[comp.dcom.telecom] Phone Service In a Remote Part of Alaska

cramer@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Clayton Cramer) (08/08/89)

In article <telecom-v09i0275m05@vector.dallas.tx.us>, morris@jade.jpl.nasa.gov
(Mike Morris) writes:
# In the late 60' or early 70's I visited Fort Benton a few times.  I remember
# that the telephone system was SxS, and located in the back of someone's barn,
# and owned by the Tri County Telephone Assoc.  It was either a 3 or 4 digit
# system and could be dialed from the outside world.  Inside the town you
# dialed 4 digits, I seem to remember the first was always "3".  It was 1+
# for anything outside the town, even the operator was 1+0 because she was
# in the next town down.  Information was 1+411 and came from Great Falls.
# I was told later that repair was 3611 and was an answering machine.

# I have no idea what is current in Fort Benton - I was last there in 1972.

# Mike Morris

You want unique phone companies?  I've got one for you.  When I worked
for Harris Digital Telephone Systems in the early 1980s, we had a
customer in Alaska who used a pair of our D1200 switches to provide
local phone service 18 hours/day -- at the end of the day, he would
power down, and everyone went without service during the night.

To a city boy like me, this was a real shocker -- phone service from
someone's basement.

--
Clayton E. Cramer {pyramid,pixar,tekbspa}!optilink!cramer
A pacifist who calls the police isn't one; hired violence is still violence.
Disclaimer?  You must be kidding!  No company would hold opinions like mine!