144-line Weighting-1914

144-line Weighting -1914

144-line Weighting

In telephone systems, a noise weighting is used in a noise measuring set to measure noise on a line that would be terminated by an instrument with a No 144-receiver, or a similar instrument.

1453

Johannes Gutenberg, a goldsmith from Mainz, Germany, prints his Mazarin Bible, which is believed to be the first book printed with metal movable type, i.e., his famous Gutenberg Press. Movable type is best defined as printing with individual letters than can be composed into texts , printed, then disassembled and reused. It took Gutenberg two years to compose the type for his first bible. But once he had done that he could print multiple copies. It took three years of constant printing to complete Johann Gutenberg's famous Bible, which appeared in 1455 in two volumes , and had 1,284 pages. He reportedly printed 200 Bibles, of which 47 still exist. Before Gutenberg, all books were copied by hand. Monks residing in scriptoriums, usually did the copying. They seldom managed to make more than one book a year. The Gutenberg press was a major advance. Before Gutenberg, there were only 30,000 books on the continent of Europe. By the year 1500, there were nine million. They covered the areas of law, science, poetry, politics and religion. Some people (including me) have likened the invention of the Internet to the Gutenberg Press. Johannes Gutenberg lived from 1397 to 1468.

1517

Martin Luther nails his 95 theses which criticize papal "indulgences" to a church door. The Reformation, splitting western Christendom, is on its way. See Indulgence .

1553

The Muscovy Company of London issues the first equity shares.

16-bit

An adjective that describes systems and software that handle information in words that are 2 bytes (16 bits) wide.

16-bit Computer

A computer that uses a central processing unit (CPU) with a 16- bit data bus and processes two bytes (16 bits) of information at a time. The IBM Personal Computer AT, introduced in 1984, was the first true 16-bit PC.

16-CAP

An ATM term . Carrierless Amplitude/Phase Modulation with 16 constellation points: The modulation technique used in the 51.84 Mb mid-range Physical Layer Specification for Category 3 Unshielded Twisted-Pair (UTP-3).

16:9

Four to three (4:3) is the ratio of width to height in a traditional TV set. The newer high definition TV sets have a 16:9 ratio. That makes them much more rectangular.

1639

Japan cuts itself off from the outside world. It re-opens in 1853.

16450/8250A

Found in most current PCs, these older UART chips use a 1-byte buffer that must be serviced immediately by the CPU. If not, interrupt overruns will result. See 16550 and UART.

16550

An enhanced version of the original National Semiconductor 16xxx series UART, which sits in and controls the flow of information into and out of virtually every PC serial port in the world. The older version contains only a one-byte buffer. This can slow down the transmission of high-speed data especially when you're using a multitasking program, like Windows. The "solution" is to get a serial card or port containing the 16550. This chip contains two 16-byte FIFO buffers, one each for incoming and outgoing data. Also new is the 16550's level-sensitive interrupt-triggering mechanism, which controls the amount of incoming data the buffer can store before generating on interrupt request. Together, these features help reduce your CPU's interrupt overhead and thus speed up your communications. See 16450/8250A and UART.

1666

The year 1666 was much feared throughout Western Europe because of its triple sixes, "666," which represent the "Number of the Beast." While the world did not end, London was nearly destroyed by the Great Fire.

1687

Isaac Newton publishes his "Principia" which sets out the laws of motion.

173

The number of words in the Ten Commandments.

1753

Benjamin Franklin invents the lightning rod. It was the first practical victory of science over a natural phenomenon . Two years later, when Lisbon, Portugal, was destroyed by an earthquake and a tidal wave, some ministers in Boston proclaimed it was a punishment for the sacrilege of using lightning rods to avert the wrath of God.

1776

James Watt improved steam engine first installed. See 1785. The steam engine becomes to the Industrial Revolution what the computer is to the Information Revolution ” its trigger.

The United States declares itself independent of Britain and all men are created equal.

1778

April 2, 1778. The Banda Islands suffer an earthquake, a tidal wave, a volcanic eruption and a hurricane . This collection of disasters effectively ended the Dutch monopoly on nutmeg. See Nutmeg.

1785

James Watt's improved steam engine is first applied to an industrial operation ” the spinning of cotton.

1787

According to a bill for a celebration party thrown September 15, 1787, the 55 framers of the U.S. Constitution drank 54 bottles of Madeira, 60 bottles of claret, 8 bottles of whiskey, 22 bottles of port, 8 bottles of cider, 12 bottles of beer, and 7 large bowls of spiked punch big enough "that ducks could swim in them." Sixteen players provided the background music for the bash. This would appear to explain why the Constitution was signed on the 17th, and not the 16th, of September.

