"The Telephone purports to transmit the speaking voice over telegraph wires. We found that the voice is very weak and indistinct, and grows even weaker when long wires are used between the transmitter and receiver. Technically, we do not see that this device will be ever capable of sending recognizable speech over a distance of several miles.

"Messer Hubbard and Bell want to install one of their "telephone devices" in every city. The idea is idiotic on the face of it. Furthermore, why would any person want to use this ungainly and impractical device when he can send a messenger to the telegraph office and have a clear written message sent to any large city in the United States?

"The electricians of our company have developed all the significant improvements in the telegraph art to date, and we see no reason why a group of outsiders, with extravagant and impractical ideas, should be entertained, when they have not the slightest idea of the true problems involved. Mr. G.G. Hubbard's fanciful predictions, while they sound rosy, are based on wild-eyed imagination and lack of understanding of the technical and economic facts of the situation, and a posture of ignoring the obvious limitations of his device, which is hardly more than a toy... .

"In view of these facts, we feel that Mr. G.G. Hubbard's request for $100,000 of the sale of this patent is utterly unreasonable, since this device is inherently of no use to us. We do not recommend its purchase."

MATURATION

1892 - Amon Strowger, the St. Louis undertaker, became upset on finding that the wife of a competitor was a telephone operator who made his line busy and transferred calls meant for him to her husband. "Necessity is the mother of invention" so Strowger developed the dial telephone system to get the operator out of the system. He forms a Chicago firm, Automatic Electric, to manufacture step-by-step central office equipment (which is now owned by GTE). The first automatic C.O. was installed in LaPorte, Indiana. I discovered in Ralph Meyer's book, Old Time Telephones, that actually, in 1879, Connelly, Connelly and McTighe patented an automatic dial system, although they did not commercialize it.
1893 - An early form of broadcasting was started in Budapest over 220 miles of telephone wires serving 6000 subscribers who could listen at regular schedules to music, news, stock market prices, poetry readings and lectures.
1900 - John J. Carty, Chief Engineer of NY Tel (and later AT&T), installs loading coils, invented by Michael Pupin, to extend range and utilizes open wire transposition to reduce crosstalk an inductive pickup from ac transmission lines. AT&T paid Pupin $255,000 for the use of his patent. There are now about 20,000 telcos in business. There are now 856,000 telephones in service.
1906 - Lee deForest invents the vacuum tube.
1907 - States start to regulate telcos. Mississippi was among the first. (The idea of regulation goes back several centuries, when in England, innkeepers were required to post their charges to prevent gouging. (I wish it applied to plumbers.) "Common carrier" regulation refers to government approval of tariffs filed by railroads, truck lines, telcos, etc which provide the terms and conditions whereby the public can make use of their services.
1907 -Theodore Vail returns as President of AT&T (and Western Union). He is responsible for the concept of "end-to-end" service that guided AT&T and other telcos in providing the C.O., transmission systems, and CPE that lasted until the Carterphone and Specialized Common Carrier Decisions.
1909 - Western Union and AT&T are closely locked.
1910 - Peter DeBye in Holland, develops theory for optical waveguides. He was a few years ahead of his time. Interstate Commerce Commission starts to regulate telcos.
1913 - The Kingsbury Agreement. Mr. Kingsbury was an AT&T vice president. In his famous letter to the U.S. Government, AT&T agrees to divest its holdings of Western Union, stop acquisition of other telcos, and permit other telcos to interconnect.
1914 - Underground cables link Boston, NYC and Washington.
1915 - Vacuum tube amplifiers used the first time in coast-to-coast telco circuits. In opening the service, Bell, in New York, repeated his famous first telephone sentence to his assistant, Mr.Watson, who was in San Francisco, "Mr. Watson, come here, I want you." Watson replied, "If you want me, it will take me almost a week to get there." E.T. Whitaker develops the sampling theorem that forms the basis of today's PCM and TCM technologies.
1920 - Bell introduces its own step-by-step offices that were previously acquired from Automatic Electric. G. Valensi develops the time domain multiplexing concept.
1921 - The Willis-Graham Act allows telcos to merge with permission of the States and the Interstate Commerce Commission.
1925 - Bell Telephone Laboratories founded. 1.5 million dial telephones in service out of 12 million phones in service.
1926 - Baird in Scotland and Jenkins in the U.S. demonstrate TV using neon bulbs and mechanical scanning disks. P.M. Rainey at Western Electric patents the PCM methodology.
1928 - Zworykin files patents on electronic scanning TV using the iconoscope.
