Bell System Overview of New Technology 1977 video 8 of 8

[fraydog]

@toresbe you could say the same thing about Xerox PARC too.

[deltaray3]

0:17 In this one building is the reason why your telephone bill is so high.

[toresbe]

@deltaray3 Well, in that building is most of the reason why the marginal cost of a telephone call today is near 0, and most of the reason you can write this here. Hell, Bell Labs invented the transistor - and have made significant contribution to pretty much every single aspect of communications technology we use today.

[deltaray3]

@toresbe I know. I was just making a joke.

[MrShebaw]

RIP Dennis Ritchie.

[bigdanbear]

Yep, they were hate love of our world back then. They blocked a lot of tech at first. It was only a matter of time. Still it was a sipler time.

[phattieg]

Back in these days, you had to rent your telephone from them, you couldn't own your own. It took a lawsuit from various manufacturers (like answering machine makers, telephone makers, etc) to get AT&T to allow customers to use their own equipment. And even then, they would run tests to see how many ringers were on the line (tested the ohms load) to see if you were paying for all your phones. Had to pay a fee to use your own equipment too.

[phattieg]

@sygo7g I have mixed feelings about the divestiture. I mean on one hand, a great company with lots of innovations and ideas got split up because the government felt like it was a monopoly. But on the other hand, we now have nationwide, and world wide calling included with our monthly services. We also have VoIP, and many other phone technologies that AT&T/Bell fought to prevent. Remember when you couldn't use answering machines & your own equipment on their lines? All because of money.

[devlinger]

Sound?

[MattTheSaiyan]

Not even the 1970s could make glass-box buildings look decent.