Catherine the Great tours Crimea. See Potemkin Village.

1789

In Britain the law is changed to make hanging the method of execution. Before then, burning was the modus operandi. The last female to be executed by burning in England was Christian Bowman. Her crime was counterfeiting coins .

179,584

Finland has the greatest number of islands of any other country in the world: 179,584.

1791

April 27, Samuel Finley Breese Morse born.

1793

The Chappe brothers established the first commercial semaphore system between two locations near Paris. Napoleon thought this was a great idea. Soon there were semaphore signaling systems covering the main cities of France. Semaphore signaling spread to Italy, Germany and Russia. Thousands of men were employed manning the stations . Speed: about 15 characters per minute. Code books came into play so that whole sentences could be represented by a few characters . Semaphores weren't very successful in England because of the fog and smog caused by the Industrial Revolution. Claude Chappe headed France's system for 30 years and then was " retired " when a new administration came into power. There were semaphore systems in the U.S., especially from Martha's Vineyard (an island near Cape Cod) and Boston, reporting to Boston's Custom House on the movement of sailing ships. This was also true around New York City and San Francisco. Samuel F.B. Morse, the inventor of the electric telegraph, reportedly saw the semaphore system in operation in Europe. The last operational semaphore system went out of business in 1860. It was located in Algeria.

1800

First battery invented by Alessandro Volta, an Italian physicist .

1811

New York State passes the first limited liability law.

1822

Historic term which refers to the original ARPANET host-to-IMP interface. The specifications for this are in BBN report 1822.

1833

Analytical engine by Charles Babbage.

1835

Elisha Gray (born in Barnesville, Ohio, on Aug. 2, 1835, died Newtonville, Mass., on Jan. 21, 1901) would have been known to us as the inventor of the telephone if Alexander Graham Bell hadn't got to the patent office one hour before him. Instead, he goes down in history as the accidental creator of one of the first electronic musical instruments - a chance by-product of his telephone technology. Gray accidentally discovered that he could control sound from a self vibrating electromagnetic circuit and in doing so invented a basic single note oscillator. The 'Musical Telegraph' used steel reeds whose oscillations were created and transmitted, over a telephone line, by electromagnets. Gray also built a simple loudspeaker device in later models consisting of a vibrating diaphragm in a magnetic field to make the oscillator audible.

1837

Telegraphy by Samuel F. B. Morse. Morse invents American Morse Code.

1840

Samuel Morse patents the telegraph. Congress was asked to provide funding for a semaphore system running from NYC to New Orleans. Samuel Morse, it is said, advised against funding of this system because of his work on developing the electric telegraph.

1843

First commercial test of Morse's telegraph. The US Government paid for a telegraph line between Baltimore and Washington, D.C. It worked.

First successful fax machine patented by Scottish inventor, Alexander Bain. His "Recording Telegraph" worked over a telegraph line, using electromagnetically controlled pendulums for both a driving mechanism and timing. At the sending end, a style swept across a block of metal type, providing a voltage to be applied to a similar stylus at the receiving end, reproducing an arc of the image on a block holding a paper saturated with electrolytic solution which discolored when an electric current was applied through it. The blocks at both ends were lowered a fraction of an inch after each pendulum sweep until the image was completed. Bain's device transmitted strictly black and white images.

1844

Samuel Morse sends first long distance public telegraph message to Baltimore from the chambers of the Supreme Court in Washington, DC. The message, "What hath God wrought?" comes from Numbers 23:23 and marks the beginning of a new era in communication. Morse's first telegraph line between Washington and Baltimore opens in May. The telegraph enabled the first instantaneous transmission of information over vast distances. Its wide diffusion, by the 1870s and 1880s permitted more efficient operations of businesses and railways. With the transoceanic telegraph (1866 and afterwards) continents became linked and the telecommunication industry was born. Several telecommunication giants of today (such as American Telephone and Telegraph, AT&T), started out as telegraph service providers.

1845

First rotary printing press by Richard M. Hoe.

1847

First telegraph company offices opens. Boston and New York first joined by a telegraph line.

Birth of Alexander Graham Bell, Edinburgh, Scotland.

1851

The Continental (more commonly called the International) Morse Code is adopted for European telegraphs, but American telegraphers reject it. See Morse Code.

There are 51 telegraph companies in operation.

