"Information” .,. "Mr. John Smith’s residence?”
"Dial TUrner 2-3361, please.”
DIAL . . . On Sunday morning, December 9th,
residents of Brevard and outlying areas will be
able to do just that—thanks to the new dial sys
tem now being installed by the Citizens Tele
phone Company. No longer will the familiar
"Number please” greet the caller. Instead, the dial
tone will be heard when the receiver is lifted
from its cradle.
Housed in a new building, the Citizen’s Tele
phone Company’s dial system features the most
modern equipment available in the field of tele
phonies. Secured from North Electric Company, at
a cost of over $160,000, the equipment is being
installed by a factory-sent crew of ten men. In
stallation began on July 15 th of this year and will
be completed by December 8th.
The actual change to the dial system will take
place Saturday, December 8th, at midnight. How
ever, dial service will not be available to subscrib
ers until approximately 12:20 A. M., for, accord
ing to Mr. R. O. Doyle, Secretary, switching over
will require about twenty minutes time in order
to break the old switchboard connections and wire
them into the new control panels.
With the coming of the dial system, the switch-
After December 8th this five-position "central”
board, with its maze of switches, line-connector
wires, and jack-plugs, will no longer be in use.
Operators intercept and control panel. This
panel replaces old switch board shown below.
board will be a thing of the past. Where approx
imately 15 operators and 2 supervisors are now
required to keep the switchboard on a 24-hour-
day basis, only four will be needed for the new
control” board—one per eight-hour shift, with the
fourth on the "swing-shift”. With routine local
calls handled by dial, the duties of the operator
will be limited to the receiving of trouble reports,
providing information service, and maintaining
an intercept service.
Intercept service might be described in the fol
lowing manner; A subscriber moves to another
section of town; a telephone (with a new num
ber) is installed in the subscribers new home; his
old number is assigned to the "control” board for
a period of forty-five days; anyone dialing his old
number will be connected with the operator, who
will inform the caller of the change in numbers.
Repairmen will be on duty during the day to
investigate all trouble calls and make necessary
repairs. At night, a repairman will be on call
should any major difficulties arise. Minor troubles
which develop after 5 P. M. will be taken care of
the following day.
Another feature of the new dial system is the
"alarm panel”. Should an interruption of service
occur anywhere in the system, regardless of the
hour, a repairman may check the warning lights,
dials, fuses, and switches on the panel and see at
a glance just where in the system the interruption
is occurring. As an example: An ice storm hits
Brevard. An electric power line, coated with ice,
breaks on South Broad Street and falls across a
telephone line. Immediately a warning light flashes
on the alarm panel—indicating that a telephone
line on South Broad is picking up an electric cur
rent from an external source. The repairman goes
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