The TNI is dead, long live the TNI
Today was the day I removed the TNI (Telephone Network Interface) from my house. The last vestiges of our land line. The last outpost of a once vast network.
Figure 1: “This Phone Is Property of Ohio Bell” by George Jones is licensed under CC BY 2.0
There used to be vast infrastructure (the Telephone Network) that got phone calls from place to place. I remember sometime around 1969 (cub scouts? Elementary school?) touring the local AT&T building that housed rows and rows of mechanical switches that routed phone calls in our neighborhood. For those with an eye for it, those buildings are still everywhere to be seen. Square. Few windows. Brick. In virtually every neighborhood.
There was the Microwave relay tower near my grandfathers farm. Part of a nationwide network that supported the “Long lines”, where AT&T made it’s money until Judge Green broke it up, costing the world Bell Labs (creator of the Transistor and Unix) in the process.
I recently stayed at a friends house, vintage 1920s. It has a little alcove in the wall just off the kitchen that was undoubtedly for “the phone”. Growing up we had “the kitchen phone”, and one on my dad’s desk. When it rang sometimes you had to dash to the other room to answer.
Phones like the one pictured above could be thrown down the basement stairs onto a concrete floor and survive. Not that I would know. Bell ENGINEERED their hardware.
I’m glad we have moved beyond that technology, but it made the world move for over a hundred years.
Figure 2: “The TNI about to be removed” by George Jones is licensed under CC BY 2.0
Read “Exploding the Phone” for an insightful and amusing history of the phone system, phone phreaks, the rise of hacker culture, and how Steve Jobs and Woz got their start selling blue boxes in the Berkeley dorms so students could “steal” long distance calls (my father’s roommate got around the high cost of long distance in the 50’s by using ham radio to “phone home”). The world has changed.
Figure 3: "Exploding the Phone"" by Phil Lapsley
#59 of #100DaysToOffload take 3.1, https://100daystooffload.com/