WEBVTT - The AT&T Story - Part Two 0:00:04.200 --> 0:00:07.240 Get in touch with technology with text Stuff from how 0:00:07.280 --> 0:00:14.960 Stuff dot com. Eisn everyone, and welcome to tex Stuff. 0:00:15.000 --> 0:00:18.320 I'm Jonathan Stricklettenhand, I'm Lauren, and we're going to continue 0:00:18.320 --> 0:00:22.240 our discussion about a big old company and technology. And 0:00:22.280 --> 0:00:24.720 before we get into it, you know, I totally forgot 0:00:24.760 --> 0:00:26.360 to mention this in the last episode, that this is 0:00:26.360 --> 0:00:29.800 the episode where it really counts. We had a listener 0:00:30.040 --> 0:00:34.960 request this topic. Yeah, Earl request this topic on Twitter, 0:00:35.200 --> 0:00:37.960 And if you want to check out his tweets, it's 0:00:38.159 --> 0:00:42.000 E A R L E underscore c L U b B. 0:00:42.400 --> 0:00:44.680 That's where he sends out those those tweets on the 0:00:44.720 --> 0:00:48.320 Twitter thing. So his tweet was, how about an episode 0:00:48.320 --> 0:00:50.040 on the history of a T and T, especially the 0:00:50.120 --> 0:00:53.479 deregulation of the telco industry. Now, of course we already 0:00:53.479 --> 0:00:56.160 talked about the founding of a T and T, but 0:00:56.640 --> 0:01:00.319 and how it started off kind of as a natural monopoly. Um, 0:01:00.400 --> 0:01:03.960 now we're going to really look into how that continued 0:01:04.120 --> 0:01:07.480 and how the United States government began to put the 0:01:07.560 --> 0:01:09.920 brakes on a T and T a little bit, all right, 0:01:09.920 --> 0:01:11.680 because at the beginning they had kind of been saying, 0:01:11.920 --> 0:01:14.520 you know, you guys have this terrific infrastructure. You go 0:01:14.560 --> 0:01:16.720 on and build that. That's terrific, right, this would be 0:01:16.760 --> 0:01:19.920 incredibly useful for the United States and so and then 0:01:19.959 --> 0:01:21.640 and they took it over just for example, during World 0:01:21.680 --> 0:01:23.520 War One, which we talked about in the first episode, 0:01:23.760 --> 0:01:26.200 government said let's just take over this for a little bit, 0:01:26.240 --> 0:01:29.120 and then returned it barely used just a couple of 0:01:29.160 --> 0:01:32.760 years later. So we left off in the twenties. So 0:01:32.760 --> 0:01:35.800 we're picking up right around nineteen twenty four, which is 0:01:35.840 --> 0:01:40.240 when A. T and T developed something that frankly, I 0:01:40.280 --> 0:01:43.320 was shocked at how early the development for this technology came. 0:01:43.319 --> 0:01:47.199 I didn't expect to see this. It's a telephotography, which 0:01:47.200 --> 0:01:52.000 is also called a fax machine in NS. Yeah, I 0:01:52.040 --> 0:01:56.240 had no idea. People were faxing goofy little pictures of 0:01:56.240 --> 0:02:00.280 of early twentieth century folklore back and forth, you know, 0:02:00.400 --> 0:02:03.200 letting people know that if you if you forward this 0:02:03.400 --> 0:02:06.000 one letter, Rockefeller will give you free M and m's 0:02:06.120 --> 0:02:08.480 or something. I don't know. I don't think that's what 0:02:08.600 --> 0:02:11.200 was actually being facts at the time. I honestly, UH 0:02:11.639 --> 0:02:14.080 just made all that up because it didn't research that. 0:02:14.160 --> 0:02:17.399 But I don't know what the first facts was hopefully 0:02:17.480 --> 0:02:19.840 not not some sort of email scam we should do 0:02:19.880 --> 0:02:21.320 we should do another. I think we actually got a 0:02:21.360 --> 0:02:24.040 request for a facts related episode. We should totally look 0:02:24.080 --> 0:02:26.240 into that. Sometimes we should do one about facts machines 0:02:26.240 --> 0:02:28.200 and one on facts lore, which is kind of the 0:02:28.200 --> 0:02:32.480 predecessor to the Internet email memes that we see today 0:02:32.600 --> 0:02:37.120 or Facebook games. Exactly. Okay, so things that we do 0:02:37.200 --> 0:02:41.200 know about