International Telephone Operators Video ca 1970's

You've got to love the complaint of the customer in this video about the echo on the satellite circuit. "Do I get charged extra for bouncing off this satellite?"

In that era the noise, echo and clipping was expected at times in that stage of technology. Someone hearing that today would think he had a justifiable complaint but in the 60s and 70s the tension between the customer and the operator was the customer's expectation of good quality voice (too many televised space missions) and every day reality . The frustration of the operators of that time was explaining to customer's that "this is it, this is the connection you have and this is the rate" in a patient and calm way and start timing as quickly as possible.

We had not come as far yet with the technology...

...performing that work was a unique juxtaposition of using old technology that had been adapted over decades, to access and utilize new technology that hadn't been fully developed yet. It required skill to manage an old cord switchboard whose basic design was from 1929, updated with electromechanical switching advances and mark sense computer technology...an analog world...and somehow get satellite to work well enough that a customer could have at least a modicum of "exclusivity of conversation." They "could hear" and "be heard," although more often than not, with effort.



The quality of this video is rough, likely due to conversion from analog to digital and with compression. It gives a pretty good idea of what it was like handling calls in the AT&T International Operating Centers in the late 60's and early 70's. This appears to be in the Manhattan IOC where the cordboards were much older and built out from the original "Overseas Operator" centers. Manhattan and Oakland at one time had the higher call volumes due to having access to the majority of unique dedicated circuits.

The other IOCs were located in Montreal, White Plains, Pittsburgh, Springfield, Denver and Jacksonville. Springfield, Denver and Jacksonvlle were new centers built to handle the volume by placing operators where there were new Number 4 ESS Toll switches being placed. The majority of the call volume was handling calls that could be key pulsed by the operator using the International Dialing Codes on a North American tandem trunk. There were additional reasons for locatons, for example MARISAT began communcations service in 1976 and Jacksonville was atmospherically deal to handle High Seas on the Atlantic Ocean.

In the Jacksonville IOC the cordboards were actually fairly new, reconditioned standard Western Electric cord switchboards pulled out of a Toll Center that was closed somewhere. They were installed in the early 70s in four units of the IOC and the beautiful wood paneling was painted over with colors of that era (different color for each unit) with murals on the walls. It would look very dated now although the idea was to make the building as modern and forward looking as possible in the most cost effective way.

The Springfield, Jacksonville and Denver centers had been built to meet the rapidly growing demand for international calling. Their primary function was to process calls on North American tandem trunks (for example the new 4 ESS Toll Switch in Jacksonville) that would soon be handled by IDDD (International Direct Distance Dialing). The operators were processing volumes of calls by in effect dialing IDDD for the customers on station-to-station calls since the IDDD had not been rolled out on even a small scale in addition to the person, collect, card, coin, hotel and third-party billed calls. The original design was to then convert these centers to International Service Position Systems (ISPS) in these more remote and lower wage cost centers.

No one correctly predicted the demise of the Bell System, Divestiture and later the internet...making these centers functionally moot.

seizing a trunk in USA for posterity

This is an interesting video "seizing a trunk in USA for posterity" using Skype in the great tradition of phone phreaking "back in the day."

CenturyTel to Buy Embarq For More than $5 Billion in Stock

If you know the history behind these two formerly Independent telcos and how they became what they are today (including a new formula-ized name for one of them), this is interesting news.

From the Wall Street Journal Technical section today this comment:

"It also marks another step in the consolidation of America's traditional phone operators. Such companies are under consistent threat from wireless and cable-television operators. That has made efficiency all the more important for CenturyTel and Embarq, which run phone operations in 25 states and 18 states, respectively."

FierceTelecom's article stated:

"The deal will involve Embarq shareholders receiving 1.37 shares of Centurytel stock for each share of Embarq stock they own, resulting in a combined entity in which Embarq shareholders "are expected to own approximately 66 percent and CenturyTel shareholders are expected to own approximately 34 percent," a press release said. The deal price represents 36 percent value of Embarq's Friday closing stock price.

Glen F. Post III, CenturyTel's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, said in the press release that joining the two companies will accelerate the strategic plans of both. Telco consolidation at the independent level has been expected for many months, though the credit crisis and macro-economics conditions were seen as freezing progress toward such deals."

In a FierceTelecom article Dan O'Shea goes on to write:

"CenturyTel's bid to acquire Embarq is surprising on at least a few levels."..."This is an intriguing deal, and more details--as well as more questions--are sure to emerge in the days ahead. "

Yes indeed...the industry landscape and the names change but the direction remains largely the same.

The First Male Operator in the Bell System

...well officially anyway.

Rick Wehmhoefer was the first male to be hired as a genuine AT&T operator after a class action suit was settled. In reality there were those of us hired prior to that, mostly high school and college students working as part-time operators, when the job was still openly considered a "woman's job." Our purpose was to help AT&T prove they did hire "non-traditional" operators and it was understood that it was only meant as a entry job for a guy until he was moved up into a "man's job." It was a different era, unless you lived in that time, it's difficult to understand how the accepted attitudes were then.

Judith Beeman's version of the official story that she wrote from interviewing Rick is on www.privateline.com.

http://www.privateline.com/TelephoneHistory5/maleoperator.htm

_____________________________________________________________

This is an interesting video on the history of operators, at first teenage boys but soon replaced by women.

"Use of Women as Telephone Operators: Early History"

Only a Toll Cordboard Operator from "back in the day" would know...

Pulling the cords from the jacks
Onward to Inward to reorder
and reach my destination

My Rate and Route was slow
and finally quoted while I noted
Although I tolled and tolled
again still...

