AT&T Archives: Introduction to the Dial Telephone May 30, 2012 AT&T Tech Channel
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This short subject newsreel was shown in movie theaters the week before a town's or region's telephone exchange was to be converted to dial service. It's extremely short—a little over a minute, like a PSA. The film concisely explains how to use a dial telephone, including how to dial, how to recognize dial tone, and how to recognize a busy signal.
The first dial telephonewas manufactured in 1897. It was part of an automatic switching/dialing system invented by Almon Strowger and patented in 1889. (You can see this switching system in action on the film "The Step By Step Switch"). But the Bell System didn't start to roll out Strowger's invention until 1919, though they did showcase the technology in 1904. In 1922, New York City was introduced to dial. The first popularized dial telephone was a desk set candlestick model; the smaller, more familiar desk set came later.
It took decades for dial to sweep the entire Bell System. The last holdout was Catalina Island, off the coast of California, which finally converted to dial in 1978. In Camp Shohola, Pennsylvania, an internal automatic switch system still connects campers with the outside world, it's the oldest functioning Strowger switch in the world.
Other Bell System films on the introduction of dial:
* Dial Comes to Town
* How To Use the Dial Telephone
* Now You Can Dial
Footage
Courtesy of AT&T Archives and History Center, Warren, NJ
Early communication between the citizens of Allen County was labored and conducted primarily through letters and...
Early communication between the citizens of Allen County was labored and conducted primarily through letters and personal interactions. This all changed with the arrival of telephone to Fort Wayne in 1879. Eventually there were multiple telephone companies with in the city and one of the largest was Home Telephone and Telegraph Company. The company was incorporated in October 1886 with local stockholders, with the primary purpose of providing a more extended service at a lower price than its competitors. The chief promoters of this new company were Charles S. Bash, William J. Vesey, Charles McCulloch, Samuel M. Foster, George W. Beers and Christian Hettler. By 1900, Home Telephone had grown and acquired the National Telephone and Telegraph Company. Through this expansion, they now had exchanges in Ohio, Michigan and more in Indiana. The company continued to grow and service the people of Allen County until 1956 when it was taken over by the General Telephone Company of Indiana. Later this company would be taken over by GTE (1984-2000) and Verizon (2000-2009, following the merger of GTE and Bell Atlantic). The vision and foresight of the founders of the Home Telephone and Telegraph Company still lives on in our community through Frontier Communications (2009-present).
Did you grow up with a telephone party line in your home? With party lines, multiple homes shared the same telephone...
Did you grow up with a telephone party line in your home? With party lines, multiple homes shared the same telephone line. It was a widespread service in the U.S. up through the 1970s or so.
Predictably, complaints of eavesdropping and of neighbors monopolizing the line were common. This 1951 newspaper ad is just one of many that encouraged customers to follow good party-line etiquette.
According to the most recent estimates from the National Center for Health Statistics, about 73% of American adults in 2022 lived in households where there were only wireless phones and no landlines, while an additional 25% were in households with both. Barely over 1% had only landlines.
Contrast that to estimates from early 2003, where less than 3% of adults lived in wireless-only households, and at least 95% lived in homes with landlines, which have been around since Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone in 1876. [ In roughly 20 years or one generation we have changed how we communicate using telephones invented back in 1876! ]
Twenty years ago, landline phone service was the “bread and butter” for phone companies, said Michael Hodel, a stock analyst at Morningstar Research Services LLC who follows the telecom industry. Now, he said, “it’s become an afterthought,” replaced by services like broadband internet access and its multiple ways of making voice contact with others.
In today’s United States, landlines have practically reached the status of urban legend in a nation where connecting over mobiles with the people you want – at the exact moments you want, on the precise platforms you prefer – feels fundamental enough to be a Constitutional right.
Among most age groups, the large majority were wireless-only, except for those 65 and older, the only group where less than half were estimated to only use cellphones.
When some people's cellphone service went down for a while because of an AT&T network outage, among the alternatives...
When some people's cellphone service went down for a while because of an AT&T network outage, among the alternatives suggested were using landlines.
