Telephone directory

“ The courteous, helpful service rendered by telephone operators has become a traditional part of American life. Even in communities that have dial service, “the voice with a smile” is on the job to handle long distance calls, to provide telephone numbers not included in the directory, and to give any other help that customers may desire.
Ever since World War II, the Bell companies have kept on installing new equipment in great quantities to meet the largest demand ever experienced for new telephone service. ”

“ Errors are less frequent by telegraph than by telephone, and there is always a record of every message. The most modern forms of telephone communication are, however, more suitable for the fire service than the telegraph. Headquarters should be in direct communication with every station, but every station should be able to communicate with its neighbour directly, as well as through the headquarters office, and there should be a direct wire to its district station if it has one. ”

“ In outline the operation of a one-way trunk between common-battery, manual, multiple switchboards is, with modifications that will be pointed out afterwards, as follows: When a subscriber's line signal is displayed at one office, the operator in attendance at that position answers and finding that the call is for a subscriber in another office, she presses an order-wire key and thereby connects her telephone set directly with that of a B-operator at the proper other office. ”

“ DIAL LINES. Dial lines facilitate communication between the launch complex and base offices, with extensions to the nation-wide telephone system through the central facilities switching operator. The dial lines are primarily used for administrative communications. Station locations are the LCCFC, ALOC, and pad chief's desk. The telephone instruments are standard commercial instruments, wall and console mounted, and equipped with both dials and ringers. The lines entering the complex are routed through the wire protection and distribution cabinet to provide connection and overload protection. ”

“ The “call-wire” system has been used to some extent, but it is now obsolete. The feature of the system was the provision of special service circuits, termed call-wires, for purposes of communication between the subscribers and the exchange operators. Each subscriber was given the exclusive use of a circuit as in other systems, and shared a call-wire with a number of other subscribers. Each telephone set was equipped with a special key or switch by means of which the telephone could be transferred from an exclusive line to the call-wire at will. ”

“ In the special telephone line system special wires are laid from buildings which are practically open all the year round direct to their nearest fire-stations, and some payment is again made for prompt attention. Sometimes the telegraph takes the place of the telephone, but this requires the porter or attendant to be specially trained to the work. To simplify matters, the buildings are sometimes provided with automatic fire-calls instead of telephones ”

“ However, the automatic system must always suffer in comparison with the manual in respect of simplicity of the subscriber's equipment. The simplest conceivable thing to meet all of the requirements of telephone service at a subscriber's station is the modern common-battery manual telephone. The automatic telephone differs from this only in the addition of the mechanism for enabling the subscriber to control the central-office apparatus in the making of calls. ”

“ He may establish a universal code, so that all persons of importance in the United States shall have call-numbers by which they may instantly be located, as books are in a library.
Some other young man may create a commercial department on wide lines, a work which telephone men have as yet been too specialized to do. Whoever does this will be a man of comprehensive brain. He will be as closely in touch with the average man as with the art of telephony. ”

“ Each local company will continue to handle its own local affairs, and exercise to the full the basic virtue of self-help. But there will also be, as now, a central body of experts to handle the larger affairs that are common to all companies. No separateness or secession on the one side, nor bureaucracy on the other—that is the typically American idea that underlies the ideal telephone system. ”

“ To-day the evening papers receive most of their news over the wire a la Bell instead of a la Morse. This has resulted in a specialization of reporters—one man runs for the news and another man writes it. Some of the runners never come to the office. They receive their assignments by telephone, and their salaries by mail. There are even a few who are allowed to telephone their news directly to a swift linotype operator, who clicks it into type on his machine, without the scratch of a pencil. ”

“ No, for I think an answer will come only directly after I have sent out a call, and it has been picked up by some operator. Still there is a possibility that some operator might receive my message, and report to his chief, or some one in authority over him, before replying. In that time I might go away. But to guard against that I will sleep with the telephone receiver clamped to my ear. Then I can hear the answer come over the wires, and can jump up and reply. ”

“ CHAPTER IV. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ART
Four wire-using businesses were already in the field when the telephone was born: the fire-alarm, burglar-alarm, telegraph, and messenger-boy service; and at first, as might have been expected, the humble little telephone was huddled in with these businesses as a sort of poor relation. To the general public, it was a mere scientific toy; but there were a few men, not many, in these wire-stringing trades, who saw a glimmering chance of creating a telephone business. ”

“ In all of the automatic telephone systems that have achieved any success whatever, the selection of the desired subscriber's line by the calling subscriber is accomplished by means of step-by-step mechanism at the central office, controlled by impulses sent or caused to be sent by the acts of the subscriber. ”

“ Wireless telephony, like wireless telegraphy, but to an even greater extent, is peculiarly suited for the conveyance of marine intelligence. Wireless telephony occupies a unique position in this regard-no operator is required. The additional expense of an operator is an objection to the wireless telegraph in many cases, and forbids its installation. Anybody can operate the wireless telephone. It is also much quicker-words can be spoken more rapidly than they can be put into Morse signals and translated. ”

“ It has become so truly an organ of the social body that by telephone we now enter into contracts, give evidence, try lawsuits, make speeches, propose marriage, confer degrees, appeal to voters, and do almost everything else that is a matter of speech.
In stores and hotels this wire traffic has grown to an almost bewildering extent, as these are the places where many interests meet. The hundred largest hotels in New York City have twenty-one thousand telephones—nearly as many as the continent of Africa and more than the kingdom of Spain. In an average year they send six million messages. ”

