The beginning of the telephone system

1837-invention of Morse’s Telegraphy.
The basic telegraphs-1837
In 1820 Mr.Oersted of Denmark found that:
⦁ There was a magnetic field around a wire carrying an electric current.
⦁ When the wire is coiled to have N turns, then the magnetic field along its axis is N times greater.
⦁ If a piece of iron is inserted within the coil, the magnetic field further increased by a factor of 1000.
This constitutes the principle of a relay. In its tern a relay can make or break other electric circuits. The telegraph is based on this idea. One Mr. Henry of Newyark discovered that the relay could operate even when the wire was over three Kilometers long.
Samuel Morse, an amateur scientist along with his student Alfred Vail put the existing idea together and evolved a system to communicate over long distances. They also invented the Morse code by which all alphanumeric characters could be represented by a combination of dots and dashes. It was a remarkable break through in long distance communication, the first in the world.

The first Telegraph line came in India in 1853. London was connected to Calcutta in 1871 by over head line.

1852- Telegraph service started in India.

1868- Europe had been connected with India by telegraph lines.

1876-The telephone was invented in USA.

1881-The Oriental telephone company, was licensed to open telephone exchanges in India.

1882- First Telephone exchange was opened in Calcutta, Bombay, Madras and Ahmadabad.

The central exchange Calcutta had 93 subscribers.

1907-First central battery telephone exchange installed at Kanpur.

In 1914, on the eve of the First World War, the next big administrative changes had come. The Postal Department and the Telegraph Department were amalgamated under a single Director-General.

1913-14- Automatic telephone exchange opened in Simla, [HimachalPradesh].

1927-Radio Telegraphy started between India and UK.

1933-Radio telephony started between UK and India.

1953- A 12 channel carrier system was installed for trunk working in India.

1960- The S.T.D. service between Lukhnow and Kanpur was commissioned.

1972- The telecommunications accounts were separated from that of post offices.

1975- First PCM system installed between Bombay and Andheri, for local junction working.

1979- The OFC [Optical fiber cable] system was installed at Pune, for local junction working.

1984- C-DOT [committee on development of Telematics] established for manufacture of digital switches.

After gaining independence from Britain in 1947, the national government continued the colonial legacy, organizing post and telegraph services exclusively in the domain of the state. 

I was appointed as Telephone operator during the year 1974 and was posted to a CBNM telephone exchange at Bhalki in Bidar district of Karnataka state. A trunk line circuit was available along railway line from Bhalki to Bidar and a three channel carrier system was built on it for trunk working. We used to put through calls for public using ticket booking system.

When I had a little experience, I was made H.T.O. [head telephone operator] as all seniors got transferred to other locations. Electro-magnetic relays were used for signaling the subscriber line indicators. All calls switching was done manually, including local calls. Many village Public call offices [PCOs] were terminated directly on the trunk board. This was the beginning of communication in rural and district head quarters. The Number of Telephone connections at Bidar city were about 300 and at Gulbarga, it was 700 telephone lines. Telephone revenue accounts office was opened at Gulbarga. DET was the head of telecom management for Gulbarga division. Most of the village population in this region, did not understand what the telephone was. The telephone usage was limited to business community and VIPs and public offices like police station, hospital railway station etc. ITI Bangalore was the place where the network switches were manufactured for south India. The large cities had automatic exchange switches. The Mysore city had cross-bar switching exchange.

 One person [Telephone Operator] had to work at a time to connect the people for local and trunk service needs of communication. Yes it was the beginning of telephone services to people. All calls were handled manually. The dedicated staff used to work day and night in shifts, to serve the need of the public. The government, the polish, the trade and the public were dependent on this simple system.

People used to wait in queue, to get their turn, to talk to for-off places on trunk routes. Trunk Calls were booked and tried on priority. Signaling and voice were used to pass call switching information between stations. The system worked with frequent interruptions, due to trunk lines failures and all that.

Up gradation started in the system[1980s]

The departmental own buildings came up in five years.

The local exchange automatic switching machines were installed. They were all mechanical switches working on electromagnetic principles [the Strowger switching exchanges].

More number of trunk-channels were installed, to connect trunk-calls quickly.

The working force was the line men, the operators and the technicians for different works apart from supervisors and engineers. The divisional and sub divisional offices managed the system operation and maintenance and developments. Officers were highly respected for their caliber.

Public call offices [PCOs] were opened for a cluster of villages in a local area. Then the villagers could use the phone services on emergency. The system expansion started at district places. The number of lines increased, so also the supporting staff. All this happened around 1980.

Large scale recruitments started for junior engineers in DOT. One more high tech cadre of district managers was created with modern know-how on communication systems.

After 1980s the microwave trunk routes were planned and installed, started working by 1985. This changed the game of connecting calls on demand. Even the STD services were started immediately for important customers. STD PCOS were opened for instant call connection. The technical and revenue assessing works were upgraded. By 1990 the electronic switching systems were being manufactured in Bangalore. Gradually replacement of old mechanical switches by electronic switches was taken up at district places. This changed the game again, so that new connections could be provided to the desired customers on demand by laying additional local cables. The system expansion was an easy method and could be done with lesser time lapse. Connections started increasing gradually. The call switching failures were minimized.

The technical staff called technicians, who used to maintain electro-magnetic switching units had become surplus. The trunk calls connecting operative staff also became surplus. These two important cadres have lost their impotence. This and also open-line maintaining line-staff too became a vanishing cadre. These people were used for other maintenance and developmental activities. A new cadre called phone mechanic was introduced for external works in the field units. The RSA [repeater station assistant] cadre was also vanished. The Junior Engineer cadre became the important technical staff. This was an important phase change in the DOT.

Optic fiber networks were established to interconnect exchanges together. The operator was no longer needed so also the technician was eliminated. The long distance open-wires maintaining line staff was eliminated. It was only high tech people like engineers and clerical staff was needed. For maintaining local cables local phone mechanics were retained. This changed the entire system architecture to high tech. This thing went up to 2000.

The advent of mobile technology made a competitive environment and parliament passed the telecom policy bill to privatize the telecom system and therefore multiple operators’ entered the scenario, as service providers. The competitive environment started and the DOT officers had become a multi-switch to do all things together. Most of the seniors [officers] retired. Some confusion prevailed since the adoption into new working method was somewhat changed. The red tape privilege vanished for DOT workers. It was like do-or-die situation. Some of the senior officers became illiterate before their juniors due to high-tech working environment.

From a simple open-wire lines system, to microwave trunks and OFC cables, it became high-tech function. Digital switching units replaced most of the manpower. The junior-engineer was the only working cadre which was needed. Other higher officers were only the managers, like district manager, zonal manager, and circle manager and so on.  Even revenue assessing was automated. The game was changed to minimum staff.

This was a journey of 1970 to 2000, a span of three decades. I witnessed all these drastic changes in my service in the DOT India. What a wonder! Really a large leap in communication methodology happed in the world, at the time when we entered into 21^st century. The era of internet and internet banking and all that were value adding services! Of modern communication networks.