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Communications Technology

AT&T Stops 'Time', Ends An Era 359

Posted by Zonk from the at-the-tone-i'm-finished dept.
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."
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AT&T Stops 'Time', Ends An Era More

AT&T Stops 'Time', Ends An Era

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  • Evil (Score:4, Funny)

    by calvy ( 1123141 ) on Wednesday August 29, 2007 @09:56AM (#20398613)
    This is by far the most evil thing AT&T has done. How can they take time away from us? Gasp
    • I'm still amazed that they actually use the same ancient machines to do it. I mean, dear god, even if the hourly fees and hardware cost were completely jacked up to outrageous levels, you could probably hire a consultant to make an Asterisk-based system with multiple layers of hardware redundancy to do the exact same thing (wait for ring, answer, announce the current time & temperature, then hang up) for less than it probably cost to lease and maintain those old machines for one year...

      • Why it existed (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Joaz Banbeck ( 1105839 ) on Wednesday August 29, 2007 @11:34AM (#20400215)
        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:Evil (Score:5, Funny)

      by sqldr ( 838964 ) on Wednesday August 29, 2007 @11:04AM (#20399763)
      How can they take time away from us?

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

  • Kind of sad (Score:5, Interesting)

    by WindBourne ( 631190 ) on Wednesday August 29, 2007 @09:57AM (#20398627) Journal
    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.

  • Inevitable... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by nweaver ( 113078 ) on Wednesday August 29, 2007 @09:59AM (#20398661) Homepage
    You have NNTP, the broadcast atomic clock information, and the cell-phone network, all of which provide exquisitly accurate time to everyone.

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      What does a news server have to do with time?

    • Re:Inevitable... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Enoxice ( 993945 ) on Wednesday August 29, 2007 @10:09AM (#20398853) Journal
      I think you have an extra 'N' in there somewhere...

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

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by dashslotter ( 1093743 )
      I don't care! Calling "time" is like pinging yahoo. Warm fuzzies when you connect....

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by RubberDuckie ( 53329 )
        Or like 'ping 4.2.2.1'. If that server ever gets eliminated, I will be one unhappy camper.

        • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

          by MrNaz ( 730548 )
          I'm worried that one day they'll eliminate 127.0.0.1! The day they take that offline I'm in big trouble!
    • Yes, and as soon as everybody has computers (NTP), clock radios that can tune to WWV or can get it passively (atomic clock) or a cell phone (cell-phone network), then we can get rid of time services over POTS. Until then, it is still the most highly available service out of all of the above.

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

      NTP, definitely. Radio-based [wikipedia.org] clocks, sure. GPS time signal, absolutely. But the cell network? I'd never in a million years call that exquisitely accurate. Sometimes I wouldn't even call it reasonably accurate.

      I don't know where they get their time from, but when I look at a cell phone (with network time sync enabled) and it's more than a minute off, I know not to trust it as a reliable time source.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by multipartmixed ( 163409 )
        What network is this?

        I know a certain network operator that had to buy a bunch of cesium clocks when they were upgrading from AMPS to TDMA. This was because the T in TDMA stands for "Time", and the timeslice needs minor monkey business when the phone is far from the tower, because of SOL propagation delay. To do TDMA with a sufficiently small slice to be useful, you need VERY accurate clocks.

        And this probably still true today, as GSM is a TDM scheme.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Richy_T ( 111409 )
          But funnily enough, it doesn't follow that the display on a cell phone would be synced to that fancy-pants clock. It could just as easily be synced to cletus the intern sending a global network SMS to all phones based on what he read off the $3.95 Wal-mart clock hanging on his wall.

          Whatever the cause, cell phone clocks are not reliable. Simple as that.

          Rich
        • Cingular. It's been 2-3 years since I first noticed it -- since then I don't really pay much attention to my cell phone clock. I think it was a CDMA network, but I'm not 100% sure. I had a GSM phone after that which was often wrong, but it was a crappy phone and I suspect it wasn't syncing properly.

          Now I'm on AT&T/EDGE and it seems to be accurate so far as I can tell.

          Just because the clocks are tightly synchronized together, doesn't mean that the base time they're synchronizing to is correct. A Cesi

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by pjviitas ( 1066558 )
      Unless you live on Baffin Island...then you need a Seiko Quartz Alpinist.