1853

Commodore Matthew Perry drops anchor in Tokyo Bay and effectively forces Japan to open itself to the outside world after three centuries of running a closed society.

1854

George Boole develops a system of mathematics called Boolean algebra, which uses binary operations. Today, programmers still think and work in binary.

1856

Western Union formed by six men from Rochester, N.Y. They start an acquisition spree.

1857

Joseph C. Gayetty of New York City invents toilet paper in 1857.

1858

The first transatlantic telegraph cable is completed, and messages begin to flow between the shores of America and Europe. But the cable fails after 26 days because the voltage is too high.

Burglar Alarm - Edwin T. Holmes of Boston begins to sell electric burglar alarms. Later, his workshop will be used by Alexander Graham Bell as the young Bell pursues his invention of the telephone. Holmes will be the first person to have a home telephone.

1859

Darwin publishes his "Origin of Species."

1860

Pony Express formed to carry mail to the Wild West. The Pony Express lasted a year before the telegraph took over.

1861

Pony Express disbanded. The telegraph took over. There are now 2250 telegraph offices in operation nationwide .

1865

First commercial fax service started by Giovanni Casselli, using his "Pantelegraph" machine, with a circuit between Paris and Lyon, which was later extended to other cities.

Abraham Lincoln assassinated.

J.C. Maxwell mathematically predicts the propagation of electromagnetic waves through space.

1866

First experimental wireless by Mahlon Loomis.

Two successful transatlantic submarine telegraph cables (one eastbound, one westbound) are laid by Cyrus Field between Valencia, Ireland and White Stand Bay, Newfoundland, Canada.

1867

Christopher Sholes, a Milwaukee newspaper editor, invents the typewriter.

First internal combustion engine built.

The first Atlantic cable, promoted by Cyrus Field, was layed on July 27th.

1869

Elisha Gray and Enos Barton form small manufacturing firm in Cleveland, OH.

1870

Thomas Edison invents multiplex telegraphy.

1871

First British submarine telegraph cable laid in Hong Kong.

Bell arrived in Boston to start his work in the teaching of the deaf.

1872

Western Union buys the telegraph equipment manufacturing firm, Gray & Barton, and renamed it Western Electric.

1874

April 25, 1874, Guglielmo Marconi born in Bologna, Italy.

1875

February, 1875. Alexander Graham Bell signs an agreement with two partners (one is his father-in-law) to start a company to oversee his patents. The deal covered the young man's telegraphic inventions , but also included "further improvements," one of them later turned out to the transmission of human voice.

June 2 - Bell's theory of the telephone confirmed by experiment. First words transmitted by telephone.

The director of the United States Patent Office sent in his resignation and advised that his department be closed. There was nothing left to invent, he claimed.

1876

Many inventors were working on transmitting speech over wire in the 1870s, but no one had ever produced a working model. Then, on February 14, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell's father-in-law submitted Bell's patent for "Improvements in Telegraphy" just hours before Elisha Gray applied for a patent caveat, outlining his own device. Months later, Gray was among the scientific dignitaries assembled to witness Bell's first public demonstration of the telephone, at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. Gray's patent caveat (an announcement of an invention he expected soon to patent) described apparatus 'for transmitting vocal sounds telegraphically.' It was later discovered, however, that the apparatus described in Gray's caveat would have worked, while that in Bell's patent would not have.

March 7, Telephone patent issued to 29-year old Boston University professor , Alexander Graham Bell. The patent was number 174,465. Three days later he sent the landmark message, "Mr. Watson, come here. I want you." The telephone has become the most profitable invention in the history of mankind. Bell successfully defended himself against all 600 lawsuits claiming rights to his invention. See 1877.

March 10, First complete sentence of speech transmitted by telephone in Boston. Western Union issues its famous internal memo which contains the incredibly wonderful words," "This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communications. The device is inherently of no value to us."

Braving a hostile ocean, the men of the Faraday, a steam-driven ship with three masts, laid the first transatlantic cable between Ireland and America. The cable was made by Siemens. It could carry 22 telegraph messages at one time. It carried the world into a new era of communications.

June 25, Bell exhibited the telephone to the judges at the Centennial Exposi-tion, Philadelphia.

October 9, Bell conducted the first successful experimental two-way talk over the telephone between Boston and Com-bridgeport, Mass., distance of 2 miles.

First complete sentence transmitted by telephone. First conversation by overhead line, 2 miles ” Boston to Cambridgeport.

Edison invents the electric motor and the phonograph.

1877

First telephone in a private home. First telephone in New York City.

