GoKawiilDuring the heyday of AT&T, it was often said that the telephone system was the largest machine ever built. The "hello machine" certainly was vast, but whether or not you consider it to be a single machine raises challenging questions of definition. The Internet, I think we can all agree, is not a single machine but a system of interconnected ones. The telephone network, though, felt a lot more like one device. "One Policy, One System, Universal Service" was once the slogan of AT&T, a message that the telephone network is more than just a sum of parts. The third of these principles, "Universal Service," is a key point around which telecom policy pivots even today. As the telephone system was at its apex, Universal Service became its undoing.
We know the Internet to be a network of independent devices in part because of the wide variety of ways that we access it. Computer networks, almost to their origin, have emphasized independent implementations of standardized interfaces. Computers, as network nodes, are interchangeable. As a result, much of the complexity must be pushed to the edge, where end-user systems are most able to adapt to the unique needs of, well, the end-user. The telephone system was much different: few types of telephone instrument existed, largely from a single manufacturer. Complexity was drawn into the center where telephone offices could house the huge machinery required by mid-century automation. All of it was, for a very long time, hard-wired: central office switches and customer telephones were designed and installed to suit each other. This core difference, between the flexibility of computer networks and the central caretakership of telephone networks, was a core issue in the series of changes that rocked the telephone business in the early 1980s.
1984 is the K/T line of telecommunications, the year the sea peoples came. It is difficult to overstate the extent to which telephone technology, the communications industry, and the basic concept of what a telephone is changed between the 1970s and the 1980s. This was not a single, well-planned, carefully executed reform the way some accounts of divestiture can make it out to be. In practice, it was chaotic, messy, and often drawn out.
The deregulation, re-regulation, and fundamental reshaping of the American telecommunications industry is a complicated story. There are different actors, different agencies, different motives, and different outcomes. Nothing went quite as expected, and some of the consequences still remain to be seen. It is a hard story to tell. We can begin to understand it, though, by focusing in on just one part: the part in your house, the Customer Premises Equipment. Like the "Standard Oil" gas stations that you can still find here and there, the breakup of the Bell System left behind marks. More than anything else, it left behind telephones.
From the genesis of the Bell System, telephones were considered just as much part of the telephone system as the central office equipment that supported them. Despite some early uncertainty, AT&T quickly settled on a pattern in which most telephone users paid a single monthly rate that included local calling, maintenance of the local loop to their premises (which we might call "access"), and the telephone itself. When you signed up for service, Ma Bell sent someone to install your phone. When you had trouble, they sent someone again to fix it. When you canceled, or fell delinquent on the bill, they sent someone by to take the phone away.
From our modern perspective of the telephone as "consumer electronics," it's hard to picture paying rent on one. There were a number of reasons for leasing, which varied in prominence over time. Some of the uglier parts of the early 1980s involved disputes over which of these motives really mattered. Phones, we will see, were leased to consumers for many of the same reasons that early computers were mostly leased to businesses. This reflects a parallel shift in the computer industry, from "computer centers" to "personal computing," that happened around the same time and in a similar context. Before we get there, though, we need to understand how it came to be that telephones were "Bell System Property—Not For Sale."
First, we need to understand the nature of telephones and telephone wiring when the practice of telephone leasing was established. Consider, for example, that the first phones in common use were not yet "common battery"—they had local batteries, a wooden box full of big dry cells that required regular changes. Telephones were much more maintenance-intensive, and those maintenance requirements produced a troubling question of responsibility. Most people, if they attempted a telephone call and couldn't understand the other party, would blame the phone company. They'd blame the phone company even if it was the fault of the caller or callee, for not changing their phone batteries. Consider these two facts: telephones required regular service, and if they didn't receive it, the result would reflect poorly on the reputation of the phone company. For both consumer convenience and the integrity of the telephone system, it made sense for the phone company to take responsibility for the end-user's equipment.
Consider also the issue of compatibility. The type of telephone to be installed, the wiring conventions, and the configuration of the "network" of electronics in the phone could all depend on the type of exchange office it was connected to. Up until around 1970, party lines were very common (the majority of all telephones in the mid-century). They remained in use here and there into the 2000s. The problem was even more acute for party line customers: there were a half dozen fundamentally different selective ringing systems for party-line phones , and different basic wiring schemes to match. One of the dominant discussion topics in telephone collecting circles is how to wire and re-wire vintage phones to work with specific equipment. Bell System Practices told technicians which wires to connect to which terminals, and which terminals to strap to which other terminals, to get a standard phone model to work in a given situation. Some scenarios required add-on boards, external cabinets, or modifications. This could all be true even of simple single-line phones, but the moment a business or large residence wanted a more complex system (e.g. with intercom calling), the complexity multiplied.
What was even worse, especially in the case of party lines, is that a single malfunctioning or incorrectly installed phone could impact service along the entire phone line. In the worst case, even a humble single-party line could sap the capacity of the exchange's switching equipment if it stuck off hook.
I should also make sure to emphasize the way that telephones were connected. Today, all telephones use "modular connectors" that simply plug into a wall socket. We shouldn't take modular wiring for granted; telephones were usually hard-wired to screw terminals until the 1960s, and even once connectorized the connectors were not standardized until 1974. In 1980, as a dark storm rose over the horizon, many telephones were still hard-wired, some still to complicated wall ringers or terminal boxes.
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