      Loses about 10 seconds a year.

      Hedghog
  • The Romanian equivalent - 958 (058 before the renumbering) - is still going strong - all-trough in form of a 2 node cluster - but with the original voice - digitized.

  • I feel sorry... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Treskin ( 555947 ) on Wednesday August 29, 2007 @09:59AM (#20398671)
    I feel really sorry for whoever gets assigned the POP-CORN phone number.

  • Sad (Score:4, Funny)

    by davidc ( 91400 ) <cdpuff&gmail,com> on Wednesday August 29, 2007 @10:00AM (#20398685)
    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 (Score:5, Interesting)

      by catbutt ( 469582 ) on Wednesday August 29, 2007 @10:13AM (#20398931)
      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.
    • Back in the early days of cheap three-way calling (or overly-complex beige boxing) a common phone prank was to conference two random numbers and stay quiet, let the targets speak to each other, and revel in the resulting "Who is this?" "You called me!" "No, you called me!" chaos. A variation on this was to three-way a target with movie theater recordings, error message recordings, or the good old speaking clock.
       
      On the off-chance that was me calling your job... ha-ha!

  • Don't pick up that phone (Score:5, Funny)

    by Applekid ( 993327 ) on Wednesday August 29, 2007 @10:02AM (#20398725)
    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.

  • From TFA... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by amccaf1 ( 813772 ) on Wednesday August 29, 2007 @10:02AM (#20398733)
    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...

  • Jacking Into The Matrix (Score:5, Funny)

    by Marc_Hawke ( 130338 ) on Wednesday August 29, 2007 @10:02AM (#20398737)
    "anxiously awaiting the arrival of its cousin: The Pay-Phone."

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

  • Ehhh... (Score:4, Funny)

    by LynnwoodRooster ( 966895 ) on Wednesday August 29, 2007 @10:04AM (#20398751) Journal
    It was all relative, anyway...

  • Advanced Technology (Score:4, Funny)

    by nairnr ( 314138 ) on Wednesday August 29, 2007 @10:06AM (#20398791)
    Whoa, we must have been ahead of the curve. We used to get Time AND Temperature!!!

  • What ended the AT&T time service (Score:5, Interesting)

    by MtViewGuy ( 197597 ) on Wednesday August 29, 2007 @10:08AM (#20398829)
    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).
  • I remember POP-CORN quite fondly. It was the only way to reset your clocks after a power outage if you didn't have a wind-up or battery powered watch/clock you trusted. My friends and I used to play the lamest game when we were in elementary school. We would dial POP-CORN and try to time it so the voice would say "exactly". It was a timing thing. Instead of saying "three forty-two and twelve seconds", to hear it say "three forty-three exactly" was a real score! Ah, the early 80s.

  • And yet (Score:4, Interesting)

    by simong ( 32944 ) on Wednesday August 29, 2007 @10:09AM (#20398859) Homepage
    In the UK, we got a new speaking clock earlier this year [channel4.com]. It's been sponsored for more than twenty years too.
    • The UK needs to have a speaking clock. How else would Ford Prefect be able to crash evil corporations in space.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by rpjs ( 126615 )
        I thought it was the speaking clock somewhere in Australia that he patched them through to. IIRC the BBC TV version played a little snippet that went something like "At the third stroke it will be [whatever], just enough time to crack open another tinnie."
  • Not sure how this service works. Know when I was very little back in the 80's you could call a number (thought bank) and it would have an automated time/weather. Seems like every city in the area had their own version of that. Is this the same thing? Or is there a centralized number for everone in the US to use in each timezone?

  • My main time reference at home is a WWVB clock.

    In the field I use GPS for accurate (atomic clock accurate, in fact) time. If I have a shortwave radio with me I use WWV. WWV's audio feed is on 303 499 7111, which can be useful. Sometimes, for the hell of it, I'll dial WWVH on 808 335 4363 instead. I have both as contacts in my cellphone. Sad or what?

    Aloha!

    ...laura, with many temporal options

  • my kid (Score:5, Interesting)

    by bcrowell ( 177657 ) on Wednesday August 29, 2007 @10:14AM (#20398957) Homepage
    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.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Aladrin ( 926209 )
      Sounds like you got a bright one there. I'm impressed that those were her first questions.