Phonograph invented by Thomas Edison. The phonograph is reputed to be Thomas Edison's most brilliant invention.

Western Union turns down a chance to buy the patent rights to the invention of the telephone for $100,000. Western Union believed the telegraph superior technology. They were flat out wrong. It was clearly one of the dumbest decisions made in American business history.

Bell Telephone Company formed, with Alexander Graham Bell as "electrician" and Thomas Watson as "superintendent."

1878

Theodore N. Vail begins his career with the Bell System as general manager of the Bell Telephone Company. In 1985, he became the first president of the American Telephone & Telegraph Company. He left AT&T two years later. After pursuing other interests for 20 years, he returned as president of AT&T in 1907, retiring in 1919 as chairman of the board. Vail believed in "One policy, one system, universal service." He regarded telephony as a natural monopoly. He saw the necessity for regulation and welcomed it.

The New Haven Telephone Company publishes the first telephone directory. It had one page of 50 listings. In 1996, some 6,200 telephone directories were published in the United States, generating about $10 billion in advertising revenues . I look up all my addresses and phone numbers now on the Internet. There are dozens of sites, including www.bigyellow.com.

The first female telephone operator was Emma M. Nutt, who started working for the Telephone Dispatch Company in Boston, on September 1, 1878. Prior to that, all operators were men.

1879

Edison invents the electric light bulb ” the first successful carbon-thread lamp. See Incandescent.

1880

Alexander Graham Bell develops the photophone which uses sunlight to carry messages. It was never commercially produced.

There are 30,872 Bell telephone stations in the United States. On March 31, 1880, the good people of Wabash, Indiana (population 320), launched a technological revolution. Atop the town's courthouse dome, they mounted two crossarms with a 3,000-candlepower carbon-arc bulb at both ends of each. They then fired up a threshing-machine steam engine to generate electricity, and at 8 p.m. sharp, flipped a switch. Sparks showered, and Wabash became the first electrically lit city in the world. "The strange , weird light, exceeded in power only by the sun, rendered the square as light as midday," one witness reported . "Men fell on their knees, groans were uttered at the sight, and many were dumb with amazement. We contemplated the new wonder of science as lightning brought down from the heavens." Excerpted from July, 2003 Discover Magazine.

1881

First long distance line, Boston to Providence.

American Bell purchases controlling interest in Western Electric and makes it the manufacturer of equipment for the Bell Telephone companies.

Mr. Eckert who ran a telephone company in Cincinnati said he preferred the use of females to males as operators. "Their service is much superior to that of men or boys. They are much steadier, do not drink beer nor use profanity, and are always on hand."

Bell Telephone company purchases Western Electric Company.

1884

Paul Nipkow obtains a patent in Germany for TV, using a selenium cell and a mechanical scanning disk. First long distance call: Boston to NYC.

September 4, Opening of telephone service between Boston and New York, 235 miles. Conversation by overhead line (hard-drawn copper ), 235 miles - Boston to New York.

1885

Theodore N. Vail becomes the first president of the American Telephone & Telegraph Company. See 1878 for more.

The Bell Telephone Company formed a new subsidiary, American Telephone & Telegraph (AT&T).

Incorporation of American Telephone and Telegraph Company, New York City.

1886

Heinrich Rudolf Hertz proves that electricity is transmitted at the speed of light.

1887

AT&T (American Telephone & Telegraph Co.) starts business.

Heinrich Hertz shows that electromagnetic waves exist.

1888

Heinrich Hertz produces radio waves.

1889

A. B. Strowger invents the telephone switch, dial telephone.

Punch card tabulating machine invented by Herman Hollerith. Wall Street Journal first published.

1890

Congress passes Sherman Act.

Herman Hollerith gets a contract for processing the 1900 census data using punched cards. His firm was eventually named IBM in 1924.

There are 211,503 Bell telephone stations.

1891

First underseas telephone cable, England to France.

Invention of 1,000 line switch with disc bank having ten concentric rows of line contacts. Not used commercially. Formation of Strowger Automatic Telephone Exchange.

1892

Almon Strowger, the St. Louis undertaker, became upset on finding that the wife of a competitor was a telephone operator who made his line busy and transferred calls meant for him to her husband. "Necessity is the mother of invention" so Strowger developed the dial telephone system to get the operator out of the system. He forms a Chicago firm, Automatic Electric, to manufacture step-by-step central office equipment (which is now owned by GTE). The first automatic C.O. was installed in LaPorte, Indiana. I discovered in Ralph Meyer's book, Old Time Telephones, that actually, in 1879, Connelly, Connelly and McTighe patented an automatic dial system, although they did not commercialize it.

