structural history of local telephone business
Growth in the U.S. local telephone business has been strongly biased toward the largest companies getting larger. From 1916 to 1942, only about a third of U.S. households had telephone service. Hence opportunities for extensive growth in the local telephone business were relatively good. Nonetheless, AT&T’s share of operating revenue among the 75 largest telephone [...]
Tagged: telcos
COB-47: cover sheets
Nothing is more important for a bureaucratic report than its cover sheet. The cover sheet is what people will see. When the report has its brief moment of glory on the top of a paper stack on a bureaucrat’s desk, the cover sheet has to shine. You know the old saying: don’t judge a book [...]
text messaging for kids
At my neighborhood CVS, for a mere $19.99 you can buy two text messengers designed for kids ages 6 and over. The messengers include some smart phone capabilities: a data organizer that holds e-mail addresses, phone numbers, postal addresses, and memos; a calculator; an alarm clock; and the capability to be password-locked. These devices offer [...]
insipidity of modern poetry
“No literary complaint is more frequent and general than that of the insipidity of Modern Poetry.” From John Aikin, Essay on the Application of Natural History to Poetry (1777). Personally, I prefer street-fair entertainment.
Tagged: content
seasonality in the telephone business
The number of telephones in service in the U.S. at the end of each month from 1916 to 1942 show a seasonal slowdown in the telephone business in summer months. At the end of August, the number of telephones was typically 0.6% below trend.[1] As the telephone business picked up in the autumn, deviations from [...]
Tagged: telephones
behold, using pictures in popular storytelling
Pictorial storytelling has long provided popular entertainment and moral instruction. Dunhuang bian-wen and the Hebrew Bible indicate this practice.
Tagged: illuminated manuscripts
resenting communications industry development
O how refin’d how elegant we’re grown! What noble Entertainments Charm the Town! Whether to hear the Dragon’s roar we go, Or gaze surpriz’d on Fawks’s matchless Show, Or to the Opera’s, or to the Masques, To eat up Ortelans, and empty Flasques And rifle Pies from Shakespear’s clinging Page, Good gods! how great’s the [...]
Tagged: content, theater
early telephone business relatively stable
By October, 1923, American Telephone & Telegraph (AT&T) was producing a monthly booklet summarizing business conditions in the U.S. The booklet presented movements in macroeconomic indices and described general business conditions by Bell operating company regions. It also highlighted real business activity compared to telephone traffic.[1] The relevant chart from the November, 1925 booklet is [...]
Tagged: telephones