1930 - AT&T introduces much higher quality insulated wire.
1934 - Federal Communications Commission founded. Combined functions of RF spectrum allocation previously handled by the Federal Radio Commission and interstate regulation for common carriers. Introduced "value-of-service" pricing which required the subsidization of residential subscribers to speed the availability of nationwide telephone service.
1935 - First telephone call around the world. About 6700 telcos in operation.
1937 - Bell introduces the Model 300 improved handset.
1938 - Bell introduces crossbar central office switches.
1939 - WU introduces coast-to-coast fax service. John Atanasoff and Clifford Berry invent the first electronic computer at the Iowa State University. In 1973 a judge ruled in a patent infringement suit that their research was the source of most of the ideas for the modern computer.
1941- Konrad Zuse in Germany develops the first programmable calculator using binary numbers and boolean logic.
1943 - Philadelphia is the last city to have telephone service supplied by different local carriers (until the recent deregulatory moves by Congress and the FCC.) Western Union and Postal Telegraph permitted to merge.
1945 - AT&T lays 2000 miles of coax cable. Arthur C. Clarke proposes communications satellites.
1946 - AT&T televises Army-Navy game in Philadelphia and transmits it to NYC
1946 - AT&T has 8 VF channels on microwave from Catalina Island to Los Angeles. Raytheon has a microwave link transmitting audio from WQXR in NYC to Boston.
1946 - FCC's Recording Devices Docket required telcos to furnish connecting arrangements for conversation recorders. The use of "beep tones" required when conversations are recorded.
1947 - Telcos install nationwide numbering plan. BTL has a 96-channel PCM experimental system working between Murray Hill, N.J. and NYC and quickly discovers the need for repeaters for long-distance service.On December 23, BTL introduces the germanium point contact transistor and in the following year the alloy junction germanium transistor. TI introduces the silicon-based transistor in 1958.
1949 - AT&T introduces the famous black rotary Model 500 telephone.
1949 - Bell Labs publishes Shannon's seminal theory of relay logic so important in the development of modern computers.
1949 - FCC's Jordaphone Docket (1949 - 1954). A precursor to Part 68. Jordaphone and three other manufacturers of answering machines sought FCC approval for their use on telco lines. The FCC decision left the matter to the states as only about 1% of telephone calls at that time were interstate. Commissioner Frieda Hennock filed her famous opposition in favor of the petitioners.
1950 - 75% of lines are party lines.
1952 - The first database was implemented on RCA's Bizmac computer. Reynold Johnson, an IBM engineer, developed a massive hard disk consisting of fifty platters, each two feet wide, that rotated on a spindle at 1200 rpm with read/write heads. These were called "jukeboxes".
1954 - Gene Amdahl developed the first computer operating system for the IBM 704. Sony introduces the first transistor radio that sold for $49.95. Raytheon introduces the transistor for hearing aids replacing its line of subminiature tubes. Zenith's highly successful hearing aids using subminiature tubes, about the size of a pack of cigarettes with a separate battery pack sold for about $25.00. The new transistor hearing aids reduced the size of the electronic package to about the size of a box of matches with an internal battery and sold for about $100. The first in-the-ear hearing aids appeared about 1955-1956.
1955 - According to Ken Krechmer, A.W. Morten and H.E. Vaughan describe the development of a real modem in their BSTJ paper, Transmission of Digital Information over Telephone Circuits, May 1955. Reynold Johnson at IBM develops the first disk drive.
1956 - AT&T's Consent Decree. In 1949, the Department of Justice wanted AT&T to divest itself of Western Electric.The court ignored the Department of Justice's request. Instead, as the result of the Consent Decree, AT&T got to keep WE; however, it could only stay in the field of telecommunications and it had to license its patents to others.
1956 -. Telco tariffs did not permit customers to add even shoulder rests, let alone noise reducing Hush-a-Phone cup over the microphone. In North Carolina, one was not permitted to place a cover on a telephone directory. (This latter issue was stricken by order of the North Carolina Supreme Court.) The Hush-a-Phone court decision was important because it permitted customer-provided equipment that a privately beneficial and not publicly harmful could be connected to the network. Hush-a-Phone permitted the use of acoustically and/or inductively coupled answering machines, such as Jordaphone, and also fax machines. Previously, AT&T permitted only Government and newspaper wire services to connect fax machines and wire photo equipment. One of the early founders of a fax manufacturing company met with Walter Gifford, President of AT&T in the early 1920s to obtain permission to connect wire line fax equipment to the network for use by newspapers. He said:

Mr. Gifford did not object and the news services got permission to connect their fax and wire photo equipment.

1957 - October 4, the Russians launched the first satellite, Sputnik.
1958 - AT&T introduces datasets (modems) for direct connection. Jack Kilby, Texas Instruments, developed the first integrated circuit. TI introduces the silicon-based transistor which soon eclipsed germaninum devices in production volume. Seymour Cray at Control Data Corporation develops the first transistorized computer, Model 1604. He later uses liquid nitrogen to enhance the speed of CDC's line of supercomputers.
1959 - AT&T introduces the TH-1 1860-channel microwave system. The FCC's Above 890 MHz Decision allowed private microwave systems.
1960 - AT&T installs first electronic switching system in Morris, IL.There are now 3299 telephone companies.
1961 - Bell Telephone Labs release design information for the touch-tone dial to Western Electric.
1962 - AT&T introduces T-1 multiplex service in Skokie, IL. Telephone cables now start to use plastic insulation. Paul Baron of RAND introduces the idea of distributed packet-switching networks.
1962 - Comsat formed. American Broadcasting Company requests FCC to allow domestic satellites to distribute TV programs. Approximately 10,000 computers are in service.
1964 - IBM releases its famous Model 360 computer that eventually led to $100 billion in sales over its life cycle. George Heilmeier, at RCA's research labs, invents the liquid crystal display. Douglas Englebart at SRI patented the idea of the mouse.
1965 - AT&T introduces stored program controlled switching. There are now 2421 telephone companies.
1966 - Tom Carter sues AT&T to permit connection of his phone patch. Court remands the case to FCC. (One writer stated Tom Carter filed for $1.25 million damages and received $300K. His original complaint had been filed in 1958.)
1967 - Larry Roberts at the Advanced Research Projects Agency publishes a paper proposing ARPANET.
1968 -FCC approves Carterphone Decision. AT&T ordered to revise tariffs effective 1/1/69 to permit connection of CPE. (It took about 10 years of legal action to get Part 68 of the FCC rules in place and operational by 1978). AT&T starts development of the Integrated Digital Services Network (ISDN). Gary Englehart at Stanford Research Institute demonstrates the first combination of a keyboard, keypad, mouse, windows and word processor. Dan Noble, IBM, developed the 8-inch floppy disk. Its capacity increased from 33K in 1971 to 1200K in 1977. AT&T starts 56 Kbps service. Pieter Kramer (Philips) invents the compact disk.
1969 - FCC asks National Academy of Science to recommend an interconnection policy. The Department of Defense initiates the ARPANet, which led to the development of Internet. Initially computers at Stanford University and UCLA are connected.
1970 - AT&T introduces its ESS#2 electronic switch. Intel introduces its popular 4004 4-bit microprocessor which starts the evolution of Intel"s famous line of 386, 486 and Pentium processors. There are now 1841 telephone companies. AT&T permitted to sell its teletype (TWX) service to Western Union.FCC approves the Domestic Satellite Order (which was nine years in the making).
1970 - Bell Telephone Labs release design information to Western Electric for the production of Modular Telephone Cords and Jacks.