October 18, Opening of long distance telephone service, New York to Chicago, 950 miles.

Conversation by overhead line, 900 miles-New York to Chicago. First commercial Strowger installation; LaPorte, Indiana, USA. Used switcher with 100 line disc-type banks.

1893

An early form of broadcasting was started in Budapest over 220 miles of telephone wires serving 6000 subscribers who could listen at regular schedules to music, news, stock market prices, poetry readings and lectures.

1894

Basic patents expire; period of intense competition begins.

Invention of gear-driven switch with "zither" (piano wire) line banks. Not used commercially. 200-line "zither" board with ratchet drive installed at LaPorte, Indiana, USA.

1895

Guglielmo Marconi of Italy invents wireless telegraph.

When the X-ray was discovered by Wilhelm Roentgen in 1895, some journalists were convinced that the primary user of the revealing shortwave radiation would be the "peeping Tom." The titillating publicity led to a law introduced in New Jersey forbidding the use of 'X-ray opera glasses ' and to merchants in London selling X-ray-proof underwear for modest ladies."

Third installation at LaPorte, Indiana. Earliest use of switch with semi-cylindrical bank and shaft with vertical and rotary motions . Invention of earliest dial-type calling device.

1896

The shortest war on record, between Britain and Zanzibar in 1896, lasted 38 minutes. The winner of the war was the manufacturers who made the guns, rifles, cannons, gunpowder and other implements of destruction.

Invention of selector trunking; first use of dial telephones in large exchange (Augusta, Georgia, USA).

Marconi patents wireless telegraph.

1897

German physicist Dr. Karl Ferdinand Braun created the world's first cathode ray tube (CRT) ” the technology at the heart of every television set.

1898

Earliest use of relays for switch control instead of direct operation of magnets over line wires. First die cast switch frame.

1899

Magnetic voice recorder by Vlademar Poulsen.

AT&T, created in 1885, takes over American Bell Telephone and becomes parent to Western Electric and the Bell System companies.

Strowger Automatic goes abroad (Berlin, Germany). Earliest use of automatic trunk selection with busy test.

1900

John J. Carty, Chief Engineer of NY Tel (and later AT&T), installs loading coils, invented by Michael Pupin, to extend range and utilizes open wire transposition to reduce crosstalk an inductive pickup from ac transmission lines. AT&T paid Pupin $255,000 for the use of his patent. There are now about 20,000 telcos in business. There are now 856,000 telephones in service.

676,733 Bell telephone stations owned and connected. Basic trunking principles established for large exchanges. Bank terminals molded in plaster of Paris.

1901

Formation of Automatic Electric Company to take over Strowger Automatic Telephone Exchange. Installation at Fall River, Mass., used line banks with fiber insulators and aluminum fillers. First use of "slip multiple."

Marconi transmits first trans-Atlantic radio message (from Cape Cod). Guglielmo Marconi sends first transatlantic wireless signals, 12 December.

1902

First conversation by long distance underground cable, 10 miles - New York to Newark.

First installation in Chicago begun. Earliest use of measured service in automatic exchanges.

Poulsen-Arc Radio Transmitter invented.

1903

Large Strowger installations placed in service in Grand Rapids, Dayton, Akron, Columbus.

AIEE Committee on Telegraphy and Telephony formed. Nikola Tesla, a Yugoslavian scientist/inventor, patents electrical logic circuits called "gates" or "switches".

Orville and Wilbur Wright take to the air.

New York Stock Exchange building opens in New York City. It contained over 500 telephones ” a record for any one building.

1904

First use of multi-office trunking, and connections between automatic and manual offices (Los Angeles, Califonia).

John Ambrose Fleming invents the two-element "Fleming Valve".

1905

While working as an examiner in the Swiss Patent Office, Albert Einstein discovers the Theory of Relativity, which he publishes in his doctoral dissertation at the University of Zurich.

Earliest extended use of party lines and reverting calls. First system using common battery talking (South Bend, Indiana).

Marconi patents his directive horizontal antenna.

1906

Motion picture sound by Eugene Augustin Lauste.

Lee deForest invents the vacuum tube.

Conversation by underground cable, 90 miles-New York to Philadelphia. Invention of Keith Line Switch, resulting in enormous reduction in cost of automatic boards . First used at Wilmington, Delaware.

