tenthofjune

Back at the end of the 1980s, our telephone exchange switched to digital, in our case from Strowger to System Y. I can remember being impressed at the time with a number of things; one was how there was no longer a gap between ‘dialling’ the last digit and the ringing tone. The connection was instant. Fast forward 20 years and we now have a pause again while the connection goes through; what happened? We seem to have gone backwards. I’m not talking about the delay when calling mobiles and the network has to locate a phone, I’m talking landline to landline.