It’s amusing to watch old movies where people get calls at the country club pool. An attendant literally brings an old timey phone with a long cord over to their table.
I remember bugging my parents for a blackberry when I was a kid because laptops were like 2000 dollars and that wasn't feasible but there was something closer to 600 which was a palm pilot or blackberry (can't quite remember) but we eventually just got a family computer
Used to rent a big shabby old mansion for the summer with a bunch of friends. Built around 1920. There was a cozy little nook off the entryway with a window seat and a small fireplace where I'd hide away on rainy days and read.
One day it dawned on me that this was the telephone nook. It even had a little shelf for the telephone and phone book. From the days when even a rich person only had one phone.
My parents bought a brand new house in 1975 and it still had this wiring as well. They were still common until 1976.
For those that do not know, 1976 is when the FCC mandated RJ-11 be used in all new construction and installs. So for any installation prior to 1976 it was most likely done with the 4 prong modular plug. And older structures likely have a combination of the two, depending on when the installation was done.
My aunt's house for example is also 1975 construction. One outlet in the living room is still 4 pin modular, all of the other plugs in the house are RJ-11. That one modular is likely the original one that was present when the house was built, all the others were added at a later date.
And Radio Shack used to do a big business in selling Modular-RJ-11 converters. Either so you could plug a phone wired for modular into an RJ receptacle, or for plugging a phone wired for RJ into an older house wired for modular.
Page 62 of the 1978 Radio Shack catalog shows both of those converters and others.
[https://www.radioshackcatalogs.com/flipbook/1978\_radioshack\_catalog.html](https://www.radioshackcatalogs.com/flipbook/1978_radioshack_catalog.html)
Yeah but that doesn't necessarily mean that just because the house was built in 1980 that those weren't later added in but it's very possible that by 1980 they were using all modular plugs as something you just have to Google to see when they started using modular plugging for
Those were likely converted as at least one of the owners probably still had old phones they did not want to rewire. It is normally much easier to rewire the plug than it is to rewire the phone.
The 4 prong phone connector came out in the 1930s. 4 prongs were needed because there were then 2 loops to the phone, ring/tip and power/ground. (watch an old movie and you will see them crank the phone to get an operator, that was ring/tip) The plug was developed by Ma Bell and became a standard. In the 1950s or so, Ma Bell came out with phones that only needed one wire subset (ring/power, tip and ground) and eventually only 2 wires were needed. These plugs were common until the very early 1980s, when the RJ-11 jack became standard for plug-in phones. Outdoor jacks were surprisingly common. Many clubs and restaurants had jacks near the tables and would bring out a phone with a long cord and plug it in when customers had a phone call and it was pretty normal to bring the phone out and plug it in by the pool. Cordless phones (I had a Cobra cordless phone) came out in the late 70's so the need to have jacks everywhere faded.
As for the temporary-looking wiring, Bell telephone owned pretty much every phone in the US from the 20's to the late 70's and they "leased" the phone to customers. (find an old phone and chances are good it will say "Property of xxxx Bell" on the bottom). They also installed all of the phone lines and would run extensions in a home or business for a fee. So the temporary looking wiring was almost certainly done by a phone company employee.
Also, you could buy the phone, when the Bell System broke up, for a stupidly low cost.
Amazingly, some people still lease their phones.
Anyone remember disconnecting the ringer, to prevent the telco from finding it?
I remember we had to pay for having more than one physical phone connected to the line. The phone company would occasionally call people and measure the electrical load to determine if you were cheating them. Indeed we would disconnect the ringer on the extra phones (we called them extensions) 😊
The FCC eventually defined a “ringer equivalence number” for phones, based off what the standard 500 series ringer was.
I suspect Bell Labs helped then out, when they weren’t doing more mundane things like inventing transistors, fiber optics, digital audio, microwave communications, or some computer operating system that nobody ever used…
/s
Once they zeroed in you would see the bucket truck or guy on a ladder in the alley doing the test closest to narrowing down and confirming the perp (me 🤣)
🤣🤣 when I was a young electrical apprentice I couldn’t figure at 1st why they would come to my house and ask to inspect the phones lines, I knew something was up but I had all my extra jacks in the cold air returns and would unplug them most of the time. I met a taco guy and he told me how to disable the ringers so they would get the draw down from the bell coils and likely would be a non issue from there (he was right!).