1971 - The NAS Report recommended that an equipment certification program could be established to prevent harm to the network caused by hazardous voltages, excessive signal power, improper network control signaling and line imbalance. FCC establishes the PBX and Dialer and Answering Devices Committees to recommend certification standards based on the NAS Report. Satellite decision (nine There was also the Computer I Decision. (Western Union wanted to make use of excess CO computer capacity to do data processing. This decision led to procedures to assure no cross-subsidization between regulated and unregulated activities.) Gary Starkweather, Xerox, patents first laser printer. A couple of years later HP and Canon jointly introduce the first commercial laser printers. FCC establishes the PBX Advisory Committee and the Dialer and Answering Devices Committee and were terminated on the approval of Part 68. The PBX Committee's report was turned over to EIA where it eventually as a voluntary standard, 470. The Dialer and Answering Devices meetings were so contentious that no report was published. The Specialized Common Carrier Decision allowed MCI to get its private line service started over its St. Louis - Chicago route
1973 - Docket 19419 on Pricing of Datasets opened up the necessary technical background for Docket 19528 which led to the development of Part 68. This docket also established a Federal-State Joint Board. A two-week cross-examination of Larry Hohmann, AT&T's Director of Engineering by FCC attorney Michael Slomin provides much of the technical information that led to Part 68 of the FCC's Rules.The Joint Board's recommendations were adopted in part. A companion docket covered standardization of physical connectors needed for the interconnection program proceeded in parallel. In Docket 19808, the famous Telerent Decision, the Commission permitted states to have their own interconnection programs so long as they were no more stringent than the Federal program. This decision was appealed twice to the 4th Circuit Court then went all the way to the Supreme Court for final approval. (As a result telcos when they want to initiate a special intrastate service must file a tariff for the service and a "network disclosure" document that clearly identifies service and equipment requirements.) Docket 20003 was an economic study prepared by the Commission for Congress to show estimated economic effects of permitting private ownership of telephone terminal equipment an permitting competition in interstate telecommunications. The File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is introduced making it easier to transfer data information. Harvard grants a PhD to Bob Metcalf . His thesis describes Ethernet.
1973 - Bell Telephone Labs released design information to Western Electric for production of the Com-Key 416, the first KTU-less key system which was less susceptible to damage caused by lightning storms.
1974 - First domestic satellites in operation. AT&T introduces the digital subsriber loop. BBN opens the first public packet-switched network. Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn discuss connecting networks together to form an "internet". They collaborate in creating aTransmission Control Protocol (TCP). The Department of Justice files its antitrust suit against AT&T. The Consent Decree, resulting therefrom, required AT&T to divest itself of the 24 Bell Operating Companies by 1984. Value-added (packet-switched networks) come on the scene.
1975 - Summary: There are now 1618 telcos and 140 million phones in the U.S. Bell companies supply 85% of the lines; GTE: 10%. Smallest telco had 19 subscribers. About this time the last manual telco switchboard in Maine is retired.
Notes on GTE: Started in 1918 in Wisconsin by two men who bought the Richland Center Telephone Co. On vacation in California, they discovered a telco for sale for $1 million. Its purchase was financed by Paine Webber. By 1945, they owned 22 telcos in 19 states. In 1955, they merged with Gary Telephone which owned Automatic Electric (founded by Amon Strowger). In 1957, they picked up telco properties in Florida and in 1959, Lenkurt, a manufacturer of microwave equipment.
1975 - BTL released production design information to Western Electric for electronic key systems.

PART 68 ADOPTED