5 ms·
I lived in a small seaside village outside a NZ city in the early 80s, it still had a mechanical exchange and no carrier based toll trunks, just a great bundle
by Taniwha 5y ago
I lived in a small seaside village outside a NZ city in the early 80s, it still had a mechanical exchange and no carrier based toll trunks, just a great bundle of wires on poles going over the hill (maybe 10 pairs? something in that region)
We had 3 digit phone numbers, if I dialed a 2 I got a trunk into town. In town if I dialed 22 I got a trunk to my village (so 22-123 got local number 123 from town) .... if you dialed 2-22-2-22-2-.... bad things happened
- gumby 5y agoThere are still three digit phone numbers in Germany. My mother in law has one.
- jimmySixDOF 5y agoI was on a ski trip in the 80s to NZ and we had rented a place where the phone was on a bus party line with four or five other homes so they told us only pick up with three bells anything else was for another property but remember anyone could pickup and listen. Hard to believe that and 5G have been possible in one lifetime.
- Taniwha 5y agoI lived in an even smaller town in NZ, it was a holiday village, only 2 places had a phone, the only people I knew were on the same party line - this one worked slightly differently - on a pole was a relay - it could switch to either party, we couldn't hear the other people on the line .... but we also couldn't talk to each other (the only 2 people in town with phones couldn't call each other)