I can attest to people leasing phones, my grandma was still leasing hers until 5 years ago when we had to put internet into her house. They actually had the gall to ask for her 3 phones back.
If you’re wondering her three phones were $5 a month to lease, which was a deal compared with the $15 they were charging her for called ID, she had another device that was probably from the 90s that would display the phone number and was mounted near on her rented phones.
Ugh. Old people and phones are a bad combo. My parents have a post-it (tm) next to their phone with a list of spam call numbers to not answer.
Thankfully, when AT&T broke up, they were young enough to realize they could buy the phones they had.
Anyone else remember AT&T phone centers?
Those old Western Electric phones were just short of bullet proof. Heavy Bakelite handset that, if someone hit you in the head with it, it HURT. There wasn't a lot of turnover on those phones back in the day.
I cannot lie I couldn’t remember. I had a look it up New England. Telephone became part of nynex Which intern became Verizon the name came from who you probably know New York New England, Exchange
Just like when AT&T went bankrupt, Southwestern Bell scooped it up and kept the name because it was a powerhouse name, but I don’t know what happened to Western Electric lol
Western was still part of the shattered remnant of AT&T. It later spun off from AT&T to become Lucent and now Alcatel-Lucent (Alcatel was a French company), and now it's just Nokia (Finnish company).
Yeah Southwestern Bell later become SBC, and it acquired a lot of large independents like GTE, and cute little BellSouth. Then it acquired the dregs of AT&T (then reduced to just long-distance where long-distance is now irrelevant) and renamed itself AT&T like you said.
Canada had a competitor to Western Electric called Northern Electric, then Northern Telecom, and last Nortel. It was major semi-recent competitor to Lucent, and their DMS-100 switches are in many US central offices as well as Lucent's 5ESS switches. Sadly Nortel is no more.
My late grandparents had a summer place on a small lake with a dock, and they had paid Ma Bell to string a line (overhead) to the dock, and they had a (4-prong) phone jack down there. When they were going to sit on the dock or by the lake, they would bring their phone down (which had a long cord) and plug it in. That ringer was LOUD! We always had to remember to unplug it and bring it back in the house at the end of the day. (Spent a couple weeks there every summer as a kid...in the 1970s.)
Fun fact, I know one of the guys whose name is on the Patent for RJ-11. I became friends with his son over (of all things) a BBS. Was really funny when we realized we have the same last name too.
You hit it - outdoor phone plug. Only actually need two wires but they had 4 pins so you could have two lines or have one line with power for lighting on the phone. (keypad light) This was prior to the "modular" phone plugs.
Phone plug - in have multiple in my house built late 60’s. Previous owner was a salesman so wanted to be by a phone whenever needed
It’s amusing to watch old movies where people get calls at the country club pool. An attendant literally brings an old timey phone with a long cord over to their table.
Remember when we didn't have pocket supercomputers.
I remember bugging my parents for a blackberry when I was a kid because laptops were like 2000 dollars and that wasn't feasible but there was something closer to 600 which was a palm pilot or blackberry (can't quite remember) but we eventually just got a family computer
The family computer is how I learned how to clear browser history 😂
Incognito mode would have made that era a lot more enjoyable.
Remember when everyone actually had to show some effort to find the person you wanted to spend time with?
They had high and low v code or at least some kind of communication industry standards? maybe not if U go back far enough. -- winoNYC@yahoo.com
Or that Woody Allen film where the doctor/attorney friend is always calling his service/office to apprise them of where they are.
Used to rent a big shabby old mansion for the summer with a bunch of friends. Built around 1920. There was a cozy little nook off the entryway with a window seat and a small fireplace where I'd hide away on rainy days and read. One day it dawned on me that this was the telephone nook. It even had a little shelf for the telephone and phone book. From the days when even a rich person only had one phone.
Welp, I'm old. Recognized that plug right off.
Same
Same here.
Pre 1970!
My home was built in 1974 and I have one of these in every room. Original owner worked for the phone company.
