 shortcktWatchen Das Blinken LightsPremium
join:2000-12-05
Tenant Hell | What a quaint ripoff! said by Yahoo news article :
Ester Strogen, 82, of Canton, first leased two black rotary phones - the kind whose round dial is moved manually with your finger in the 1960s. Back then, the technology was new and owning telephones was unaffordable for most people. (emphasis mine)
The Strowger switch, which allowed customers to dial their own outgoing calls without an operator, was patented way back in 1891 by Almon B. Strowger. He also invented the pulse-dial telephone to go along with his new switch.
The Strowger Automatic Telephone Exchange Company installed and opened the first commercial automatic telephone exchange on November 3, 1892 in La Porte, IN. The company later became Automatic Electric Co.
In the late 60's you could buy surplus telephone equipment (mostly US Govt war surplus) for next to nothing.
The option to stop renting phones was probably announced once in a small sentence at the bottom of the monthly bill, in language that would need translation for some folks... the entire phone bill would need translation for most.
Charging customers to rent the same outdated equipment that they were bulldozing into the ground by the truckload... the ILECS should get an award for one of the longest running successful scams! |
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DolganPremium
join:2005-10-01
Sun Prairie, WI | Idiots.
The ILECs do not maintain the leases on the phones. They are maintained by Lucent Technologies. |
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Ummm...Just WHO do you think, owns Lucent? Why, AT&T does.
As memory serves, Lucent evolved from Western Electric, the subsidiary that MADE rotary phones for Ma Bell beck then.
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 Jim GurdPremium
join:2000-07-08
Plymouth, MI | said by Fatal Vector:Ummm...Just WHO do you think, owns Lucent? Why, AT&T does. Not true. AT&T spun off its manufacturing arm to shareholders by creating a separate company called Lucent Technologies. It has its own ticker symbol of LU. The two are no longer connected.
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Correlation does not imply causation. |
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