[GreenKeys] Rotary telephone switches?

[E.]

Yeah, the reason I mentioned it is because so many telcos have gone away from POTS and to VOIP… or still have POTS but have quit supporting rotary - like what AT&T does now.  My old former telco — Lincoln Telephone & Telegraph (now Windstream), was the first to use the Strowger Stepping Switch due to competition by an Operator at an AT&T subsidiary Nebraska Telephone in town way back in the day… and it’s a shame they had a wonderful museum that closed a few years ago — one that had an operational Strowger Stepping Switch for demonstration.  In fact, the museum, the Frank H. Woods Telephone Pioneer Museum, was seen in the movie “Yes Man”.  The collection was sold to another museum in the city specializing in race cars (was actually pushed to outbid worldwide bids by the city, partially due to redevelopment where the museum sat by the said other museum who was a partner in the redevelopment {who also evicted them}).  Was told that a bidder back east (or somewhere) was more than willing to pay the $1.5M in freight costs for all of the equipment within the museum to be moved to them… thankfully he didn’t get it.  On the flip-side though, the speed museum doesn’t seem too keen on displaying any of it in rotation... been years and nothing, as far as I know.

Oh well — anywho…..

Video of the former museum here:
https://nebraskapublicmedia.org/en/series-media/nebraska-stories-video/season-10-video-15886/final-call-for-lincoln-telephone-50007854/


> On Nov 26, 2023, at 8:50 PM, Chuck Rehor <chuck at rehor.com> wrote:
> 
> Electromechanical Step-by-Step switches are not used in the telephone system anywhere anymore. They have been replaced by electronic switching systems like the ones we (Nokia, formerly AT&T/Lucent/Alcatel-Lucent) design/manufacture/sell.
> 
> Your rotary phone still works on the telephone network because the electronic switching system is backward-compatible with old rotary telephones. They don’t need the old Step-by-Step switches to decode the pulses produced by rotary phones.  We do it with software.
> 
> On Sun, Nov 26, 2023 at 8:33 PM E. <hanyou at xsmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I’m not sure if the switches are still used (pretty sure they aren’t), but my telco still allows rotary over POTS… most of the phones I use in my house are rotary Automatic Electrics.  Why?  ‘Cause my telco was a former Independent Bell and not/still not part of the Big Ma Bell network ;) .  Even still have callback!
> 
> 
> > On Nov 26, 2023, at 8:13 PM, Roy Morgan <k1lky68 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > 
> > Is there anyone actually using the rotary telephone switches? I have some tools that seem to be specific to those things. 
> > 
> > Roy 
> > 
> > Roy Morgan
> > K1LKY Western Mass
> > K1LKY68 at gmail.com