Dr. Lee de Forest reads a paper before an AIEE meeting on the Audion, first of the vacuum tubes that would make long distance radiotelephony possible. Reginald Fessenden broadcasts Christmas Carols on Christmas Eve from Brant Rock, MA.

1907

States start to regulate telcos. Mississippi was among the first. (The idea of regulation goes back several centuries, when in England, innkeepers were required to post their charges to prevent gouging. (I wish it applied to plumbers.) "Common carrier" regulation refers to government approval of tariffs filed by railroads, truck lines, telcos, etc which provide the terms and conditions whereby the public can make use of their services.

Theodore Vail returns as President of AT&T (and Western Union). He is responsible for the concept of "end-to-end" service that guided AT&T and other telcos in providing the C.O., transmission systems, and CPE that lasted until the Carterphone and Specialized Common Carrier Decisions.

First installation in Canada (Edmonton, Alta.). Invention of small dial and two-wire system eliminating ground at subscriber's station.

The world's first transatlantic commercial wireless services is established by Marconi with stations at Clifden, Ireland and Glace Bay, Nova Scotia.

1908

Henry Ford introduces the Model T.

First two-wire system (large dial) installed at Pontiac, Illinois. Earliest use of automatic, intermittent ringing. Installation at Lansing, Michigan. Features use of small dial, secondary line switch, and 200-point selectors and connectors.

1909

Paris' best-known monument, the Eiffel Tower, was saved from demolition because there was an antenna, of great importance to French radio telegraphy, mounted at the top of the nearly 1000- foot -high structure.

The first airline, DELAG, was established on October 16, 1909, to carry passengers between German cities on Zeppelin airships. By November 1913, more than 34,000 people had used the service.

Western Union and AT&T are closely locked.

Invention of out-going secondary line switch, resulting in economy of inter-office trunks. First used at San Francisco.

Marconi shares the Nobel Prize in Physics, with Karl Ferdinand Braun for their work in the development of wireless telegraphy.

Geronimo, the Apache Indian chief, dies at nearly 90. As the leader of the warring Apaches of the Southwestern territories in pioneering days, Geronimo gained a reputation for cunning and cruelty never surpassed by that any other American Indian chief. For more than 20 years, he and his men were the terror of the country always leaving a trail of bloodshed and devastation.

1910

Peter DeBye in Holland, develops theory for optical waveguides. He was a few years ahead of his time. Interstate Commerce Commission starts to regulate telcos.

The Mann-Elkins Act enacted, putting interstate communications under the purview of the Interstate Commerce commission (ICC)

5,142,692 Bell telephone stations owned and connected. Strowger system introduced in Hawaii and Cuba. Earliest use of dialing over toll lines. Introduction of revertive ringing tone.

The first commercial radios are sold by Lee de Forest's Radio Telephone Company.

1911

Multiplying and dividing calculating machine invented by Jay R. Monroe.

IBM was incorporated in the State of New York on June 15, 1911 as the Computing - Tabulating - Recording Co. (C-T-R), a consolidation of the Computing Scale Co. of America, The Tabulating Machine Co., and The International Time Recording Co. of New York. In 1924, C-T-R adopted the name International Business Machines.

Conversation by overhead line., 2,100 miles ” New York to Denver. Formation of Automatic Telephone Manufacturing Co., Ltd. For production of Strowger system in England.

Using loading coils properly spaced in the line, the transmission distance for telephone reaches from New York to Denver.

1912

First Strowger installation in England (Epsom "Official Switch").

1913

The Kingsbury Agreement. Mr. Kingsbury was an AT&T vice president. In his famous letter to the U.S. Government, AT&T agrees to divest its holdings of Western Union, stop acquisition of other telcos, and permit other telcos to interconnect.

The Kingsbury Commitment precludes un-approved expansion, and permits connections to network.

The U.S. Justice Department filed its first antitrust suit against Bell, charging an unlawful combination to monopolize transmission of telephone service in the Pacific Northwest.

Conversation by overhead line, 2,600 miles ”New York to Salt Lake City. Conversation by underground cable, 455 miles-Boston to Washington.

Strowger system introduced in Australia and New Zealand. Development of key-type impulse sender, and Simplex dialing on toll lines.

1914

Congress passes Clayton Act.

Underground cables link Boston, NYC and Washington. February 26, Boston-Washington under-ground telephone cable placed in commercial service.

Automatic Switches used as traffic distributors in manual exchanges (Indianapolis, Indiana and Defiance, Ohio).

The last pole of the transcontinental telephone line is placed in Wendover, Utah, on the Nevada-Utah state line.