Re: Keystone [was Re: [telecom] History "Postal Telegraph"

As to non-Bell telephone companies, Rochester NY was separate from Ma Bell, until the Bell breakup, I believe.

From that retro Keystonetelephone.com, special numbers link: Interesting how Keystone had a special 3 digit emergency number, and it happened to be 911 backwards. As a kid I just knew to dial O for operator in an emergency.

Also for some stupid reason I remember 113 was a special number on our own phone system, but now, I have no clue what that number was even for! Did some areas have several 11x special numbers?

Reply to
Michael Moroney
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Lots of the US is served by independents, mostly rural areas. Rochester was the largest city completely served by an independent telco. After many mergers it's now part of Frontier.

Much of what used to be rural Los Angeles was served by GT&E, although most it's not rural now, such as Santa Monica. GTE merged into Verizon, later the California areas were sold to Frontier.

Keystone apparently hung on in Philadelphia until 1945 even though it presumably had much worse long distance connections than Bell. Long distance was expensive so I guess it was not so much of a big deal.

Reply to
John Levine

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