"Today, we celebrate our 133rd birthday! Here are a few fun facts about Bell in 1880:
- Customers’ phones were 80 cm (2.5 feet) high. To make a call, they would pick up the receiver, turn a crank and ask an operator to connect them to the person they were calling.
- If the person they wanted to call didn’t have a telephone, Bell would send a messenger to their home to ask them to come to the Bell office to take the call.
- Every morning, each customer received a call from the operator to ensure their service was working.
- The longest distance for a long distance call was 320 km.
We’ve come a long way in 133 years thanks to the hard work and dedication of generations of Bell team members, and of course, our loyal customers!"
We've come a long way, just how much man power would it take to call every phone every morning to ensure that you can make and receive phone calls. Wednesday 1st May sees the launch of the Blackberry Q10 in Canada, back in 1880 the very thought of a phone in your pocket would have been dismissed as a fanciful idea, wonder what the next 133 years will see.
More about old phones - Telephony Museum
Image Vintage Telephone courtesy of Daniel St.Pierre / FreeDigitalPhotos.net