For years, even many years, nearly everybody in america had the identical telephone. No one actually considered it, it didn’t even matter what it was known as – it was simply The Cellphone. Nicely, The Cellphone was known as the Western Electric 500and when landline telephones dominated the world, the Western Electrical 500 dominated the landlines. It was so ubiquitous for therefore lengthy that even should you’ve by no means touched a landline, you’ve encountered the five hundred. The Cellphone app in your iPhone? Appears to be like like a 500.
On this episode of Version Historywe inform the story of the Western Electrical 500, and the deeply unusual world it got here to signify. David Pierce, Nilay Patel, and professor and creator Tim Wu go all the best way again to the invention of the telephone to clarify how AT&T got here to rule the phone trade, and the way its monopoly standing granted it the unique proper to place no matter telephone it needed in your own home. That energy was examined many occasions, and undergoes new siege proper across the time of the five hundred. Nonetheless, this telephone represents AT&T on the peak of its powers — and it was a reasonably good telephone, too.
That is the sixth and closing episode of the third season of Model Historical past. Because of everybody who has listened, watched, and shared the present! We’ll be again in six weeks with a complete new set of tales to inform. Right here’s methods to get each episode, and all our different enjoyable stuff, as quickly because it drops:
If you wish to know much more concerning the historical past of AT&T, landlines, and the Western Electrical 500, listed below are some hyperlinks to get you began:
