We had a thread today (Saturday, 17 May 2014) in ba.internet that I felt readers of comp.dcom.telecom might find interesting noting "ba.*" is Silicon Valley and the San Francisco Bay Area.
From: Thad Floryan Newsgroups: ba.> >>
Hi Steve,
Googling "popcorn time number california" finds this as the first hit:
Time of day calling it quits at AT&T - Los Angeles Times
followed by these relevant items on the first page of hits:
Speaking clock - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Telephone Time Lady: POPCORN No More! - YouTube
Telephone Milestone: AT&T Terminates POPCORN Time ...
Topic: No More POP-CORN After Sept 19th - AT&T Time Service
Doni: It's time to say farewell to dependable, available ...
The first entry at the "socialwave" site has this comment:
" All things come to an end and it looks like the time of day " service that has been offered by one company or another since " 1929 is ending. On Sept 19th, you will no longer get the time of " day when you call POP-CORN in Northern California. Or 853-XXXX in " Southern California. " " The move will allow AT&T to retire aging equipment that they said " can no longer be repaired. Probably more importantly, it allows " for 300,000 phone numbers to be freed up. " " While I'm saddened to hear of this bit of comfort technology " getting put out to pasture, it's interesting to read about the " device that is used to produce the time recordings. It's not " digitized. It's some funky series of drums that turn and churn " out the recorded time.
The redding.com site has this line in their article: " [...] " The Bee story also said that when AT&T dumps POPCORN, it will " gain about 300,000 new phone numbers that were reserved just " for giving time. " [...]
So there was a good reason (then) for dropping POPCORN.
Thad