.
[this post was last edited: 12/28/2020-21:20]
Western Electric 1967
<script async src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<script async src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Bell Telephone System 1962
<script async src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<script async src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Freedom Phone 1981
<script async src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<script async src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
General Telephone 1959
<script async src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<script async src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" charset="utf-8"></script>The phones in the General Telephone ad are Automatic Electric "Monophone" model 80, and were AE's version of the WE 500. They followed the AE models 34 and 40, which were beautiful, high quality items, made from the mid 30's to mid 50's. The 80 was somewhat of a comedown, both in style and quality, but not as bad as the next version, the 80E (rotary and tone models), which was cheapened even further.
Wonder if GTE at the time had any interstate trunks (connecting their areas, say LA area to Canton, Ohio) or if that was all handed over to AT&T before the breakup. Anyone know?
It finally happened.
I was forced to switch to a fiber optic line from traditional copper. They came yesterday and installed a box with a line into the main phone jack. And another box with a battery back-up so the phone will have "stand-by" power for 8 hours. Of course, using the phone on battery will dramatically reduce this "stand-by"time. It uses 12, D-Cell batteries that will be on your dime. Batteries "should" last a year. Today, the new digital landline failed. I can make calls, but not receive them. Copper phone service here had NEVER failed. Nice going Verizon!
I was forced to switch to a fiber optic line from traditional copper. They came yesterday and installed a box with a line into the main phone jack. And another box with a battery back-up so the phone will have "stand-by" power for 8 hours. Of course, using the phone on battery will dramatically reduce this "stand-by"time. It uses 12, D-Cell batteries that will be on your dime. Batteries "should" last a year. Today, the new digital landline failed. I can make calls, but not receive them. Copper phone service here had NEVER failed. Nice going Verizon!
We don't care, we don't have to
We're the phone company
We're the phone company
vacerator
Well-known member
Lilly Tomlin
from Laugh in! Of course, since that phone company was dissolved, our rates have also steadily risen. No such thing as long distance anymore.
from Laugh in! Of course, since that phone company was dissolved, our rates have also steadily risen. No such thing as long distance anymore.
Bell Telephone 1972
<script async src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<script async src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" charset="utf-8"></script>Wow, he can stop by here any time!
