Bookmarked for future reading: The Rape of Ma Bell and The Decision to Divest: Incredible or Inevitable?, about the court-ordered breakup of “Ma Bell,” AT&T, in the early 80’s. For some reason I’ve long been interested in this topic. This is a fantastic site about the pre-breakup Bell System. (It’s so weird that you used to have to rent your phone from AT&T – you couldn’t just go to the store and buy one.) Here’s a great primer of how today’s current phone companies derive from AT&T (it has maps, ooh) and here’s a chart.
I’m such a nerd.
My parents continued to rent a lovely 1970s avocado green rotary unit well into the 90s, when dial phones became untenable. Pacific Telephone (later PacBell, now SBC) kept trying to talk them out of it, but they liked the idea of it being PacTel’s responsibility, not theirs. Also, it was much sturdier than today’s models, planned obsolescence not yet being a gleam in too many eyes.
I remember when I was getting my first phone service out here in Tucson back in 79 (when it was still Mountain Bell) and being asked if I wanted a private line or a party line. Coming from NYC, I thought party lines were long since gone but apparently, I was wrong. I also had to rent the phone from them.