I got no answer

©2008 by J R Snyder Jr


1949 Bell System Operator Training video

QUOTATION OF THE DAY

"This is a panic in the way of the fine 19th-century panics, where we all run around like headless chickens." R. JEREMY GRANTHAM, chairman of a Boston investment firm.

New York Times 10-25-08


I wonder if people in America are prepared for the very different and less forgiving economic environment we're really in for.....

Telecomms in the 1990s (as seen from the 1960s)

British Telephone video from the mid 1960's predicting future applications of th telephone network. It is pretty accurate in the concepts and framework of applications and how they would be used.

Toll Stations in Arizona

The Crown King General Store where the Toll Station payphone was until the late 70's.

Arizona was one of the last remaining states to have Toll Stations up until in the late 70's. They were primarily handled by the Phoenix cordboard although some of them had Toll Centers physically closer.

In a sense Toll Stations or "ring downs" were the original party lines, but quite unlike what party lines had evolved to by the 1970's. Modern party lines have individual 7 digit numbers, using a switch to connect the call. But ring downs need an operator. Ring downs provide telephone service to very remote areas that have no reason for a switch and that required a small 4-wire toll line with repeaters. Toll Stations or "ring downs" basically were localities that had a single 4-wire toll line going directly from a toll center to the locality, then disbursed to stations in the area on 2-wire "party lines." No local central office. They had from 1 to 8 stations and were numbered by name, e.g.: Valle (Grand Canyon) #1, #2, etc. or Organ Pipe #1, #2, etc. They usually had at least one pay station, usually at the General Store (sounds quaint these days). Very often they may have had only one station, which was the pay station itself. The General Store at Crown King, Arizona had a pay station that was one of the last Toll Stations in the Arizona and the US.

Toll Stations served remote areas and people from the community, ranchers, forest service, would place calls when near by or pick up messages left for them by the Toll Center Operator. They were the last vestige of the old "number please?" era.

Northern Electric Toll Service Desk

Northern Electric's Toll Service Desk was the first cordless console switchboard to replace the cord switchboard. Essentially it was an early version of AT&T's original Toll Service Position but unlike the concept of TSP(S) it was built around being strapped to the local crossbar, making it operate as a stand alone processor of calls. Northern Electric and AT&T were both thinking ahead though to hybrid electronic switches with analog components and later digital switches with large remote and automatic capabilities. The progressive development of these switches led to the ultimate demise of the intervention of a human operator.

This TSD position was located in Coos Bay, Oregon in a small Toll Center. Many of these systems were put into place in the late 60's and early 70's in small Toll Centers to relieve increasing operator toll traffic volume in a cost effective way. These were located in small places like Greenwood, SC, Greenvile, OH and Coos Bay, OR long before full Toll Service Position Systems were installed in Bell System and Indendent phone companies.


photo credit: Ron Briggs

MECOBS: Mechanized Combined Line and Recording System

MECOBS

From Privateline.com is this description of MECOBS by Ronald Briggs.


[Editor Tom Farley's note. Included in the Privateline.com page are discussions of personal remembrances and the article 'Mechanized Combined Line and Recording System", which appeared in the January, 1973 GTE Automatic Journal. The authors were A.B. Behnke, J.A. Calder, and W.R. Trudo. Click here for a partial, uncorrected scan of this document (internal link.]

In reading through the MCLR documentation, the system seems like a TSPS type concept answered and operated at a cordboard position. It mentions the switchboard could only be used in either "MCLR" (using SATT equipment) or (manual) cord mode, but not both at the same time. The "Dial Rear/Flash Key" description on page 264 details how the flash function is used to identify the trunk in the multiple that the caller is on if the call needs to be manually handled, thus removing the SATT ticketer from the call and the operator. It sounds similar to another system idea you forwarded to me last year, I believe from Northern Electric, that was quite a bit more advanced but not as advanced as MECOBS.

MECOBS, though, was different. All operations and keying were accomplished using the unit installed in each position, only two keys illuminated (ST, NUM EXPR (same as Error)) and the display only displayed two digit error codes. I came close to purchasing a three panel 3CL position with MECOBS, had all the keys been in the unit I would have (it was missing the CA TMG key). Attached are pics of it, the keyshelf unit keys have been rearranged from their original positions in the unit. The display unit is the upper left corner, the keyset was lower right, the black KP keys were lower left, the blue function keys were between the black keys and display, the green class charge keys were above the keyset to the right of the display. ST was to the right of "0", below "9", NUM EXPR was above "3".


MECOBS completely eliminated the need for mark sense tickets, everything was keyed - toll, credit, trouble, coin deposits. The only time tickets and the round KP keys to the right of the MECOBS unit were used was when MECOBS was down (NUM EXPR flashing 30 IPM, display reading "99").

From the lead article:

Mechanized Combined Line and Recording System by A. B. Behnke, J. A. Calder and W. R. Trudo GTE Automatic Electric Laboratories (partial, uncorrected scan, internal link)

"Historically, CLR (Combined Line and Recording) cord toll switchboard operation resulted in the operator manually preparing a ticket on subscriber originated calls. This method of operation included the marking of called and calling number, recording the start and completion of conversation, and the monitoring of supervisory lamps for disconnects. This article describes a new development which offers an economic method of 'machine ticketing' CLR calls that results in minimum operation effort in completing these calls. This system can function with existing SATT (Strowger Automatic Toll Ticketing) systems, and is primarily designed for use in small to medium toll centers having a maximum of 125 cord toll switchboard positions."