CONQUEST OF DISTANCE BY WIRE TELEPHONY 339 



Introduction 



The universal telephone service now provided by the Bell System has 

 become such a "taken-for-gr anted" factor in our every-day national business 

 and social life that one may easily forget the existence of the many regional 

 frontiers which greatly restricted the usefulness of the telephone as recently 

 as three decades ago. 



The technical developments which made economically practicable the 

 complete elimination of these regional frontiers were worked out in this 

 country during the first two decades of the century. In spite of their tech- 

 nical and social importance, there is still lacking a connected recital that sets 

 forth the various coordinated efforts by which the difficulties inherent in the 

 long distance transmission of the voice were gradually overcome. Substan- 

 tial amplification would be required to do justice to the concurrent accom- 

 plishments of the engineers who worked on the related problems involving 

 outside plant, equipment, traffic, apparatus, and manufacturing questions. 

 Without the important contributions made by these engineers in the asso- 

 ciated departments of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company 

 and Western Electric Company, there could not have been complete 

 success. 



Mention should also here be made of the fact that during the period 

 covered by the story, steady improvement of transmission was effected in 

 subscribers' exchange services. 



The story as it unfolds divides naturally into four parts. The first is 

 concerned with the 1904-1907 period when the A. T. & T. Co. headquarters 

 staff was located at Boston and includes a discussion of the then current 

 state of the art as a general background for the subsequent developments. 

 The second part has to do primarily with the important sequence of achieve- 

 ments of the 1907-1911 period in New York which step-by-step prepared 

 the way for the development of transcontinental telephony. The third 

 part is primarily concerned with the transcontinental project itself, in- 

 cluding the planning of the project. The fourth and concluding part 

 reviews the subsequent establishment of a Bell System backbone network 

 of repeatered, non-loaded, 165 mil lines interconnecting the large cities, and 

 includes the removal of loading from the transcontinental line. 



