Posted on 01/07/2023 7:43:15 PM PST by algore
I can’t remember the last time I dialed 0 or 411. Or used a telephone directory for that matter. And it’s been years since I had a land line. Everything is done on my iPhone.
What do you want to bet people in Rio Linda will keep trying to dial 411?
“Hello, I’ve had a bit of a tumble.”
Let’s see. Use 411 or the internet? Hmm. Tough one. Just kidding. Internet is 100x faster. I know a lady, 70 years old, who worked as an operator and would connect calls with wires in portals that were lighted and listened to the callers to confirm the connections.
I miss special phone numbers for time, weather and sayings from Dr. Twerski. I miss party lines (a girl up the street from me had one). I was born when advertisements still had alpha codes for telephone prefixes and songs were written about such phone numbers: “PEnnsylvania 6-5000,” “Echo Valley 2-6809”. I miss when faxes were new and exciting. I miss beepers, which my dad had for business before getting a cell phone.
Yeah I knew people who had those.
It seems strange today that people shared phone service with their neighbors.
Then 25 years later there were late night commercials about ‘party lines’ with lots of lonely girls, And ‘psychic lines’ too
My family moved from the city to a rural area in 1964 when I was eight. The only thing available was a party line with three others. A certain “ring tone” designated if the call was for us. Our phone number was Melrose 3-0366. I still live in the same place and have no idea who has that number now.
Is being a customer of AT&T a disability?
Winner!
I haven't even thought about phonebooks until I was flipping through the channels and I saw a scene in All the President's Men where one reporter was making a call and there was a set of bookshelves with various cities' phonebooks behind him.
There’s plenty of reason to shut it down. It’s expensive. Maintaining operators that nobody uses costs money. Maintaining the 411 system costs money. If nobody is using them that’s just burning money. Which you then pass on to customers with higher bills, to pay for services they don’t use.
And every other phone company. AI needs to be maintained. And it’s data has be maintained. When you can google any phone number you want, there’s just no reason for the phone companies to spend money to do it for you.
It was actually a better life in many ways
Indeed about like Western Union the only thing they send now is money grams the last time I used it.
You can still call the Naval Observatory for the time...which surprises me now that the majority of people have it right on their smartphones. But back in the day, we had to call every time the power went out :-)
It surprises me that the Naval Observatory still has the phone time service; which surprises me now that the majority of people have it right on their smartphones. But back in the day, we had to call every time the power went out :-)
Sorry for the double.
I am nearly 60. I have never called 411 or the operator.
But I suppose “trans and people of color” will be hardest hit.
"411" was all the internet we had at one time.
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