“ To tell the doings of a wire chief, in the course of his ordinary week's work, would in itself make a lively book of adventures. Even a washerwoman, with one lone, non-electrical clothes-line of a hundred yards to operate, has often enough trouble with it. But the wire chiefs of the Bell telephone have charge of as much wire as would make TWO HUNDRED MILLION CLOTHES-LINES—ten apiece to every family in the United States ”

“ Where the long-distance traffic between two communities is large, economy requires that the sending of signals by ringing over the line, waiting for an answer, and then reciting the details of the call, be improved upon. If the traffic is large and the distance between communities small, call circuits are established in the same way as between the switchboards in several manual central offices of an exchange. The long-distance operator handling the originating call passes the necessary details to the distant operator by telephone over the call circuit. ”

“ The other five telephones could be connected by a switch in Holmes's office, and thus was born the first tiny and crude Telephone Exchange. Here it ran for several weeks as a telephone system by day and a burglar-alarm by night. No money was paid by the bankers. The service was given to them as an exhibition and an advertisement. The little shelf with its five telephones was no more like the marvellous exchanges of to-day than a canoe is like a Cunarder, but it was unquestionably the first place where several telephone wires came together and could be united. ”

“ Its operators, installers and other representatives are your neighbors. Some may be your friends or relatives. Its departments are managed by your fellow citizens—men and women who have come up through the ranks.
Nine out of every ten telephone calls handled by these home town people are local calls. The tenth call may go across the continent or across the ocean. But wherever the calls go, they travel by means of a marvelously ordered world of wires, cables, switchboards, dial equipment, radio and above all, with the help of people working together to serve the public. ”

“ Russia and Austria-Hungary have now about one hundred and twenty-five thousand telephones apiece. They are neck and neck in a race that has not at any time been a fast one. In each country the Government has been a neglectful stepmother to the telephone. ”

“ Bell himself was perhaps the first to see the future of the telephone exchange. In a letter written to some English capitalists in 1878, he said: "It is possible to connect every man's house, office or factory with a central station, so as to give him direct communication with his neighbors.... It is conceivable that cables of telephone wires could be laid underground, or suspended overhead, connecting by branch wires with private dwellings, shops, etc., and uniting them through the main cable with a central office." ”

“ One of the problems incident to the service of a subscriber who takes facilities greatly in excess of his own needs in order to accommodate others is to fix upon what terms he may extend the use of telephone facilities to others. ”

“ With the steady pressure of world tensions, the Bell System has taken many steps to make sure that America’s defense needs will be met. The telephone companies have a good foundation to build on. Telephone buildings are of unusually strong construction. The entire United States is blanketed by a network of telephone circuits. ”

“ In manual offices particularly it has been found to be not only humane, but economical to provide adequate quarters for the employes, both in the operating rooms and places where they actually perform their work, and in the places where they may assemble for recreation and rest. The work of the telephone operator, particularly in large cities, is of such a nature as often to demand frequent periods of rest. ”

“ In this way, masked as competition, the nuisance and waste of duplication began in most American cities. The telephone business was still so young, it was so little appreciated even by the telephone officials and engineers, that the public regarded a second or a third telephone system in one city as quite a possible and desirable innovation. ”

“ The Morse Code is largely used in America, and a modification of it, called the Continental Code, in Europe. When the wireless operator wishes to send a message to another station he “listens in,” as it is called, by connecting his receiving apparatus with the adjacent antenna and the ground. He has the telephone receiver attached to his ears. Next he adjusts his receiving circuits for a number of wave lengths. If he catches no signals in his telephone receiver he understands that no messages are being sent within his area. ”

“ I traced the wires from the place they entered the building and sure enough I found a relay with a high resistance coil in the circuit. I cut it out with a piece of wire across the binding posts and rushed back to my telephone and listened. That was the trouble. Plainly as one could wish came Bell’s “ahoy,” “ahoy!” [1] I ahoyed back, and the first long distance telephone conversation began. Skeptics had been objecting that the telephone could never compete with the telegraph as its messages would not be accurate. ”

“ For doors and windows very simple contact devices have already been brought out, but the principal objection to their general adoption arises from the fact that so very many houses remain unconnected with any telephone system which may be made available for calling the police. ”

“ In pursuance of the report of the select committee, 1898, the Telegraph Act 1899 was passed to enable the Post Office to develop its telephone exchange business, for which a loan of £2,000,000 was sanctioned, and to empower local authorities, subject to certain conditions, to enter upon telephone business. The licence of the National Telephone Company was extended so as to be co-extensive with that of a competitive licence for any locality on condition that the company should afford intercommunication with the telephone systems of the new licensees. ”

“ Wireless telegraphy is part of the established order of things. The wireless telephone is practical for limited distance, but is not a commercial rival of the telegraph. Great distances are claimed, but they are matters for proof and speculation.
There is no immediate possibility that wireless telephony will take the place of local exchanges. If the time ever does come that it in any way tends to supplant the line telephone for some uses, it is more than probable that each subscriber must have his own generating station and call up direct. ”