AT&T Stops 'Time', Ends An Era

theoeag writes "Starting in September, you will no longer be able to pick up a landline, payphone, etc and find out what time it is at the beep. AT&T, which has had the service since the 20s, cited a lack of demand in the digital age as the reason for "time"'s extinction. Actually, the service had already stopped in most states, but Nevada and California — with their large rural and unmapped areas — were still holding out, should the lost motorist or weary hiker need to know the time of day. But no more! The "Time Machine", which consisted of two large drum-like devices that contained several audio-tracks and a quite advanced system for syncing up with the caller, will probably end up in a museum, anxiously awaiting the arrival of its cousin: The Pay-Phone."

Evil

This is by far the most evil thing AT&T has done. How can they take time away from us? Gasp

Why it existed

Actually, for legal reasons that wouldn't work. You see, they need to use the same time marking as the billing system.

I found this out years ago when my GF was getting really persistent obscene phone calls. We called the phone company to ask for their help. They said to write down the time and date of each call. They specifically said to call their number for the time. I asked why. They said that way they could be sure who made the call to within 10 seconds, otherwise an eventual prosecution of the caller was sure to fail because the defense could argue that the GF's clock was off by just a few minutes, and that would be room for reasonable doubt.

BTW, I presume that they have concluded that it is no longer neccesary because everyone's cell phone has relatively accurate time ( and the clocks that are set according to cell time ).

Re:Why it existed

I found this out years ago when my GF was getting really persistent obscene phone calls.
Sorry about that. I've moved on and starting harassing someone else's GF. No hard feelings, I hope. :)

Re:Evil

How can they take time away from us?

They usually do that by way of their automated call-queueing system.

Kind of sad

I remember listening to this in the early 60's. I thought that it was pretty. Obviously, the current tech surpases that. In fact, You will shortly be able to obtain an atomic clock chip at a "reasonable" price. But the idea of just picking up the phone and getting the tick off was reassuring, esp when we had lost electricity for up to 2 weeks at a time.

Re:It's more than sad. Help! Anyone got alternativ

202 456 1414

No productive work goes on there, so you won't be interrupting anyone.

Re:It's more than sad. Help! Anyone got alternativ

NIST: 303 499 7111
Gives time in UTC, so you'll have to shift over for your time zone.

Inevitable...

You have NNTP, the broadcast atomic clock information, and the cell-phone network, all of which provide exquisitly accurate time to everyone.

Re:Inevitable...

I think you have an extra 'N' in there somewhere...

NTP [wikipedia.org]
NNTP [wikipedia.org]

Re:Inevitable...

If you really need to hear a talking clock, call 202-762-1401. The service is provided by the US Naval Observatory.

I feel sorry...

I feel really sorry for whoever gets assigned the POP-CORN phone number.

Sad

I'm sad to see this go. I didn't use it very much but it was kind of reassuring that it was there. Okay, I'm crazy!

I once answered the phone at work, and found that the call was the speaking clock. Weird... folks told me it was probably returning all the past calls I'd placed to it.

Re:Sad

My weird experience with "time" was one time I called it, and could hear the muffled sounds of everyone else who called it (with the time lady playing in the foreground). So it became like a big chat room, where everyone was asking what other people's real numbers were so they could call them and chat with random people of the opposite sex.

Since this was approximately 1977 and there was no internet, well, it seemed pretty cool for the few days it lasted.

Don't pick up that phone

TFA:

One upside: AT&T says doing away with time would enable the creation of about 300,000 new phone numbers in California beginning with the 853 or 767 prefixes.

Great, just what I need if I get one of those new numbers: questions about what time is it. Yes, my refridgerator is also running and there's no need to catch it, either.

Re:How do you set your clocks?

How does everyone set their clocks without calling time?

From my cell phone, like I imagine most folks do. Heck, I hardly see anyone my age (late 20's) or younger wearing watches anymore for that same reason.

Re:How do you set your clocks?

All of the phones I have every had sync themselves up with the provider. Even when traveling around, it will pick up the local time without any intervention...

Re:How do you set your clocks?

Try this: http://www.time.gov/ [time.gov]

From TFA...

Although not immediately related to the subject at hand, I found this interesting:

By far the most prominent time lady was Jane Barbe, who succeeded Moore at Audichron in the 1960s. A former big band singer, Barbe (pronounced "Barbie") went on to become the voice of recorded telephone messages in the 1970s and '80s in the United States and elsewhere.

Along with her interpretations of the time and current temperature, Barbe delivered the bad news too, telling you that circuits in a specific area were busy, please try again later, or that your call cannot be completed as dialed.

And who will ever forget her heartbreaking rendition of "I'm sorry, the number you have dialed is no longer in service"?

Barbe died of cancer-related complications in 2003 at age 74. It's estimated that at the height of her fame, Barbe's voice was heard worldwide about 40 million times a day.

I'm going to be freaked out the next time I hear that voice and realize that -- like that old lady in the episode of THE TWILIGHT ZONE -- I'm hearing a voice from the grave...

No disrespect to the dead meant...

But we used to call her the "Bell Bitch"

Jacking Into The Matrix

"anxiously awaiting the arrival of its cousin: The Pay-Phone."

That's gonna make escaping Agent Smith just THAT much harder.

Ehhh...

It was all relative, anyway...

Advanced Technology

Whoa, we must have been ahead of the curve. We used to get Time AND Temperature!!!

What ended the AT&T time service

The thing that finally made the AT&T time service over telephone lines obselete was the dramatic reduction in the cost of small clocks that allow you to pick up the 60 kHz WWVB time signal. In fact, you can get wristwatches around US$40 that can do that now (I have a Casio wrist watch that does this).

And yet

In the UK, we got a new speaking clock earlier this year [channel4.com]. It's been sponsored for more than twenty years too.

my kid

My seven-year-old daughter had never heard it. I read the LA Times article this morning, dialed the number nostalgically for myself, and then went and explained it to my daughter. She had all these questions, like "By the time they say what time it is, isn't it already over?" and "Do they do it every second?" I had imagined that it was just part of our universally shared culture, but it was obviously a completely foreign concept to her. I dialed it for her and had her listen. She listened and smiled at me indulgently.

Not dead yet!

Actually, the US Naval Observatory [navy.mil], which maintains the official time for the US still has the voice announcer available over the phone. According to this page [navy.mil] the numbers are
[phone] and [phone]
for Washington DC and
[phone]
for the alternate master clock in Colorado Springs, CO.

The payphone? NEVER!

The payphone will never be obsolete so long as we have Superman.

Ah, memories...

I was just thinking about this the other day for some reason!

One memory I have from youth is taking my oh-so-new-and-cool digital watch and carefully synchronizing it exactly to the beep when I called time. :)

Of course, later I synced my watch one day to the atomic clock, and then for some reason decided to check it against 853-1212. Imagine my geek outrage when freakin' Time was FORTY SECONDS OFF. I felt like an idiot for carefully syncing my watch all that time.

*sigh* another naive belief of youth falls. ("I mean, it's the phone company, of course they'd carefully ensure that 853-1212 has the exact time to the millisecond!")

Lost Motorist or Weary Hiker?

Actually, the service had already stopped in most states, but Nevada and California -- with their large rural and unmapped areas -- were still holding out, should the lost motorist or weary hiker need to know the time of day.

I am lost in the uncharted areas of California or Nevada and the most important thing I need to know is the time? Are these hikers and lost motorists navigating with a sextant?

If I have access to a phone to call the time, shouldn't I be able to call for help?