Bell Telephone Laboratories Incorporated open for business. That is, 0:02:41.360 --> 0:02:43.919 that is Bell's R and D Lab, which would come 0:02:43.919 --> 0:02:46.440 out with some of the most important pieces of technology 0:02:46.560 --> 0:02:51.000 of the twentieth century. Exactly. Yes, Bell Labs famous for 0:02:51.160 --> 0:02:54.680 their research. And here's the thing is that the research 0:02:54.760 --> 0:02:57.720 that Bell Labs did was not always directly related to 0:02:57.760 --> 0:03:00.639 the telephone industry, at least not way that you could 0:03:00.639 --> 0:03:03.360 tell from the surface, but but down the line would 0:03:03.360 --> 0:03:07.399 become critical. Exactly. It's uh, it's instrumental in the way 0:03:07.400 --> 0:03:11.280 telephones work today. Now, nineteen six that's when Bell Labs 0:03:11.360 --> 0:03:14.960 and Western Electric begin to make sound equipment for these 0:03:15.040 --> 0:03:18.320 crazy moving pictures that are coming out of the Hollywood 0:03:18.360 --> 0:03:22.839 these days. That's crazy. Yeah, so obviously not too far 0:03:23.080 --> 0:03:26.720 from the whole idea of transmitting sound. Now it's recording 0:03:26.720 --> 0:03:29.400 and playing back sound in a way that works in 0:03:29.440 --> 0:03:34.079 a synchronized fashion with moving pictures. Nineteen seven, A T 0:03:34.200 --> 0:03:38.000 and T begins trans atlantic telephone service between London and 0:03:38.000 --> 0:03:40.960 the United States. But they don't have a cable. There's 0:03:40.960 --> 0:03:43.440 no cable connecting the US in London at this point. 0:03:43.640 --> 0:03:46.119 That would be via a radio signal. Yeah, and uh, 0:03:46.280 --> 0:03:48.360 it was, you know, it was. It was a slight 0:03:48.800 --> 0:03:51.960 a little expensive to make a phone call. I it 0:03:52.040 --> 0:03:55.280 was seventy five bucks for three minutes. Yeah, which if 0:03:55.280 --> 0:03:58.000 you're looking at nineteen seven dollars and then you compare 0:03:58.040 --> 0:04:00.240 them to today's dollars. I used the Beer Row of 0:04:00.280 --> 0:04:03.560 labor Statistics, which uses the Consumer Price Index two factor 0:04:03.640 --> 0:04:06.000 in how much stuff costs from one era to another. 0:04:06.400 --> 0:04:10.440 According to that, that would be about a thousand and 0:04:10.640 --> 0:04:13.600 eight dollars for those three minutes. So if you've got 0:04:13.600 --> 0:04:16.960 an extremely important phone call right to your British buddy, 0:04:17.080 --> 0:04:20.760 or if you're in London your Yankee friend, Yeah, that's 0:04:20.760 --> 0:04:25.120 pretty much. That's that's pretty expensive. Um. Nineteen twenty nine, 0:04:25.160 --> 0:04:28.679 Bell Labs broadcast the first public demonstration of a color 0:04:28.839 --> 0:04:33.320 television picture that's early too. Yeah, and it was the 0:04:34.279 --> 0:04:37.880 thing they showed was a telephone operator, of course, dressed 0:04:37.920 --> 0:04:41.360 in a colorful costume, and UH A T and T 0:04:41.560 --> 0:04:44.640 researchers that year filed a patent for coaxial cable for 0:04:44.720 --> 0:04:47.920 broadband transmission. As of that year, there are more than 0:04:47.920 --> 0:04:51.200 twenty million phones in the United States, and fifteen point 0:04:51.279 --> 0:04:54.720 four million of those are operated by Bell. UH and 0:04:54.880 --> 0:04:59.600 they've got how many, have four hundred and fifty thousand employees. 