beans_again?
Desert Center California open wire 02
An open wire lead might be abandoned or might have a single working pair (left pole line, 1 circuit). The lead doesn't seem to go to any switching facility. Instead, it looks like the open wire carried manual service which went to a microwave radio site.
Until the 1980s, other manual service areas I'm aware of went to Los Angeles Traffic Service Position System (toll or long distance) operators. To reach a phone on manual service, you would dial zero, then ask the operator for a toll station number. "Operator, give me Rice, California, Toll Station Number Three." To place a call from a manual station, you would go off hook and ask the operator to connect you.
[In 1991,] only 3.1 million Poles, or 8% of the population, have a telephone. This means that there are only 7 phones for every 100 inhabitants, which is less that Romania, where 17 out of 100 have a phone. ...Some 2.3 million Poles are on a telephone waiting list and the average wait is a staggering 13 years.
— Stéphan Sberro, circa 1991
Journalism grade image.
Source: 3,000x2,000 pixel 16-bit TIF file.
Do not copy this image for any purpose.
Desert Center California open wire 02
An open wire lead might be abandoned or might have a single working pair (left pole line, 1 circuit). The lead doesn't seem to go to any switching facility. Instead, it looks like the open wire carried manual service which went to a microwave radio site.
Until the 1980s, other manual service areas I'm aware of went to Los Angeles Traffic Service Position System (toll or long distance) operators. To reach a phone on manual service, you would dial zero, then ask the operator for a toll station number. "Operator, give me Rice, California, Toll Station Number Three." To place a call from a manual station, you would go off hook and ask the operator to connect you.
[In 1991,] only 3.1 million Poles, or 8% of the population, have a telephone. This means that there are only 7 phones for every 100 inhabitants, which is less that Romania, where 17 out of 100 have a phone. ...Some 2.3 million Poles are on a telephone waiting list and the average wait is a staggering 13 years.
— Stéphan Sberro, circa 1991
Journalism grade image.
Source: 3,000x2,000 pixel 16-bit TIF file.
Do not copy this image for any purpose.