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My dad worked for the phone company for his entire career (late 1950's to early 1990's). He had some interesting stories about going into rural areas in the ea
by dugmartin 10y ago
My dad worked for the phone company for his entire career (late 1950's to early 1990's). He had some interesting stories about going into rural areas in the early 1960's and seeing how "universal service" was implemented in the 1940's and 1950's. The most common way when there were only a few service users down a side road was to hook the phone wire up to a barbed wire fence heading that way and use the earth for neutral. It worked but it meant if a farmer closer to the road picked up the phone the line past their house went dead.
I wonder what kind of bitrate you could get nowadays with barbed wire?
- planteen 10y agoI think a lot of the problem is you would radiate like crazy, causing harmful interference. The same thing happens with power line data service.
- HeyLaughingBoy 10y agoA 99% Invisible podcast, The Devil's Rope, discusses this. As a result of already having barbed wire run all over the West to control Texas Longhorn cattle, it was far easier to provide phone service using it, than it was to run new cable. So farmers ended up being the most wired group of people in the late 19th, early 20th century.