Telephones... then and now

[kcflhrc]

And now the Telco's are actively getting rid of copper and going to fiber, partially so they can charge more.

We are still putting copper in the ground and we cant charge any more for fiber service than we do for copper


Last year the copper line got so bad with static they replaced it with fiber. The installer told me it was against company policy to fix copper.

That's hilarious, we fix copper daily. It's quite expensive to build out fiber facilities.

And of course fiber requires power, so when the power goes out so does the phone

Our fiber ONT's have battery backup for this

Love me some fiber

 

[Larry Caldwell]

Well, the real question will be how long will land lines for residential service exist? All of the station cards in CO's still accept rotary pulses, as far as I know. Of course I have been out of the loop for a while now.

I suppose there will be land lines until the phone companies install cell towers on top of every mountain. We have no cell service at my house, so a land line is our only option. We have a base station/answering machine with 5 remotes, but when the power goes out we haul the old style telephones out of the closet and plug them in.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

And of course fiber requires power, so when the power goes out so does the phone

The phone company has fiber to 3 miles down the road, but it's the old copper from there. Their battery backup only lasts 48 hours, and after that the land line dies. I don't feel bad, because the cell towers don't last much longer. The last 5 day outage, there was no phone service of any kind within 20 miles of my house.

 

[MossRoad]

We had a phone booth in our house... kind of... Our rotary phone was on the wall in the kitchen. My dad bought a 25' curly cord for the handset. My sisters would make a call, step across the hall, step into the closet, then close the door behind them.... a phone booth! :laughing:

 

[kc5dlo]

I can appreciate having the same phone and appliances all these years. One thing to consider is that your mom may still be paying monthly to rent that phone. When we moved my grand parents back in the early eighties, when they tried to return the phone they had been renting all those years, the phone company almost laughed at them.

 

[ultrarunner]

Good point...

We actually bought the phone when the phone company made buying an option and have the little Phone Company sticker on the bottom stating customer owned device.

I've come across a lot of people more than willing to subscribe to the new is better... for me it is more about function and reliability.

All of her neighbors have gone through a lot of appliances in the name of energy savings... the poor women across the street has said many times what a mistake she made giving away her old Kenmore Washer and Dryer... her first set of Neptunes was a disaster... and she paid around 2k for them including the stand...

We really did know how to build durable lasting appliances... American know how and ingenuity...

 

[teejk]

The first phone I remember in our house was called a "farmers phone". It was a large rectangular wooden box that hung on the wall and housed two big dry cell batteries. You lifted the receiver, made sure no one else was on the line and then turned the crank to "ring up" the operator. The operator would come on the line and you would tell her the number you wanted to call. We were on a multi-party line - - so to know if somebody was calling you, you had to listen and count the incoming rings. Our "ring" was two long & three short. As I remember it wasn't the best at reception or transmission either. That was in 1947.

My maternal grandfather had a farm that he lost during the depression. Moved 30 miles south and found a new farm that was not nearly as tillable but being Irish wasn't that fussy. Flash forward 40 some years to when I met my wife and met her maternal grandfather that managed to keep his farm. Turns out that they shared a phone...on a pole...outside...Green Acres...small world huh?

 

[teejk]

We had a phone booth in our house... kind of... Our rotary phone was on the wall in the kitchen. My dad bought a 25' curly cord for the handset. My sisters would make a call, step across the hall, step into the closet, then close the door behind them.... a phone booth! :laughing:

We had one of those wall mounted black beasts (dial) with a long cord that with time would hit the floor and GTE would come and replace as part of the service we probably paid $5/mo for (private line!).

 

[ultrarunner]

My maternal grandfather had a farm that he lost during the depression. Moved 30 miles south and found a new farm that was not nearly as tillable but being Irish wasn't that fussy. Flash forward 40 some years to when I met my wife and met her maternal grandfather that managed to keep his farm. Turns out that they shared a phone...on a pole...outside...Green Acres...small world huh?

It was destiny and I hope all the in-laws gave their blessings...

 

[arpt209]

I remember having a rotary dial phone at the house. Yes I can remember a few hours ago. I keep a rotary dial phone for when the power goes out. Cell phones don't work at the house. All right by me. Power went out & I called the REC (Rural Electric Co-op) Nice Lady: May I help you? Me: Naw, I'm just bored. Didn't have anything to do so thought I'd call you to see what you're doing. I kept this up for a few minutes & could tell she was getting uncomfortable so I explained that I couldn't do anything but talk to her because the electricity was out.
Still remember my first phone number SWift9 4757. Can't always remember if I took my pills this morning or not but I can remember that phone number from almost 55 years ago.