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Re: 911 service center troubles [Telecom]

The 1975 Bell Labs text suggets dial-tone first was a new

>innovation.

I **KNOW** that Dial Tone First was around in Ma Bell land prior to 1975. At the risk of errors due to rusty memory cells, I'm gonna say that I remember it from 1970 on either 212-221 or

212-541. They made a BIG DEAL about this, and the phones had a big 'This is a Dial Tone First phone' metal placard on them.

One quirk I remember on some of the Dial Tone First phones was that if you dialed a number that was on the same office that was busy WITHOUT depositing a dime, you would get a busy signal, but if the line was clear to ring you got the 'The call you are making requires a 10 cent deposit ...' recording.

It was kind of a quickie test-for-busy test and it only worked on some offices (1ESS?) for intra-office calls only.

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jsw
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As for early dial-tone first, dial second, pay third, I remember one such phone in, or just outside, a RR station somewhere near Rhinebeck/Red Hook/Rock City in lower upstate New York.

I needed it to phone the summer camp I was going to spend the next eight weeks in, to tell them to come get me. Having grown up in NYC, where all the pay phones I ever encountered were pay first, I was really baffled, and had to get a local to explain it to me. I may have been, oh, 15 at the time, give or take a year or two. Cheers, -- tlvp

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tlvp

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