Til the End of Time

Joseph Laszlo | August 29, 2007, 11:57 AM

It's been ages since I blogged about telecoms stuff, ever since I handed off broadband coverage to my colleague Doug, in favor of the wild world of online video.

But once in a while, nostalgia wins out, as in the story in the LA Times about the end of Time--that is, the service where you could dial a free local number and get a recorded woman's voice, well, telling you what time it was. For the kids reading this, this was useful if you wanted to synchronize watches, or reset the clock if you had a blackout, back before the Internet and cellphones.

The article's well worth reading, even if it does go overboard with the time-related turns of phrase ("To be sure, time marches on. Yet for many Californians, the looming demise of the "time lady," as she's come to be known, marks the end of a more genteel era, when we all had time to share.") It turns out that in every state but CA and NV, Time ended long ago, but for whatever reason, it hung on there until this year.

For telecom history geeks, there's some good historical stuff about the Time Ladies over the years, and how the gear worked, and even, if you're particularly geeky, the interesting fact that:

"AT&T says doing away with time would enable the creation of about 300,000 new phone numbers in California beginning with the 853 or 767 prefixes. (No such numbers have been issued to date because, when coupled with any four other digits, you get time.)"

So another little piece of Ma Bell history fades in our new, dynamic age of communication. This one probably was a little past its prime, to be sure.

At The Tone, The Time Will Be...The Future. Beep.