TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Re: May 1966 - Customers Angry at Switch to Message Units From Toll

Re: May 1966 - Customers Angry at Switch to Message Units From Toll

danny burstein (dannyb@panix.com)
Tue, 29 Aug 2006 19:17:31 UTC

In <telecom25.317.9@telecom-digest.org> hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com writes:

> I don't know how the phone company recorded charges back then.
> According to the Eng & Sci history, AMA tapes included message unit
> calls, so detailed records were available even if not shown on the
> customer's bill. But message units could also be easily recorded on
> the same meters used to track local calls, just incrementing the
> counter as needed per call. AMA was developed with No 5 crossbar in
> 1948 so it was theorectically available for NY.

The counters (one for each phone line) simply clicked off as needed. I
have no idea how they got the feedback to "know" whether to just click
once for a local, untimed, call -- or whether to click twice on start,
once every three minutes (or some other arrangement ...) depending on
distance.

NY Tel had a camera that literally was pushed against a (dozen at a
time?) counters and the numbers were then processed by someone or
another and added to the bill.

_____________________________________________________
Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key
dannyb@panix.com
[to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]

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