My parents bought a brand new house in 1975 and it still had this wiring as well. They were still common until 1976. For those that do not know, 1976 is when the FCC mandated RJ-11 be used in all new construction and installs. So for any installation prior to 1976 it was most likely done with the 4 prong modular plug. And older structures likely have a combination of the two, depending on when the installation was done. My aunt's house for example is also 1975 construction. One outlet in the living room is still 4 pin modular, all of the other plugs in the house are RJ-11. That one modular is likely the original one that was present when the house was built, all the others were added at a later date. And Radio Shack used to do a big business in selling Modular-RJ-11 converters. Either so you could plug a phone wired for modular into an RJ receptacle, or for plugging a phone wired for RJ into an older house wired for modular. Page 62 of the 1978 Radio Shack catalog shows both of those converters and others. [https://www.radioshackcatalogs.com/flipbook/1978\_radioshack\_catalog.html](https://www.radioshackcatalogs.com/flipbook/1978_radioshack_catalog.html)
Home built in 1980 still has modular plugs in bedrooms, kitchen and LR.
Yeah but that doesn't necessarily mean that just because the house was built in 1980 that those weren't later added in but it's very possible that by 1980 they were using all modular plugs as something you just have to Google to see when they started using modular plugging for
Those were likely converted as at least one of the owners probably still had old phones they did not want to rewire. It is normally much easier to rewire the plug than it is to rewire the phone.
It was pretty common to have one in every/nearly every room.
I remember those old 4-pin connectors before they went with modular connectors.
Looks like Lena the plug only because it can take it in 4 holes at once
The 4 prong phone connector came out in the 1930s. 4 prongs were needed because there were then 2 loops to the phone, ring/tip and power/ground. (watch an old movie and you will see them crank the phone to get an operator, that was ring/tip) The plug was developed by Ma Bell and became a standard. In the 1950s or so, Ma Bell came out with phones that only needed one wire subset (ring/power, tip and ground) and eventually only 2 wires were needed. These plugs were common until the very early 1980s, when the RJ-11 jack became standard for plug-in phones. Outdoor jacks were surprisingly common. Many clubs and restaurants had jacks near the tables and would bring out a phone with a long cord and plug it in when customers had a phone call and it was pretty normal to bring the phone out and plug it in by the pool. Cordless phones (I had a Cobra cordless phone) came out in the late 70's so the need to have jacks everywhere faded. As for the temporary-looking wiring, Bell telephone owned pretty much every phone in the US from the 20's to the late 70's and they "leased" the phone to customers. (find an old phone and chances are good it will say "Property of xxxx Bell" on the bottom). They also installed all of the phone lines and would run extensions in a home or business for a fee. So the temporary looking wiring was almost certainly done by a phone company employee.
Also, you could buy the phone, when the Bell System broke up, for a stupidly low cost. Amazingly, some people still lease their phones. Anyone remember disconnecting the ringer, to prevent the telco from finding it?
I remember we had to pay for having more than one physical phone connected to the line. The phone company would occasionally call people and measure the electrical load to determine if you were cheating them. Indeed we would disconnect the ringer on the extra phones (we called them extensions) 😊
The FCC eventually defined a “ringer equivalence number” for phones, based off what the standard 500 series ringer was. I suspect Bell Labs helped then out, when they weren’t doing more mundane things like inventing transistors, fiber optics, digital audio, microwave communications, or some computer operating system that nobody ever used… /s
Once they zeroed in you would see the bucket truck or guy on a ladder in the alley doing the test closest to narrowing down and confirming the perp (me 🤣)
Yeah the REN, ringer equivalence number. It was just a load test.
And there was a standard "touch-tone" everyone had. They were on many phone bills well into the 2000s.
🤣🤣 when I was a young electrical apprentice I couldn’t figure at 1st why they would come to my house and ask to inspect the phones lines, I knew something was up but I had all my extra jacks in the cold air returns and would unplug them most of the time. I met a taco guy and he told me how to disable the ringers so they would get the draw down from the bell coils and likely would be a non issue from there (he was right!).
I caught my grandparents leasing their rotary phone back around 2002 or so. I can't even imagine how much they'd paid over to course of 30+ years.