0:04:59.640 --> 0:05:02.480 They start it off with one Thomas Watson. UH. Now 0:05:02.520 --> 0:05:05.640 they're up to four d and fifty thousand. Of course 0:05:05.640 --> 0:05:07.760 Watson was no longer with the company at that point, 0:05:08.600 --> 0:05:11.520 but at any rate, Yeah, it's pretty amazing. And so 0:05:11.720 --> 0:05:16.120 nineteen thirty Bell starts to hold demonstrations to teach customers 0:05:16.440 --> 0:05:20.279 how to use dial service, the rotary dial, right, because 0:05:20.400 --> 0:05:22.360 before that, whenever you picked up a phone, you would 0:05:22.440 --> 0:05:24.599 reach an operator and you would tell the operator where 0:05:24.680 --> 0:05:26.680 you wanted to place your call. They would find out 0:05:26.760 --> 0:05:28.960 how to root it and do it for you. And UH, 0:05:29.360 --> 0:05:30.920 I think in the nine twenties they were starting to 0:05:30.920 --> 0:05:33.359 get into some electro mechanical systems that would do that 0:05:33.440 --> 0:05:36.640 for you but or for the operators, but you still 0:05:36.640 --> 0:05:38.320 had to talk to an operator to get your call 0:05:38.360 --> 0:05:40.760 to where it was going. This was the first time 0:05:40.800 --> 0:05:43.240 that you would use a number, a data set to 0:05:43.400 --> 0:05:45.680 tell the phone what you wanted to do. Right, So 0:05:45.760 --> 0:05:48.320 this is where people started to get phone numbers and 0:05:48.360 --> 0:05:52.200 you would start to dial numbers and uh and all 0:05:52.240 --> 0:05:55.680 the all the switching was handled by electro mechanical switches 0:05:56.120 --> 0:05:58.840 at that point forward. But you had to teach people 0:05:58.880 --> 0:06:01.280 how to do this because it was new. No one 0:06:01.320 --> 0:06:03.680 had ever had to do it before. And I don't 0:06:03.680 --> 0:06:05.800 know how many of our listeners are familiar with the 0:06:05.839 --> 0:06:10.360 old rotary dialing phones. Dialing on those could be really 0:06:10.400 --> 0:06:12.520 fun if you were a kid, but if you were 0:06:12.520 --> 0:06:15.120 an adult making the Earth fifth or six phone call 0:06:15.200 --> 0:06:17.720 that day, you would just sit there and hope that 0:06:17.800 --> 0:06:19.479 none of the numbers you had to call were in 0:06:19.600 --> 0:06:23.320 that nine range. Yeah, where you know, you dial and 0:06:23.360 --> 0:06:26.240 you just the whole thing click click, click click cick 0:06:26.240 --> 0:06:30.400 ci cick cick click. Good times. So by nineteen thirty two, 0:06:30.480 --> 0:06:34.839 Bell had was in control of seventy nine percent of 0:06:35.080 --> 0:06:39.240 national telecommunications market in the United States. They had made 0:06:39.320 --> 0:06:42.839 acquisitions throughout those years and had bought up smaller companies, 0:06:43.160 --> 0:06:47.320 so nearly of all telecommunications in the US falls under, 0:06:47.760 --> 0:06:50.600 that's an effectively a monopoly. Oh sure, right, right, and 0:06:50.800 --> 0:06:54.640 it's also up from what's that about seventy five only 0:06:54.680 --> 0:06:57.960 a few years ago. So yeah, so they were they 0:06:58.000 --> 0:07:02.840 were continuing to grow, and they were already practically the 0:07:02.880 --> 0:07:06.320 only game in town. So and a monopoly doesn't have 0:07:06.400 --> 0:07:09.600 to really be the only business, right, You don't have 0:07:09.680 --> 0:07:12.440 to be just the only one out there offering something. 0:07:12.440 --> 0:07:14.880 To have a monopoly, you just have to be so 0:07:14.960 --> 0:07:18.640 large that no one can realistically compete with you on 0:07:18.680 --> 0:07:23.280 any similar level. So let's say, for example, that Google 0:07:23.440 --> 0:07:27.680 were to to completely dominate search. They're they're pretty far 0:07:27.720 --> 0:07:29.920 in the lead. Let's say they completely dominated to the 0:07:29.960 --> 0:07:34.960 point where no other search engine is even close. Then 0:07:35.240 --> 0:07:37.680 Google would have to start worrying about being identified as 0:07:37.680 --> 0:07:40.840 a monopoly. And this is the funny thing is this 0:07:40.920 --> 0:07:45.320 doesn't necessarily mean that people are practicing unfair, you know, tactics. 0:07:45.520 --> 0:07:47.720 That just may mean that the way they do business 0:07:47.840 --> 0:07:49.760 was the way that resonated with a lot of people. 