Dial Comes To Omaha

 
Sunday, December 11, 1921
 
Seventy-six Hundred Phones of ATLantic Exchange Now Are Automatic

 
Most Modern In U.S.
 
Omaha at midnight became the first city in the United States to have a commercial machine switched telephone service. In several cities automatic phones are in use but the system installed here is the last word in machine switching, according to experts. Seventy-six hundred subscribers of the ATLantic exchange are effected by the change from manual to machine switching. Bancroft Gherardi, vice president and chief engineer of the American Telephone and Telegraph Co., and F.B. Jewett, chief engineer of the Western Electric Co. personally made the final inspection and gave the word to 'cut em over.' Jewett said the company plans to install the system in several other cities, including Chicago, Kansas City, and Patterson, New Jersey.
 
Old Operating Room Deserted 
For the first time since 1893, the operating room of the old telephone building was quiet and deserted. Promptly at 11:59 o'clock 100 trained electrical workers took their places, each with a special duty to perform, and at a signal, each did his particular task and the 'cut-over' became history. This morning 100 operators, clerks, desk attendants who were handling the business of the ATLantic exchange went to work in the other exchanges or are engaged in some new duty connected with the new system.  A.F. McAdams, district commercial manager, was emphatic in stating that no employee will lose a position because of machine switching. The machine switching equipment was secured at a cost of approximately $2,000,000 and is the result of ten years work in designing by some of the most prominent electrical engineers of the country. 
 
Urge Limiting Calls
Omaha is the first city to have a complete unit. Parts of the present system have been used, but as a unit it is the first time any city has used it. The equipment was ordered in the fall of 1917 when the need for new equipment to handle the volume of business became apparent. While highly pleased with the manner in which the change to machine switching service last night, telephone people are urging ATLantic subscribers to limit their calls for a few days to only those which are necessary, because the operating forces which handle the calls which originate in the ATLantic central office and terminate at some one of the manual switchboards are entering upon their new duties for the first time. Under the new service, he will take the receiver from the hook and listen for the 'dialing tone', a humming sound which will indicate that the call mechanism is ready to receive his call. Having heard it, he will insert his finger in the hole in the dial through which the letter 'H' may be seen, pull the dial around to the finger stop and release it. Shortly after dialing the last figure he will then either hear a 'brrrring' sound, indicating that the bell at the called telephone is ringing, or a 'buzz-buzz-buzz' sound indicating that the line called is in use. Enough lumber was used in the crates necessary to ship the equipment to have built seven two-story houses of the standard eight-room type.
 
Seven times around world   
Wire used, if stretched out to a single strand, would be sufficient to encircle the world seven and a half times. The establishment of machine service in Omaha not only meant the installation of a tremendous amount of equipment in the central offices, but it meant equipping 378 private branch exchange switchboards with the relays and other necessary equipment to provide machine switching service over these boards. In addition, it was necessary to change a large number of telephone instruments by substituting telephone instruments without dials for ones with dials.

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