Table of Contents
The Exchange Idea
Bell's New Haven Lecture
Coy Gets Bell Franchise
First Exchange Opens
Growth & Growing Pains
New Company Emerges
SNET's Early Problems
Disasters -- Natural and Otherwise
Modernizing Central Offices
Improved Outside Plant
Changes in Employee Force
Competition & Regulation
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The Exchange Idea
January 28, 1878 was a mild winter day in New Haven, with temperatures
well above freezing. The brig "Morning Light" had arrived in the harbor
with a cargo of sugar from Demerara (now Guyana). Butter retailed for
22 cents a pound; a round trip to New York on the overnight steamer
"Elm City" was $1.50 including berth; and because of rising costs,
the West Haven Horse Railroad proposed selling just 45 tickets,
instead of the current 52, for $3.
On that day 100 years ago, 21 venturous citizens of New Haven
became the world's first subscribers to telephone exchange service.
For $1.50 a month they could talk with each other, provided two
other conversations weren't already using the switchboard to
its full capacity. The single handpiece was alternated
between mouth and ear, and clear conversation was not the rule.
In the intervening century the cost of living increased five
times. And for about the same monthly rate, in today's dollars,
New Haven telephone subscribers can call any of a quarter million
telephones-with near-instant connection and uniform clarity.
As in the case of many other great inventions, the telephone
had been slow to incubate. Alexander Graham Bell, who was only
29 when he invented it in 1876, had little interest in
exploiting the telephone and was active in the new Bell
company for only a few years. He was primarily a teacher
of the deaf, with many diverse interests: man-carrying
kites, a device to locate metal objects in people, hydrofoil
boats and breeding sheep that would bear twins, among others.
But his backers, two astute Boston businessmen, one the father
of Bell's deaf bride, joined with Bell to make the telephone
a financial success. Their first, and probably most important,
decision was to control quality by making all telephones and
leasing them to local and regional franchisers.
To promote franchises and rent more phones, the partners
persuaded Bell, an able public speaker, to go on a road show.
His lecture-demonstration was popular, filling halls in many
eastern cities. But his only Connecticut appearance was of
unusual importance--to the industry that would become one
of the nation's largest, and one critical to the development
of today's mobility, city and suburban life styles. |
University of Connecticut |