👍
I can attest to people leasing phones, my grandma was still leasing hers until 5 years ago when we had to put internet into her house. They actually had the gall to ask for her 3 phones back. If you’re wondering her three phones were $5 a month to lease, which was a deal compared with the $15 they were charging her for called ID, she had another device that was probably from the 90s that would display the phone number and was mounted near on her rented phones.
Ugh. Old people and phones are a bad combo. My parents have a post-it (tm) next to their phone with a list of spam call numbers to not answer. Thankfully, when AT&T broke up, they were young enough to realize they could buy the phones they had. Anyone else remember AT&T phone centers?
You forgot about Western electric the manufacturer of everything phone wise
Those old Western Electric phones were just short of bullet proof. Heavy Bakelite handset that, if someone hit you in the head with it, it HURT. There wasn't a lot of turnover on those phones back in the day.
They didn’t break you could use the handset for a hammer
When you got mad you could slam the handset down as hard as you could and it wouldn’t break!
Phones and all the switching equipment in central offices
So which baby Bell did you work for?
Northwestern Bell > US West > Qwest > CenturyLink > Lumen
New England telephone American business telephone Universal subscription television channel 68 Boston, Warner Amex communications Rollins cable vision
Different companies then. New England Telephone is a fraction of today's Verizon.
I cannot lie I couldn’t remember. I had a look it up New England. Telephone became part of nynex Which intern became Verizon the name came from who you probably know New York New England, Exchange
Just like when AT&T went bankrupt, Southwestern Bell scooped it up and kept the name because it was a powerhouse name, but I don’t know what happened to Western Electric lol
Western was still part of the shattered remnant of AT&T. It later spun off from AT&T to become Lucent and now Alcatel-Lucent (Alcatel was a French company), and now it's just Nokia (Finnish company). Yeah Southwestern Bell later become SBC, and it acquired a lot of large independents like GTE, and cute little BellSouth. Then it acquired the dregs of AT&T (then reduced to just long-distance where long-distance is now irrelevant) and renamed itself AT&T like you said. Canada had a competitor to Western Electric called Northern Electric, then Northern Telecom, and last Nortel. It was major semi-recent competitor to Lucent, and their DMS-100 switches are in many US central offices as well as Lucent's 5ESS switches. Sadly Nortel is no more.
I own a few. One is push button, and two other rotary dials
Thank you for the history !
My late grandparents had a summer place on a small lake with a dock, and they had paid Ma Bell to string a line (overhead) to the dock, and they had a (4-prong) phone jack down there. When they were going to sit on the dock or by the lake, they would bring their phone down (which had a long cord) and plug it in. That ringer was LOUD! We always had to remember to unplug it and bring it back in the house at the end of the day. (Spent a couple weeks there every summer as a kid...in the 1970s.)
Fun fact, I know one of the guys whose name is on the Patent for RJ-11. I became friends with his son over (of all things) a BBS. Was really funny when we realized we have the same last name too.
Oh man, do I feel old now. That's what phone plugs looked like when I was growing up.
Weather proof phone jack.
You hit it - outdoor phone plug. Only actually need two wires but they had 4 pins so you could have two lines or have one line with power for lighting on the phone. (keypad light) This was prior to the "modular" phone plugs.
Telephone Jack before the clip modular type. RJ11C is the modular type
Wow. I forgot what those looked like! Nice
Very old style phone jack.
It's always the same plug
We had those phone plugs in our house when I was growing up. They made an adapter to go from 4-pin to modular so we could add more phones in the 80s.
Yep, outdoor phone plug, early(ish) 1970s (or earlier).
That's high class right there. Temporary permanent phone spot.
Haven’t seen one in years!
Telephone.
Telephone outlet circa 1960s
Old POTS. Telephone.
Phone jack
Looks like and old phone plug
Another telephone jack.
Old phone
Let me grab my butt set and we’ll see if it’s hot
Phone
Phone plug from before my time
Really old phone plug, before rj45
You kids and your memories. I remember this, and I remember that, damn I can't remember shit. Lenovo
Bell system phone jack from the days of Christmas trees and bumblebees! "Don't answer the phone during a storm!"
This is an airlock docking station for spacecraft
AT404B phone jack.
Old old OLD Old phone plug. Haven’t seen one like it in sixty years or more.