Doug Kerr
Well-known member
"And then, divestiture"
There's no telling how long this has been lying, just as we see it, near a drain culvert, only a few feet off the road that leads to our neighborhood in Weatherford, Texas,
For those who have not been students of the recent (!) history of the telephone industry in the US, "divestiture" is the term used to identify the centerpiece of the constellation of events, basically effective in 1984, that dismantled the Bell Telephone System.
This was an AT&T Long Lines Department cable warning sign, presumably for an interstate long distance cable.
The telephone number on it - Enterprise 9800 (no, it wasn't formatted so you could dial it, because you couldn't) - was part of a system in long use before the emergence of the "INWATS" service, which we came to identify as the "800 number" service.
It was a way that companies could provide for customers to conveniently call them (long-distance) at the company's expense. (In California, the intra-state version of it used "Zenith" numbers.) The caller just told the long distance operator (including before there even was direct distance dialing) "Enterprise 9800, please."
The system was, I believe, discontinued in the 1960s (not too long after the introduction of the "800 number" service).
Numbers in the "9000" series were for telephone company entities - in this case, the central Long Lines "call before you dig" office.
The system was, I believe, discontinued in the 1960s (not too long after the introduction of the "800 number" service).
Even earlier (in particular before dial service), local numbers for the telephone company had the pseudo-central office name "Official", as in, "Before you dig, call Official 9500."
Aren't you glad you asked!