0:07:50.160 --> 0:07:52.520 So you can have different views of monopolies. You can 0:07:52.560 --> 0:07:55.400 either see people trying their best to try and grab 0:07:55.480 --> 0:07:57.400 up as much as the pie as possible, or you 0:07:57.440 --> 0:07:59.600 just see people just doing a really good job and 0:07:59.640 --> 0:08:01.480 then being punished for it. So there are two sides 0:08:01.520 --> 0:08:04.120 to this coin. I think in this case, in particular, 0:08:04.280 --> 0:08:08.040 it was due to that entire government regulation of basically 0:08:08.080 --> 0:08:10.280 allowing them to be a monopoly could be. Yeah, they 0:08:10.320 --> 0:08:12.640 had a huge head start and then the government gave 0:08:12.680 --> 0:08:14.960 them an even bigger boost. Well, first of all, because 0:08:14.960 --> 0:08:16.800 of that whole patent thing we talked about in the 0:08:16.880 --> 0:08:19.680 last episode, they had exclusive rights for the longest time, 0:08:19.760 --> 0:08:24.960 so yeah, they definitely benefited quite a bit. Moving on, so, 0:08:25.120 --> 0:08:29.560 nineteen thirty four, A t T began trans Pacific telephone 0:08:29.600 --> 0:08:32.520 service between the United States and Japan via radio signals. 0:08:33.080 --> 0:08:36.200 So again, as with many of these beginning services, you 0:08:36.200 --> 0:08:38.080 could only put through a single call at a time, 0:08:38.320 --> 0:08:41.440 right and now granted they had they had improved the 0:08:41.480 --> 0:08:45.000 efficiency of radio by that time. So remember just a 0:08:45.000 --> 0:08:47.679 few years earlier, that Transatlantic call was around seventy five 0:08:47.720 --> 0:08:50.840 bucks for three minutes. They lowered the costs for Pacific calls, 0:08:50.880 --> 0:08:53.079 which is amazing. It was only thirty nine bucks for 0:08:53.120 --> 0:08:55.440 three minutes, yep, which in today's money would be about 0:08:55.520 --> 0:09:00.920 six d. Yeah, you know, it's pocket forget your friends 0:09:00.960 --> 0:09:04.960 in London call your buddies over in Tokyo Um. Yeah, 0:09:05.720 --> 0:09:08.440 still expensive, but not nearly as much as it was before. 0:09:08.960 --> 0:09:12.080 Now this brings us up. Ninety four is big year 0:09:12.200 --> 0:09:15.480 for a T and T because that's also when the 0:09:15.559 --> 0:09:19.440 United States government passed the Communications Act of nineteen thirty four. 0:09:19.559 --> 0:09:22.120 They thought about passing the Communications Act of nineteen thirty 0:09:22.160 --> 0:09:24.600 four nineteen thirty three, but the name just didn't work, 0:09:25.320 --> 0:09:27.120 so they held off for a full year. Lawrence just 0:09:27.160 --> 0:09:29.280 staring at me. She doesn't like it when I throw 0:09:29.280 --> 0:09:34.480 in jokes, so especially bad ones. Established that that that's 0:09:34.559 --> 0:09:38.880 the act that actually established the Federal Communications Commission, also 0:09:38.960 --> 0:09:43.360 known as the f c C. Now, the FCC did 0:09:43.400 --> 0:09:46.880 not just spring out fully formed and have brand new powers. 0:09:46.920 --> 0:09:52.280 It actually kind of absorbed some previously existing organizations like 0:09:52.320 --> 0:09:55.800 the Federal Radio Commission and parts not all of it, 0:09:55.800 --> 0:09:59.680 but parts of the Interstate Commerce Commission that governed telephone 0:09:59.679 --> 0:10:02.560 and tele graph operations and kind of centralized all this 0:10:02.679 --> 0:10:06.080 because this was one of those examples of how technology 0:10:06.160 --> 0:10:09.800 outpaces legislation absolutely, and so this was the United States 0:10:09.800 --> 0:10:12.920 government attempt to try and catch up to the state 0:10:12.920 --> 0:10:15.240 of affairs because they said, well, you know, back when 0:10:15.280 --> 0:10:17.320 this was starting we had no idea where it was 0:10:17.360 --> 0:10:19.679 going to go, and now we need to be big 0:10:19.800 --> 0:10:22.560 enough thing, And especially considering that more and more people 0:10:22.559 --> 0:10:24.760 were using radio signals. In the way that radio signals 0:10:24.800 --> 0:10:27.320 work is that you cannot have two signals on the 0:10:27.360 --> 0:10:30.320 same bandwidth going out near each other because they'll conflict. 