      You are, of course, teaching her to repair PCs, put ends on Cat5, and program in multiple languages... Right?

      My niece would say 'nuh uh' first (because my father's 'teasing' includes a lot of outright lying) and then ... I have no idea. I don't think she'd ask anything. She would probably run to tell her mother about it. (She's 6.)
  • I'm 99% sure that there are many local/regional/national telcos left that still provider time and weather. I'm guessing that they mean California and Nevada are the only states left that have dedicated entire prefixes for time and weather. FYI, the article didn't mention it, but Northern Nevada (everything but Vegas) uses 775-844-xxxx, traditionally 775-844-1212. I'm not sure about Southern Nevada (area code 702).

    So why is AT&T completely getting rid of time & weather in California? The article

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by King_TJ ( 85913 )
      That's what I was thinking too. I live in St. Louis, Missouri - and I don't recall *ever* having some number to dial, sponsored by AT&T, that would read off the time? Maybe I was just ignorant of it? But even as a small kid, the numbers I recall were (314)321-2522 (for time and temperature), and (314)321-2222 (for a detailed weather report). The first used to be sponsored by the now defunct "Boatmen's Bank", and the latter was run by KMOX AM 1120 radio.

      Our "time and temperature" number continued on

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Detritus ( 11846 )
      Years ago, many telephone companies replaced the analog/mechanical drum machines with digital machines that used ROMs to store digitized voice samples. No moving parts to wear out.

      The local telephone company used to dedicate entire exchanges to time (844-XXXX) and weather (936-XXXX). Not that long ago, someone decided that it was a waste to use a whole exchange for one service, and changed them into normal 7-digit numbers, freeing up the other numbers in the exchange for other uses.

  • I mean..
    just look at your cell phone..
    or your watch..
    or look up at almost any wall.. ..

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by CompMD ( 522020 )
      That would be a great solution if it weren't for the oft overlooked fact that over 90% of America is rural. How are those of us in "flyover states" going to get the time?
      • Don't worry, I'm sure that newfangled "watch" invention will find its way to rural America in due time.
  • What number will chics who you ask for their number use as their "real" number? Thanks AT&T, maybe we will have a chance to get their real phone numbers now!

  • Not dead yet! (Score:5, Informative)

    by p_trekkie ( 597206 ) on Wednesday August 29, 2007 @10:31AM (#20399227) Homepage
    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
    (202) 762-1401 and (202) 762-1069
    for Washington DC and
    (719) 567-6742
    for the alternate master clock in Colorado Springs, CO.

  • The payphone? NEVER! (Score:4, Funny)

    by MadFarmAnimalz ( 460972 ) on Wednesday August 29, 2007 @10:31AM (#20399229) Homepage
    The payphone will never be obsolete so long as we have Superman.
  • What is with headlines these days?? Just in the past couple of days i've seen headlines with the word "terror" (in quotes) just because someone quoted in the story used the word terror, and now "AT&T Stops 'Time'"? I realize headlines must be attention grabbing but this is a little ridiculous.
  • 202-762-1401 & 202-762-1069 (Washington DC), 719-567-6742 (Colorado Springs CO); the audio track from WWV.

  • 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!")

  • I hope pay phones don't go completely extinct. I would have been royally screwed a couple months ago without one - I managed to lock myself out of my house with no keys, cel phone, or cash. I did have my wallet, though, so I could go to a 7-11, buy a prepaid phone card, and call my husband from a pay phone. Otherwise I would have had to break a window to get inside. (Now I have spare keys hidden in the car - I'd actually gone to make them that day but got there a half hour after the hardware store closed.)

  • anxiously awaiting the arrival of its cousin: The Pay-Phone
    At the same time as the new Communications and Multimedia Pay-Per-Usage Access Points are brought in!

    I doubt we'll ever see a complete removal of pay-per-use communications points, especially in captive audience type areas.
  • 303-499-7111 (or tune your shortwave receiver to any one of the internationally allocated standard carrier frequencies of 2.5, 5, 10, 15, or 20 megahertz).

  • Lost Motorist or Weary Hiker? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by HTTP Error 403 403.9 ( 628865 ) on Wednesday August 29, 2007 @11:49AM (#20400449)

    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?

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