Filter Coffee on Vanishing Landline makes one nostalgic. During the heydays of landline having a phone was a great privilege. The Defense and railways had/have their own landlines. When my father died my ship was in Madras and my wife could manage to inform me with the help of my relation in the railways. Otherwise I would have sailed for two weeks exercises off East Coast.
Those days the size of the speakers were 2-3 inches dia whereas today the microphone and speakers in the mobile phones are less than a centimeter dia. This is possible because of the advances in material science. The Fibre Optics cable has revolutionized the cabling for communications.
But the landmark invention of Dr. A. J. Paulraj of Bangalore (Retd. Captain, Indian Navy) of using multiple antennas at both ends of a wireless link is at the heart of the current high speed wifi and mobile networks. MIMO(multi in-multi out) boosts data rate by creating parallel data streams. His patent is licensed by all the mobile manufacturers.
It may not be too long before the landline phone vanishes into a museum and various makes of phone will be rare items in a decade.
Talking of the change in telecommunications. I still remember the advertisement long ago when the company Iridium started offering satellite phone services. They released an advertisement in the newspapers that said “Geography is history” essentially to mean that no matter where you were, you could be contacted over phone.
Perhaps the best illustration of the growth experienced by us in India is the revolution that telephone brought us and the absence of the famous STD booths that we had dotting most of the highways, railway stations etc etc. Now as the joke goes you may not be tied to your phone but could freely move about, but the fact that we are literally tied to our mobiles phones now needs no further explanation. The price of progress, I guess.
Nice timing of the article and beautifully written. After 27 years, I finally surrendered my ‘landline’ last month. It was a poignant moment as I had struggled to get it way back in the 90’s even as OYT. But the last few years, people calling on that dropped, and it was sitting idle in a corner waiting for someone to pickup, when everyone in the house was fiddling with his/ her mobile phone. Good bye and thank you, BSNL.
PS: My friend who surrendered his OYT connection last year, is still waiting for the security deposit. ;)
Wonderful article. And memories galore. Green green. Mast
Filter Coffee on Vanishing Landline makes one nostalgic. During the heydays of landline having a phone was a great privilege. The Defense and railways had/have their own landlines. When my father died my ship was in Madras and my wife could manage to inform me with the help of my relation in the railways. Otherwise I would have sailed for two weeks exercises off East Coast.
Those days the size of the speakers were 2-3 inches dia whereas today the microphone and speakers in the mobile phones are less than a centimeter dia. This is possible because of the advances in material science. The Fibre Optics cable has revolutionized the cabling for communications.
But the landmark invention of Dr. A. J. Paulraj of Bangalore (Retd. Captain, Indian Navy) of using multiple antennas at both ends of a wireless link is at the heart of the current high speed wifi and mobile networks. MIMO(multi in-multi out) boosts data rate by creating parallel data streams. His patent is licensed by all the mobile manufacturers.
It may not be too long before the landline phone vanishes into a museum and various makes of phone will be rare items in a decade.
Thank you for those very informative comments
Thoroughly enjoyed it! Brought back good old memories.
thank you CoBra
Talking of the change in telecommunications. I still remember the advertisement long ago when the company Iridium started offering satellite phone services. They released an advertisement in the newspapers that said “Geography is history” essentially to mean that no matter where you were, you could be contacted over phone.
Perhaps the best illustration of the growth experienced by us in India is the revolution that telephone brought us and the absence of the famous STD booths that we had dotting most of the highways, railway stations etc etc. Now as the joke goes you may not be tied to your phone but could freely move about, but the fact that we are literally tied to our mobiles phones now needs no further explanation. The price of progress, I guess.
Brilliant repartee. I was waiting for this.
Nice timing of the article and beautifully written. After 27 years, I finally surrendered my ‘landline’ last month. It was a poignant moment as I had struggled to get it way back in the 90’s even as OYT. But the last few years, people calling on that dropped, and it was sitting idle in a corner waiting for someone to pickup, when everyone in the house was fiddling with his/ her mobile phone. Good bye and thank you, BSNL.
PS: My friend who surrendered his OYT connection last year, is still waiting for the security deposit. ;)
Thank you Mani for relating your experience.