On Monday, April 13, 2015 at 5:52:40 PM UTC-4, Larry Sheldon wrote:

> The high school I attended in the 1950s had identical cord boards 
> sitting side-by-side--one labeled "Automatic Electric", the other 
> "Western Electric".  The offices and such had Pacific Telephone 
> instruments connected to one cord-board, the same offices plus 
> department heads and selected (don't know how) othe4r teachers had the
> funky, odd sets connected to the other.

> The (full time) PBX operator was not supposed to complete calls from one 
> board to the other, but for certain selected teachers (ibid.) she did.


I had seen arrangements where AE and WE switchboards sat side by side, and
wondered if they could've been physically interconnected.  Now I know.

The govt regulators were very strict about Bell's rental-only policy and no
inter-onnected equipment*.  Part of it was legitimate concern to protect the
network against a homebuilt unit that put house current onto the phone line. 
But a big part of it 
was protecting Bell System rental revenue.  Those rentals, especially for
business equipment, cross-subsidized the very basic phone service for the
poor, helping to create universal service.  That was very important to the
regulators (ref Awl).  Bell 
liked it too, to help build a large customer base, and for good public
relations.  Back in the 1960s, bare-bones phone service (which did include a
telephone set and all maintenance) cost about $3/month, which was pretty
affordable.

* Certain equipment, such as paging systems and dictation machines, could be
customer owned by interconnected.


Anyway, for younger readers (if there are any), the deal was that Bell System
services and products were rented only.  In an organization, this could add
up.  So, what many schools and factories did was put Bell phones only in
places where the people 
would need outside connections.  The rest of the organization would be served
by a privately owned system, often built by Automatic Electric, but not
connected to Bell phones.  Obviously, some organizations, perhaps many,
"cheated".

So, as Larry described, there would be two switchboards, or someone would have
two phones on their desk.  AE phones had a funky look to them.  



> In later years she moved to a brand-new junior high school that had the 
> neatest arrangement I have seen to date--they had non-bell service so it 
> was probably AE and it ran on a closet full of Stroweger switches.

The beauty of the AE system described above was its economy--since it had only
one channel, it needed only one Strowger switch and a few control relays, and
fit into a compact cabinet.

When the Phila school district replaced its old AE systems, probably a few
collectors were able to save some.  It would be neat to have such a system. 
Some serious collectors have a whole PAX set up in their homes.

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