Steve Rogers (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
heroic_jawline) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomhigh2016-01-29 03:51 pm
heroic_jawline) wrote in fandomhigh2016-01-29 03:51 pm
Entry tags:
20th Century American History, Friday, January 29, 2016
Steve held up his Starkphone. "Of all the things currently used in this time period, the phone is particularly ubiquitous," he began. "Especially today, where it doesn't seem to want to shut up."
No one told Steve about Phone Day.
"Alexander Graham Bell patented the phone in 1876. The first telephone line was constructed a year later, and three years after that, almost 49,000 telephones were in use," Steve said. "Now I wouldn't be surprised if 49,000 devices were currently being used just on this island right this second."
Half of them Tony Stark's.
"There were 2.2 million phones in the U.S. by 1905, and 5.8 million by 1910. In 1915 the transcontinental telephone line began operating, which came in handy when we got involved in World War I and needed to make some calls. The phones were nationalized under the post office during the war, then turned back over to AT&T afterwards. But 1934, they were considered a 'regulated monopoly' and under the jurisdiction of the Federal Communications Commission. Public utility commissions in state and local jurisdictions were appointed regulators of AT&T and the nation's independent phone companies, while the FCC regulated long-distance services conducted across state lines. They set the rates the phone companies could charge and determined what services and equipment each could offer. This stayed in effect until AT&T's forced break-up in 1984. The all-powerful company had become popularly known and disparaged as 'Ma Bell.' AT&T's local operations were divided into seven independent Regional Bell Operating Companies, known as the 'Baby Bells.' AT&T became a long-distance-services company. And then everyone switched to cellular service plans, where you can carry around the entirety of human knowledge in your pocket and use it to find videos of cats playing the piano."
Steve put his phone down on the desk. "Now I didn't have a phone growing up. If you wanted to tell your neighbor something, you either hollered it out the window or sent your kid over to tell her. If you sent someone's else's kid over, it would cost a nickel. We still wrote letters if we had friends or relatives that were further away than the neighborhood, but that wasn't terribly common unless you were writing back to the Old Country or to friends or sweethearts in the war."
He pursed his lips a bit, lost in thought. "Anyway. Everyone here has a phone? Do you all know how to make the buzzing stop? Because I don't know about the rest of you, but I've been getting a lot of weird messages today..."
No one told Steve about Phone Day.
"Alexander Graham Bell patented the phone in 1876. The first telephone line was constructed a year later, and three years after that, almost 49,000 telephones were in use," Steve said. "Now I wouldn't be surprised if 49,000 devices were currently being used just on this island right this second."
Half of them Tony Stark's.
"There were 2.2 million phones in the U.S. by 1905, and 5.8 million by 1910. In 1915 the transcontinental telephone line began operating, which came in handy when we got involved in World War I and needed to make some calls. The phones were nationalized under the post office during the war, then turned back over to AT&T afterwards. But 1934, they were considered a 'regulated monopoly' and under the jurisdiction of the Federal Communications Commission. Public utility commissions in state and local jurisdictions were appointed regulators of AT&T and the nation's independent phone companies, while the FCC regulated long-distance services conducted across state lines. They set the rates the phone companies could charge and determined what services and equipment each could offer. This stayed in effect until AT&T's forced break-up in 1984. The all-powerful company had become popularly known and disparaged as 'Ma Bell.' AT&T's local operations were divided into seven independent Regional Bell Operating Companies, known as the 'Baby Bells.' AT&T became a long-distance-services company. And then everyone switched to cellular service plans, where you can carry around the entirety of human knowledge in your pocket and use it to find videos of cats playing the piano."
Steve put his phone down on the desk. "Now I didn't have a phone growing up. If you wanted to tell your neighbor something, you either hollered it out the window or sent your kid over to tell her. If you sent someone's else's kid over, it would cost a nickel. We still wrote letters if we had friends or relatives that were further away than the neighborhood, but that wasn't terribly common unless you were writing back to the Old Country or to friends or sweethearts in the war."
He pursed his lips a bit, lost in thought. "Anyway. Everyone here has a phone? Do you all know how to make the buzzing stop? Because I don't know about the rest of you, but I've been getting a lot of weird messages today..."
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