Telephones... then and now

[ultrarunner]

I don't have a head for remembering things like passwords... but I can remember phone numbers from the house I lived in until I was 9.. and my grandmothers number too...

We were told to never go anywhere without a dime for an emergency call home.

It's been 4 years since the last payphone was removed from the hospital lobby...

Around the neighborhood I can point to all the places that had payphones... just about every filling station had a payphone.

 

[MossRoad]

I don't have a head for remembering things like passwords... but I can remember phone numbers from the house I lived in until I was 9.. and my grandmothers number too...

We were told to never go anywhere without a dime for an emergency call home.

It's been 4 years since the last payphone was removed from the hospital lobby...

Around the neighborhood I can point to all the places that had payphones... just about every filling station had a payphone.

I don't remember where we were last week, but my wife and I saw two payphones in a building somewhere and our eyes popped. Haven't seen them for years.

 

[k0ua]

I remember without fondness when working for a phone company of searching for a payphone to call in after getting paged. Yes there were a lot of them but you still had to use them in the rain, the snow and cold. Some where drive up booths you could sit in your car but the rain still blew in sometimes thru the cracked window. I don't miss those days at all. I like my smartphone that does more things than a Star Trek tricorder.

 

[2LaneCruzer]

Our first phone was an old hand-crank Kellogg wall phone. We were on a party line, and folks were always listening in on your calls. Every time someone took the receiver down, the voice got dimmer. On long distance, you could barely hear sometimes...and when it rained...the phone lines were tacked to trees in some places...you couldn't even ring Central. I still remember our phone #...55F23. That meant it was two longs on line F23. They later added a feature that cut you off after three minutes. What a bummer...you had to keep calling back.

 

[newbury]

Quote Originally Posted by newbury View Post
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

Don't know who put in the red in kcf's quote of my post, but I underlined the comments.
I'm glad the POSTER found it funny, but they refuse to patch copper here. Perhaps some people should realize that their immediate environment does not reflect the world.

And as far as battery backup the ONLY APPROVED SOLUTION is a 12 D cell (user provided) unit that only lasts a day or less and you have to manually turn it on.
RANT here.

 

[Bird]

I remember without fondness when working for a phone company of searching for a payphone to call in after getting paged. Yes there were a lot of them but you still had to use them in the rain, the snow and cold. Some where drive up booths you could sit in your car but the rain still blew in sometimes thru the cracked window. I don't miss those days at all. I like my smartphone that does more things than a Star Trek tricorder.

Yep, I can understand that. When I was a young officer and had to call in a report or got a radio message to call the station, I had to either find a pay phone or go to a fire station to use their phone. So we all carried a dime in our pocket at all times; put the dime in the pay phone, dial the operator, and the dime would come back, then tell her I'm an officer calling the police department, give her the number I needed and she'd put the call through.

But then after I retired from the police department, I worked a couple of years doing gas leakage surveys. When I found a grade one leak, I had to go find a phone to call the gas company to send the repairmen.

 

[k0ua]

Yep, I can understand that. When I was a young officer and had to call in a report or got a radio message to call the station, I had to either find a pay phone or go to a fire station to use their phone. So we all carried a dime in our pocket at all times; put the dime in the pay phone, dial the operator, and the dime would come back, then tell her I'm an officer calling the police department, give her the number I needed and she'd put the call through.

But then after I retired from the police department, I worked a couple of years doing gas leakage surveys. When I found a grade one leak, I had to go find a phone to call the gas company to send the repairmen.

yeah it is a bunch handier to whip out a little phone from your pocket and call in. Not to mention the time and fuel saved hunting for the stinking pay phones.. I don't miss those days at all.

 

[ultrarunner]

Growing up the city police had call boxes strategically placed around the city and I remember seeing officers use them... even with radios.

The OPD had had coverage issues with radios for a long time...

 

[smstonypoint]

I like my smartphone that does more things than a Star Trek tricorder.

A 1991 Radio Shack ad from Mark Perry at 503 Service Temporarily Unavailable.

Steve

 

[bigtiller]

I don't have a head for remembering things like passwords... but I can remember phone numbers from the house I lived in until I was 9.. and my grandmothers number too...

We were told to never go anywhere without a dime for an emergency call home.

It's been 4 years since the last payphone was removed from the hospital lobby...

Around the neighborhood I can point to all the places that had payphones... just about every filling station had a payphone.

My childhood phone number was 349.
The town lawyers office was 74.
I've been told the mayor had number 1.
I just found out this weekend my wife's aunt didn't get a number but instead had a series of buzzing sounds that identified her.