0:10:30.720 --> 0:10:34.080 You end up getting interference. Interference, right, So so yeah, 0:10:34.080 --> 0:10:38.480 so so government regulations starting to crack down on how 0:10:38.559 --> 0:10:41.680 people could use these new fancy radio signals in order 0:10:41.760 --> 0:10:44.520 to keep the airways clear for everyone's use, right. And 0:10:44.520 --> 0:10:47.560 it also gave the FCC authority to regulate rates of 0:10:47.640 --> 0:10:52.560 interstate and international common carriers and administration relating to electronic communication, 0:10:52.760 --> 0:10:55.400 which was basically saying don't gouge your customers. Right. So, 0:10:55.640 --> 0:10:58.520 in other words, a T and T remember was pretty 0:10:58.600 --> 0:11:01.480 much exclusive as far as lawn distance goes. So any 0:11:01.559 --> 0:11:04.440 regional operator had to pay a toll in order for 0:11:04.600 --> 0:11:08.040 their customers to be able to access long distance. So 0:11:08.440 --> 0:11:10.960 if you're if let's say, Lauren, You're in Atlanta and 0:11:11.000 --> 0:11:13.400 you want to call me, and for some reason, I'm 0:11:13.440 --> 0:11:17.360 in Omaha, Nebraska, and there are two different regional carriers, 0:11:17.679 --> 0:11:21.240 and so you are using your regional carrier to tie 0:11:21.280 --> 0:11:24.880 into the A T and T long distance service and 0:11:24.880 --> 0:11:28.319 then that call goes to me, Well, your regional service 0:11:28.320 --> 0:11:30.000 has to pay a fee in order to access that 0:11:30.080 --> 0:11:32.080 A T n T long distance and then that fee 0:11:32.240 --> 0:11:35.520 usually gets passed down to you, the customer. And this 0:11:35.640 --> 0:11:39.760 was a way of preventing any company, specifically A T 0:11:39.880 --> 0:11:41.559 and T, because they were really the only one who 0:11:41.559 --> 0:11:43.360 could have that kind of wield, that kind of power 0:11:43.520 --> 0:11:46.280 right from raising prices so much that it puts other 0:11:46.320 --> 0:11:49.200 companies out of business or it puts undue harm on 0:11:49.240 --> 0:11:52.680 the consumer. That was the intent. Uh. That brings us 0:11:52.760 --> 0:11:55.600 up to nine. When A T and T completed the 0:11:55.679 --> 0:11:59.400 first around the world call, it went all the way 0:11:59.400 --> 0:12:04.240 around the world. That seems uh less than useful in 0:12:04.280 --> 0:12:06.680 a technical sense, but good to know that they could 0:12:06.679 --> 0:12:10.319 do it. It was an impressive display of technology, not practical. 0:12:10.920 --> 0:12:12.720 If I want to if I want to call you, 0:12:12.800 --> 0:12:15.760 I just stand up and shout over the divider between 0:12:15.760 --> 0:12:22.760 our desks. I don't, I don't, No, I don't, I 0:12:22.760 --> 0:12:25.360 don't not anymore, not on not on Tuesdays anyway. Not 0:12:25.400 --> 0:12:29.600 after hr taught to me uh ninety seven, that's when 0:12:29.720 --> 0:12:34.000 Clinton Davidson of Bell Telephone Labs wins the Nobel Prize 0:12:34.000 --> 0:12:39.000 in Physics for experimental confirmation of the wave nature of electrons. 0:12:39.280 --> 0:12:42.400 So this is the first Nobel Prize awarded to someone 0:12:42.480 --> 0:12:44.600 working out of Bell Labs. It would not be the last. 0:12:46.360 --> 0:12:49.800 And uh, in case you're wondering the whole wave nature 0:12:49.800 --> 0:12:53.000 of electrons, well, electrons are particles, but in the lab 0:12:53.120 --> 0:12:56.720 we have I say, we scientists have observed that electrons 0:12:56.760 --> 0:13:00.400 could also behave like waves. And so this was whole 0:13:00.480 --> 0:13:04.040 wave particle duality thing you can hear about in various 0:13:04.080 --> 0:13:07.719 types of particle physics, quantum mechanics, that kind of thing. Uh, 0:13:07.920 --> 0:13:09.880 we won't go into it here because it's outside the 0:13:09.920 --> 0:13:13.600 realm of this podcast, but fascinating stuff. So it's no 0:13:13.600 --> 0:13:17.280 no surprise they got the Nobel Prize. Now ninety nine, 0:13:17.520 --> 0:13:21.800 the telephone is deployed as quote a weapon of preparedness 0:13:22.000 --> 0:13:26.000 end quote. That's also when Western Electric makes signal core 0:13:26.200 --> 0:13:29.000 sets leading up to the US involvement in World War Two. 0:13:29.040 --> 0:13:32.840 So signal core sets are essentially kind of like radio telephones. 