But according to the most recent estimates from the National Center for Health Statistics, about 73 percent of American adults in 2022 lived in households where there were only wireless phones.
Siri, what's a pay phone? In 1999, you could still plunk a coin into one at 2 million phone booths in the United States. Only 5% of those are left today. About a fifth of America's 100,000 remaining pay phones are in New York, according to the FCC. The demise of pay phones is an unsurprising result of cell phones in 95% of Americans' pocket, according to Pew Research. The country's largest carriers have all sold the last of their phones to the independent providers. Sprint left in 2006. AT&T exited two years later. And Verizon got out in 2011. But pay phones remain a steady business for some of the 1,100 companies operating them across the country.
* Statistics regarding payphone availability in this fact sheet are from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Specifically, 2010 FCC data showed the number of payphones in Indiana declining from 38,114 to 8,457 between 3-31-01 and 3-31-09. The most recent available data show Indiana with 1,286 payphones. The most recent national number is 99,832. 12/19 From Public Interest Payphones at the Indiana Office of Utility Consumer Counselor IN.gov
Did you know the Prairie Grove Airlight Outdoor Telephone Booth in Prairie Grove, Arkansas, was the first structure of its kind to be added to the National Register of Historic Places - NPS? According to the nomination, the Booth "represented a new direction in the design of telephone booths. Instead of wooden booths that were found inside hotels, drug stores, or other businesses in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Airlight Outdoor Telephone Booth was developed specifically for outdoor use. Its aluminum and glass construction was durable enough to stand up to the elements and the amount of glass along with the louvers on the sides allowed its namesake elements – air and light – to flood the booth.” Added to the list in 2015, this booth was installed in the 1950s by the local Prairie Grove Telephone Company, to serve visitors to the nearby motel and state park.
Looking for unique Christmas gift ideas?! We just put out this antique quarter sawn oak phone booth! She’s a beauty. The light even turns on when you shut the door. It has newer style pay phone with cord for land line. $1,950
Some of you may remember these-a TELEPHONE BOOTH. Hadn't seen one in years and then all of a suddenly I've seen two. The pay phone was invented in 1889 by William Gray and shortly afterwards the phone booth for privacy. Phone booths were once found in high traffic areas like, hotels, banks, office buildings and drug stores. Western Electric manufactured thousands of them. They usually had an accordion like doors for entry and privacy, lighting, a place to sit and a shelf to write on. Most were furnished with a phone book. I remember when it cost five cents to make a call in one but if you made a long distance call be prepared to have a lot of change.
By the 1950s this style of phone booth was giving way to glass and aluminum booths. You may remember when phone booth stuffing was all the rage in the 1950s. I think the world record was 25 in one booth. Later generations remember them as where Superman discards his street clothes for his superman outfit or where Bill & Ted went on their most excellent adventure. For me I wax nostalgic when I see one on Perry Mason or in an antique shop remembering phone calls from one to a girlfriend. In 1943, a telephone booth, similar to this one, stood in the lobby of Indiana Hotel (Charley Creek Inn today) just to the right of the dining room entrance where there is an elevator now. That telephone booth was unusual because it did not have a door, and yet noise from the lobby did not interfere with calls made there. In 1943, a picture of the booth made its way into an article in the magazine Performance, which was a trade publication of the mineral wool industry. A headline over the story read, “Wabash, Indiana, shows New York the Way,” This was because the phone booth in the hotel was the forerunner of dozens of similar booths soon to be placed on subway platforms in New York City. Mineral wool covered by perforated metal panels covered three sides of the booth and successfully deadened sound from the lobby. The booth was in the hotel until well into the late 1960s.
Gladys Airgood shared that in the North Manchester museum “We have a phone booth in the Manchester Center for History complete with Superman outfit, phone, light and fan. Kids lie to have their picture in it.”
Looking for unique Christmas gift ideas?! We just put out this antique quarter sawn oak phone booth! She’s a beauty. The light even turns on when you shut the door. It has newer style pay phone with cord for land line. $1,950
