>  >> Years ago, it was also common to have a transformer that put low
>>>  voltage AC on the black/yellow telephone pair for lighting the keypad
>>>  on the princess phones.
>>
>>  Was that a hack by any chance, Chris? I seem to recall Ma Bell
>>  charging a hefty monthly  fee for a lighted dial, once upon a time...
>>
>>  Jack
>
>Remember, we are talking about the company that charged several dollars per
>month rent/service contract for the *wire* in your home! Yeah, when you got
>a lighted dial it was often via a small plug-in transformer supplied by Ma.
>And you paid "rent" on that transformer every single month. What a racket!

The upside was that you had a company that actually cared about 
customer service. If it was broke, they fixed it, quickly. A few 
months ago, our phone line went out. Verizon said they would fix it 
in about 6 days. (We have no cell phone service here at the house, so 
we had no phone service at all, fortunately the cable was working so 
we had internet access) I think they actually got it fixed in 5 days.

-- 

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Chris Smolinski
Black Cat Systems
http://www.blackcatsystems.com
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