0:13:32.920 --> 0:13:35.800 It is something that certain, uh, certain units in World 0:13:35.880 --> 0:13:38.640 War two had access to in order to maintain communications. 0:13:39.120 --> 0:13:43.080 And UH just showed that this company was still very 0:13:43.200 --> 0:13:47.480 much involved in government uh projects, which will become important 0:13:47.480 --> 0:13:49.439 in just a minute. But before we get to that, 0:13:50.200 --> 0:13:53.720 let's take a quick break to thank our sponsor. You've 0:13:53.720 --> 0:13:56.880 probably tried Hulu dot com now. With Hulu Plus, you 0:13:56.920 --> 0:14:00.520 can watch your favorite shows anytime, anywhere. 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Go 0:14:50.280 --> 0:14:53.960 to Hulu Plus, dot Com Forward slash Tech now and uh, 0:14:54.240 --> 0:14:56.480 you know, I always like to talk about the shows 0:14:56.520 --> 0:14:59.520 I watch when I use Hulu Plus, I kinda talk 0:14:59.600 --> 0:15:02.600 about Community. Community is one of those shows where when 0:15:02.600 --> 0:15:05.240 I watched the first couple of episodes, it didn't quite 0:15:05.240 --> 0:15:08.280 grab me. But as I began to get more invested 0:15:08.280 --> 0:15:11.480 in the characters and really enjoy the way that jokes 0:15:11.480 --> 0:15:14.440 would play out, not just over an episode, but over 0:15:14.600 --> 0:15:17.800 several episodes, I couldn't help but feel that was a 0:15:17.840 --> 0:15:20.880 really clever, really funny show. So if you like running 0:15:20.880 --> 0:15:24.000 gags and if you listen to this show, you pretty 0:15:24.080 --> 0:15:27.400 much have to go check out Community. And we're back, 0:15:27.520 --> 0:15:31.920 all right. So now we're up to nineteen forty one. 0:15:32.240 --> 0:15:36.120 And we talked earlier about how Bell Labs was was 0:15:36.200 --> 0:15:42.160 pioneering coaxial cable development in the laboratory is when they 0:15:42.240 --> 0:15:46.560 actually installed the first non experimental coaxial cable for Bell 0:15:46.680 --> 0:15:51.200 service between Minneapolis, Minnesota and Steven's Point, Wisconsin. So this 0:15:51.240 --> 0:15:54.160 is physical cable they're laying down for the transmission of 0:15:54.200 --> 0:15:58.880 signals as opposed to transmitting them over the air, UM 0:15:59.000 --> 0:16:01.440 and UH and it was a success, ended up being 0:16:01.520 --> 0:16:05.960 the basis for the cable industry, also for the early 0:16:06.040 --> 0:16:11.880 internet industry. Pretty impressive stuff. Now, this is when World 0:16:11.920 --> 0:16:15.320 War Two is being waged around the world, mostly in 0:16:15.360 --> 0:16:20.440 the course the European and UH Southeast Asia theaters. Um. 0:16:20.480 --> 0:16:25.120 This is also a time when Bell employees would serve 0:16:25.360 --> 0:16:28.840 in World War two. UH and and Bell companies would 0:16:28.840 --> 0:16:31.160 wind up producing more than one thousand two D defense 0:16:31.240 --> 0:16:37.040 projects for all all kinds of stuff. I mean, you know, materials, radios, radar, mind, fuses, 0:16:38.360 --> 0:16:41.280 all of that technical stuff that needed to happen. Yeah. 0:16:41.320 --> 0:16:44.000 So that another government project that was a big part 0:16:44.040 --> 0:16:46.320 of what a T and T was doing at that 0:16:46.360 --> 0:16:50.360 point three was when A T and T begins automation 0:16:50.440 --> 0:16:54.720 