In a star network, fully automated exchanges are connected via specific hubs.
PTT Archive, FC_2140

In the PTT Archive in Köniz, there are sources dating from the 1930s and 1940s which reveal that the switchboard operators, shortly before they were laid off or moved to new positions due to the automation process, had to teach subscribers how to use their telephones now that they’d been fitted with dial plates (open PDF). Many switchboard operators had to go from house to house to help subscribers get over their fear of their new apparatus. After the local telephone exchanges were automated, these people had simply stopped making telephone calls – afraid they might do something wrong. In other networks, the switchboard operators were required to deliver ‘collective instruction sessions for the general public on automated networks’, sometimes with film presentations. These sessions were more or less well attended, depending on the weather and the progress of harvesting. The telephone exchange in Chur even explained subscribers’ lack of interest in the helpful demonstrations as being down to the ‘temperament of the Grisons native’. In the PTT Archive’s oral history project, Nelly Iseli-Dällenbach gives a first-hand account of the clumsy methods resorted to, and the inexpert use of the new apparatus by subscribers. The abrupt dismissals and relocations of the switchboard operators in the course of the automation process, and the important mediating role these women took on between the new technology and the wider population, deserve greater attention.

Luca Thanei

Please connect me! Automating our telephone exchanges