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06-07-2023, 10:54 AM
Quick overview:
1877 - 1881: Bell Telephone Company
1881 - 1899: American Bell Telephone Company
1899 - 1984: American Telephone and Telegraph Company
AT&T was founded in 1885 as a subsidiary of the American Bell Company responsible for building long distance lines. It became the parent company of the Bell System in 1899.
AT&T was a vertically integrated, regulated monopoly consisting of several subsidiaries, including:
* Bell Labs: research and development
* Western Electric: equipment manufacture
* Various regional Bell companies, such as Southwestern Bell.
The company currently named AT&T was originally Southwestern Bell.
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Now everything is back on the airwaves. The railroads and landlines were truly monopolistic companies, very centralized in their networks and thinking. Dinosaurs now.
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(06-07-2023, 10:54 AM)user328 Wrote: AT&T was founded in 1885 as a subsidiary of the American Bell Company responsible for building long distance lines. It became the parent company of the Bell System in 1899.
...
The company currently named AT&T was originally Southwestern Bell.
What the sweet bitchin' fuck does AT&T even stand for??
*Googles*
Quote:American Telephone and Telegraph
...Okay.
I shouldn't post this.
I'm gonna post this.
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It's blonde okay.
Fung says it's brown, but I think this is proof that it's blonde.
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(06-07-2023, 12:53 PM)Chatwoman Wrote: I shouldn't post this.
I'm gonna post this.
Story of my life BTW.
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I think it's the "telegraph" part that never stuck with me and I couldn't remember what the letters meant.
In the future, it's gonna be called "Starlink"...
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We're gonna get into why AT&T being a regulated monopoly wasn't necessarily a bad thing.
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So you think your long distance bill was too high back in the day? Here's what your money was supporting.
The invention of the transistor. Used in every electronic device known to man.
The invention of the laser. Made CDs, DVDs, Blu-ray, and high speed fiber optic networks possible.
The invention of Unix, the precursor of Linux and FreeBSD. Used in most Internet servers today.
And let's not even mention the development of the global telecommunications system we still use today. The ingenious signalling system that continually evolved from ancient Victorian technology to keep up with advances. The first undersea phone cable. The first communications satellite, and inspiration for R2-D2's costume, Telstar.
Yeah, that shit was a little pricey. But look at everything we got back from it. AT&T practically invented the modern world.
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Western Electric engineered all Bell System equipment to work on average 40 years before failure.
Modern phone manufacturers deliberately degrade the usability of a phone over the course of 2 or 3 years.
thefungarascal
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06-09-2023, 12:59 AM
Are you talking right to repair you spunky lil monkey? That's why use computers not phones.
But there is ways around that crap anyway I have the full John Deere source code.
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No, I am talking about the old A T and fucking T.
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Do you just latch onto the last word in a post and run with it or something?
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AT&T stock paid a dividend every single year, even during the Great Depression.
FungIsOldSchool
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Using a carriage service to make threats cause fear harm menace fraud.
Imagine back in the day when they used the telegraph to hire killers?
Now you just have to say something nasty about a non person like CS spray and you get post banned.
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(06-26-2023, 11:23 AM)user328 Wrote: I traded in the panoramic gateway for a regular telephone/Internet modem.
ARPANET is now online, and I can dial out on my rotary phones. As it should be. 
When rotary phones were current, you only had to dial 7 digits for a local number. In small towns with one exchange, you only had to dial the last 4 digits. You have to really love fones to use one nowadays. You have to dial 10 digits for every number. There's no distinction between local and long distance.
The old exchanges connected so slowly that you could dial your own number and hang up, and the phone would ring.
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You actually had to dial 11 digits for a long distance number back in the day. You had to dial a 1 before the number to set up the exchange for a long distance call.
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(06-27-2023, 02:25 PM)user328 Wrote: Bell System customers used to complain about having to use their own electricity to power the miniature dial lamps in those Princess phones. lol
They also complained about the high cost of long distance calling. If you wanted to talk to yer mom in another state, you'd wait till late in the evening when the rates were cheaper.
I don't think people really understood why it cost so much. Building all that extremely complex, extremely durable equipment. Maintaining millions of miles of wires. Inventing the laser, the transistor, Unix, etc. The cheap voice and data we have now wouldn't be possible without all that.
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