of long distance switching. So now there at this point 0:16:54.960 --> 0:16:57.440 the rolling it out would take years, sure, but but 0:16:57.880 --> 0:17:00.360 it was just not only local service but also across 0:17:00.520 --> 0:17:05.520 different local UH networks right right, local operators connecting to 0:17:05.600 --> 0:17:07.560 the long distance one. You were starting to see the 0:17:07.600 --> 0:17:10.800 switching become automated. UH. That would be a big it 0:17:10.920 --> 0:17:15.960 proven in efficiency to as of of American households had 0:17:16.000 --> 0:17:19.359 a telephone. The problem was they all wanted to call 0:17:19.440 --> 0:17:23.680 the other half. Yeah, so darned when are they When 0:17:23.680 --> 0:17:27.280 are the Johnson's game? That phone was when a T 0:17:27.400 --> 0:17:30.400 and T offers mobile telephone service in St. Louis, Missouri, 0:17:30.480 --> 0:17:35.040 and that it's not what you're thinking of. Well he 0:17:35.080 --> 0:17:38.639 had a car. Yeah, these were These were not the 0:17:38.720 --> 0:17:41.640 kind of handheld devices that that even Zach Morris would 0:17:41.680 --> 0:17:47.080 have many decades later. By the bell reference, that's that's 0:17:47.600 --> 0:17:51.159 that's after my time. But I get it. Um. I 0:17:51.520 --> 0:17:54.480 think each region of service had a single antenna which 0:17:54.520 --> 0:17:58.520 could handle about twenty calls at once at most most 0:17:58.600 --> 0:18:00.959 and sometimes it was between wellve and twenty. It all 0:18:01.000 --> 0:18:04.960 depended upon the antenna. Yeah. These were again using radio signals, 0:18:04.960 --> 0:18:08.600 sort of like those those transatlantic and Transpacific connections that 0:18:08.640 --> 0:18:11.800 we talked about earlier, but on a more mobile scale. 0:18:11.840 --> 0:18:14.919 You would call in and it would it would communicate 0:18:15.000 --> 0:18:17.439 to it to a tower, kind of similar to cell service, 0:18:17.480 --> 0:18:20.520 but it's not cell service. Yeah, if you if you 0:18:20.560 --> 0:18:23.600 moved outside the range of that antenna, you would not 0:18:23.640 --> 0:18:25.760 be able to place that call because there were there 0:18:25.760 --> 0:18:28.399 weren't cells. You know, we will have to do a 0:18:28.440 --> 0:18:30.640 full episode on how cell phones work at some point 0:18:30.720 --> 0:18:34.320 to explain that handoff process. But there was no handoff process, 0:18:34.320 --> 0:18:35.679 so if you moved out of range, that was it. 0:18:36.040 --> 0:18:38.920 And these mobile telephones were enormous and heavy. They were 0:18:38.920 --> 0:18:40.760 more akin to the sort of stuff you would have 0:18:40.800 --> 0:18:43.720 seen in like if you ever watched the World War 0:18:43.760 --> 0:18:46.520 two movie where they have one of those backpack radios. Yeah, 0:18:46.560 --> 0:18:48.680 I think I think Patent carries a few around sometimes 0:18:48.720 --> 0:18:51.040 it's a it's a little closer to that, not quite 0:18:51.040 --> 0:18:54.040 as military looking, but similar in size and weight. So 0:18:54.160 --> 0:18:57.280 not something that was terribly useful for the average person, 0:18:57.320 --> 0:19:00.280 but for some people like truck drivers it might come 0:19:00.320 --> 0:19:03.600 in handy or other other people who happened to be 0:19:03.680 --> 0:19:06.920 very mobile but have a large carrying capacity. On the 0:19:06.920 --> 0:19:10.920 middle of times, um, so the this is also the 0:19:11.000 --> 0:19:15.560 year seven when Bell Labs employees invent a particular piece 0:19:15.560 --> 0:19:17.880 of technology that would go on to play a very 0:19:17.880 --> 0:19:21.560 important role I think, and not only telephone industry, but 0:19:22.359 --> 0:19:24.880 computers the future as we know it. But we're talking 0:19:24.880 --> 0:19:27.679 about the transistor. Yep, that it was Bell Labs that 0:19:27.720 --> 0:19:30.639 came up with the transistor. And we've talked