New York Telephone Co.
How many of my readers know who I’m referring to? There was a time way back when the term Ma Bell was known to us all (well those of us of a certain age) anyway. The following explanation comes from Wikipedia:
“The colloquial term Ma Bell (as in “Mother Bell”) was often used by the general public in the United States to refer to any aspect of this conglomerate, as it held a near complete monopoly over all telephone service in most areas of the country, and is still used by many to refer to any telephone company. Ma Bell is also used to refer to the various female voices behind recordings for the Bell System: “
But what you say does that have to do with the photo in this blog? What you are looking at is a mechanical pencil with a silver ball on top. This one is a vintage premium from the New York Telephone Co., which was part of the Bell Telephone system. I found some more information on the web site, Tele Truth. Below is an except:
| from “The Unathorized Bio of the Baby Bells & Info-Scandal” updated December 2001)
“For over 100 years, Ma Bell, sometimes called the “Bell System” sometimes called “AT&T”, controlled almost all telecommunications in the US. Once the largest company in the world with over one million employees, the company consisted of 22 local Bell companies, (including New York Telephone and Ohio Bell), AT&T Long Lines, (the long distance division) as well as Western Electric, (the subsidiary that manufactured telephone equipment) and Bell Labs, one of the premier research organizations. Then in 1984, because of the monopoly control the company had over phone service, the company was broken-up and the local Bell phone companies were divvied up among seven, artificially created, very large companies called “Regional Bell Operating Companies” (RBOCs, pronounced “R-BOKS”) or sometimes the “Regional Bell Holding Companies” (RHC) and sometimes “The Baby Bells”. Please note: AT&T no longer has any ownership relationship with the Bell companies. However, in our 1993 consumer survey, we found that about 1/4 of the population thought that AT&T still owned the Bell companies. Meanwhile 5% still call the companies “Ma Bell”, or the “Bell Company”. Each company controls specific geographic regions of the US. For example, Ameritech controlled a five-state region: Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin. This diagram gives the original Baby Bells, the phone company(s) it controlled, and the state(s). |
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| Today, because of numerous mergers, there are only 4 Bells: | |
However, there is mass confusion on the part of the customers, not only because of these mergers, but also because of the various name changes.” Now that you have the deep background on how Bell telephone which once monopolized the communications network was dismantled by the government. If they had foreseen the future with so many household NOT using hard line phone service, perhaps Ma Bell would have self-destructed anyway. But here’s the real purpose of Throwback Thursday – who remembers rotary phones? The ball tip of the pencil was meant to save your manicure as you dialed a number. Cute huh? |
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Bill Ding and his band of clowns are the security patrol for this blog site. He is a favorite toy from the 50*s. By the way sometimes a blog is just an ego-maniacal stream of conscience.
Pbenjay's Blog 
Rotary phones? Got one right here on my desk! Aside from mobility (unless you has a “super-cord”) it’s a superior product in every way to the utter shit they pawn off onto the public today.
As for Ma Bell…Ma Bell is more than alive & well. She’s virtually running my nanny state of Canuckistan. Poppa Bell was, after all, a Canadian for a while and (arguably) invented the phone here. Bell Canada is the 8th most profitable company in Canada ($2.7 billion in 2013) and is beaten only by banks & oil companies.
Before Bell was deregulated here, it had a phone monopoly in most of the country. Once it was de-regulated to be “regulated by marketplace competition” both Bell’s media empire and the bills it charges launched into outer space. I pay about 10 times for my phone what I did 20 years ago, even though “lower bills” was de-regulation’s only selling point.
Bell is still the runaway leader in phones & cellphones. But they also own the biggest satellite TV service. They’re a top Internet Service Provider (engaging in the freedom hating practice of “Internet throttling”) and have the 2nd highest Canadian homepage traffic, more than Yahoo. They own the former Circuit City chain in Canada and use it to push their shitty services. They also own a big chunk of the Montreal Canadiens and Toronto Maple Leafs (which own the Toronto Raptors, Toronto FC, several stadiums and a shitload of prime Toronto real estate.)
But they’re primarily a media company, owning a coast-to-coast near monopoly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assets_owned_by_Bell_Media
In Canada’s small market (population slightly more than California), they own:
– 37 broadcast TV channels
– 43 cable channels (some in-part, but nearly all outright) with more on the way.
– Over 100 radio stations,
– 10-15% of Canada’s 2nd place national newspaper, The Globe & Mail. (They used to own 100%)
– numerous TV, film and video production companies
And boy are they powerful! They tell the CRTC (Canada’s FCC) what to do and they do it. Probably because most of the board are former/future employees. The ONLY countervailing forces are their ONLY competitors, rival media oligarchs, Shaw and Rogers. But they’re more Frenemies with Rogers than competitors.
Which reminds me of this INSANE story that dominated the Canadian landscape for well over 2 years. A few years back, Bell actually declared war on itself. in a truly bizarre battle with “arch enemy” and business partner Rogers (via their joint ownership of the Toronto Maple Leafs).
The CRTC was considering allowing TV channels to charge “carriage fees” to cable & satellite providers as a form of “media bailout” to keep these giant companies afloat after the financial meltdown’s ad revenue collapse. As a result, Rogers & Bell blew untold millions in a propaganda war to win hearts & minds of Canadians…who had no roll whatsoever in the decision.
On one side, you had Bell Satellite and Rogers cable decrying this as a “TV tax” that would cost customers $10-20 a month. They laughably claimed it would threaten the very existence of their companies and even TV itself! They both dedicated a channel on their dials to such PR bullshit. On the other side, you had a consortium of TV channels mostly owned by Bell. They laughably declared this a battle to “Save Local TV”. They neglected to mention Bell successfully lobbied the government to completely eliminate local programming requirements some 20 years earlier. Once a staple, the only local programming that still exists in Canada is news.
During this expensive battle, Bell’s “local” stations filled their commercial breaks -and the newscasts themselves- with ads, bullshit news stories and singing cowboys decrying big corporate bad guys “robbing the little guy”. What little guy??? It was an insane waste of money & public airwaves in a Civil War where Bell cousin fought Bell cousin. Oddly enough, Bell won!
Not surprisingly, since the media oligarchs control the media, this strange chapter in history has conveniently been deleted from the history books. Even though it happened less than 5 years ago, it’s been shoved down the Memory Hole and little evidence remains.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fee-for-carriage