One Ringgy Dinggy, Two Ringgy Dingy

A Ringing In My Ears....

From Nancy M-B of Florida, the word for this post is "Phone Call".

Phone calls are the bane of Jewish sons ever since the lower east side of Manhattan was wired. The phone call produces dread as bill collectors call. The phone call was the start of a new caper for Charlie's Angels. A joy for me every time Ernestine patched a call on Laugh-in.

I find myself with a love/hate relationship with the phone call. Times I avoid taking calls because I want to isolate and other times I get irritated when I can't reach anyone. So when I call myself and I don't pick up, I'm furious!

What I find amazing is the history of the phone call from the fabled Alexander Graham Bell call to the Batphone to the cellular phone. Most people don't realize that the phone call became possible only after an Hungarian Engineer by the name Tivadar Puskas developed the first switchboard in 1876. Telephone operators have been annoying us for over 100 years!

The telecom industry has been annoying investors for about the same amount of time with their inevitable boom and bust cycles. Of course, like the energy market, investors are surprised each and every time they loose money. Phone calls require a great deal of infrastructure which increases the barrier to entry and makes telecoms profitable as new subscribers want the service. At some point of saturation, telecoms run out of new markets and new subscribers. We've seen monopolies busted. We've seen new technologies: push button phones, two line phones, call forwarding and cordless phones. Heck we've seen telephone calls over those new fangled intertubes.

I'm curious, what were your most important phone calls? Leave a note in the comment section.

I thought about doing a quick improv game of telephone but that would be too trite.

Please keep the suggestions coming in!!!