about and 0:19:30.800 --> 0:19:33.240 we talked about these gentlemen before. There were three people 0:19:33.280 --> 0:19:36.840 in particular leading that project who ended up later on 0:19:36.880 --> 0:19:40.360 winning a Nobel Prize for that invention. That's John Bardine, 0:19:40.800 --> 0:19:44.800 Walter Brittaine, and then William Shockley. We talked about recently 0:19:45.240 --> 0:19:50.479 when we were talking about another company, Shockley's shocking views 0:19:50.560 --> 0:19:53.720 that led the some people to to become the Traitorous 0:19:54.040 --> 0:19:57.159 eight or something like that. Yeah. Yeah, and and and 0:19:57.200 --> 0:20:00.000 this transistor. We talked in the previous episode about vacue 0:20:00.080 --> 0:20:03.160 tubes being such a huge development in the telecommunications industry 0:20:03.200 --> 0:20:07.200 because they allowed for those first electro mechanical computers to 0:20:07.200 --> 0:20:09.400 to work. And the transistor was what would replace these 0:20:09.440 --> 0:20:13.640 vacuum tubes in anything that was doing computing work. Yeah, 0:20:13.640 --> 0:20:16.520 it would allow you to do amplification, it would allow 0:20:16.560 --> 0:20:21.160 you to do and miniaturization. Maniaturization was the big thing. 0:20:21.440 --> 0:20:25.359 It reduced heat and it allowed you for miniaturization, something 0:20:25.359 --> 0:20:27.760 that you couldn't do with vacuum tubes, which meant that 0:20:27.800 --> 0:20:30.600 our computers no longer would take up the space of 0:20:30.640 --> 0:20:33.399 a building, could eventually take up the space of you know, 0:20:33.600 --> 0:20:37.440 your pocket. All of this really makes me wonder what 0:20:37.800 --> 0:20:39.320 would have happened if a T and T had not 0:20:39.600 --> 0:20:43.040 had the reach and power and the money to have 0:20:43.160 --> 0:20:45.720 this research and development lab. You know, if if they 0:20:45.760 --> 0:20:48.760 had not been the crazy not quite monopoly sort of 0:20:48.760 --> 0:20:51.240 a monopoly that they were, you know, would you know 0:20:51.480 --> 0:20:54.000 parallel development was going on in some other labs time. 0:20:54.119 --> 0:20:57.240 But yeah, I think we would have eventually seen the transistor, 0:20:57.280 --> 0:20:59.159 but it probably would have come out later, and it 0:20:59.200 --> 0:21:02.440 probably would have to get longer to get ramped up 0:21:02.480 --> 0:21:06.600 into a a form that would be manufacturable because this 0:21:06.680 --> 0:21:09.280 early transistor was not something you would put in any 0:21:09.359 --> 0:21:11.480 kind of electronics. It was more of a proof of concept. 0:21:11.520 --> 0:21:14.320 If you've ever seen a replica of it, it was enormous. 0:21:14.440 --> 0:21:16.840 I mean it's one transistor. Keep in mind that your 0:21:17.280 --> 0:21:21.200 average microprocessor could have a billion or more transistors on it. 0:21:21.520 --> 0:21:23.399 This thing was big enough to fit like it was, 0:21:23.440 --> 0:21:25.359 it would fit in the palm of your hand, but 0:21:25.440 --> 0:21:28.800 not the nets would Yeah. So so this is this 0:21:28.840 --> 0:21:30.600 is early days yet so I think our world would 0:21:30.640 --> 0:21:34.280 be significantly different had that not happened. So let's move 0:21:34.320 --> 0:21:38.040 on to Uh. That was when A T T began 0:21:38.119 --> 0:21:42.359 offering networking services for TV. Yeah, in the Northeast and 0:21:42.440 --> 0:21:45.400 the Midwest. So uh, you know. The way it would 0:21:45.400 --> 0:21:48.800 work is that your your networks, your big networks, would 0:21:48.920 --> 0:21:52.240 use this service to transmit programming to affiliated stations in 0:21:52.280 --> 0:21:54.199 different regions of the United States. So that way you 0:21:54.240 --> 0:21:57.840 could have like the Big Network broadcast out of someplace 0:21:57.880 --> 0:22:01.600 like New York and then have that sent to UH 0:22:01.720 --> 0:22:04.760