{"id":45388,"date":"2015-11-02T10:40:25","date_gmt":"2015-11-02T10:40:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mobilefun.co.uk\/blog\/?p=45388"},"modified":"2015-11-02T10:42:29","modified_gmt":"2015-11-02T10:42:29","slug":"you-wont-believe-the-lengths-people-used-to-go-to-to-make-a-phone-call","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mobilefun.co.uk\/blog\/2015\/11\/you-wont-believe-the-lengths-people-used-to-go-to-to-make-a-phone-call\/","title":{"rendered":"You won’t believe the lengths people used to go to to make a phone call"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Images: Tekniska Museet<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

The 19th century heralded the patent of the telephone, and soon there was a mad\u00a0scramble to get everyone connected to the phone grid as folks started to embrace this new technology.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately the\u00a0practicalities of telephone technology at the time\u00a0meant a physical line had to be strung from each telephone\u00a0to the phone exchange – where an operator would then manually connect the call.<\/p>\n

This resulted in an elaborate weave\u00a0of telephone wires stretching from people’s homes and businesses up through the sky to large, imposing towers.<\/p>\n

The central telephone exchange pictured is the Telefontornet in Stockholm, Sweden. Standing 80 metres tall, it connected an astonishing 5,000 telephone lines, and as you’d expect it was not just vulnerable to the Scandinavian weather but\u00a0had an air of danger that\u00a0would turn\u00a0any modern health and safety officer ten shades paler!<\/p>\n

Suffice to say fallen lines, fires, ripped off roofs and disconnected calls were the norm.<\/p>\n

Luckily the technology soon developed, and although it obviously took awhile to get to where we are today, these towers were soon abandoned. The mighty Telefontornet was decommissioned in 1913, \u00a0but was\u00a0kept as a landmark and a nod Stockholm’s technological past, until a fire in 1953 which saw it torn down.\u00a0Now all we can do is look back and wonder at the amazing images of the telephone’s formative years…<\/p>\n

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