[GreenKeys] Fwd: Employee Stories

[Don Robert House]

Employee Stories
Back to the future: AT&T retiree makes history
November 28, 2012
It was 1962. Gas cost 31 cents per gallon, “The Beverly Hillbillies” was so-not-reality TV, and Princess phones were the groovy way to chat up your friends.
Very few of us were with the company then and would remember a day that changed our industry forever.  So Sterling Ditchey, an energetic 89-year retiree, recently wrote a letter to Randall Stephenson to share his memories of just how far the company has come.  Here’s his story.
Sterling remembers very clearly the days leading up to Aug. 31, 1962.  Sterling, a Pacific Telephone District Manager, was working in Southern California when he received a call asking him to join a small team in New York City working on a groundbreaking special project.  Little did he know it would wind up making history.
In 1962, if you wanted to send a file, you put it in an envelope and took it to the post office. If you felt like watching a movie, you headed to the one theater in town.  And if you needed to send a text? No problem. Just find the nearest TWX machine, or Teletypewriter Station.
Typed or text messages were used mostly by businesses (because why would anyone want to send a personal text message?) to send information, or printed copy.  It worked like this: Using the TWX machine, you dialed the number you wanted to send the message to. A switchboard operator answered and manually connected you to the number. You typed in the information and eventually, the text showed up on the machine at the other end.  
All that changed late that summer when, for the first time, the telephone network moved TWX transmission onto the voice network. This marked the first time that data and voice were transmitted over the same network.
 “Techs around the country spent that year modifying the 66,000 TWX machines in existence at the time with a modem-like device that eliminated the manual transfer by the operator,” Sterling said. “At 9:30 p.m. on Aug. 31, the nationwide cutover took place.”  The precursor of today’s data network was born.
According to Sterling, customers were very happy with what was considered a huge improvement in how long it took to send a message: “In 1962, our data speed was considered outstanding.” Speeds hit 75 bits per second, or 60 words per minute. A single page of text took about 4 minutes to transmit.
Fifty years later, our network transmits data in a fraction of a second, while the volume continues to skyrocket. Back in 1961, about 2.5 million messages a month were transmitted on the network. Today? Over 63 billion text messages are sent each month over our wireless network.
Sterling had no idea that he was pioneering a new age of technology. But, as he says now, “It was a step into the future.”  
And where’s Sterling now? After 43 years of loyal service, he retired in 1984 and is enjoying the Southern California sunshine.
We’ve come a long way, baby. (Thanks, Sterling!)
 
 
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