Design Line, also known as Deco-Tel, is a brand name that AT&T has used for several of its specialty telephone designs to fulfill the demand by customers for more variety in telephone models.
Design Line, also known as Deco-Tel, is a brand name that AT&T has used for several of its specialty telephone designs to fulfill the demand by customers for more variety in telephone models.
In the early 1970s, well before the Bell System divestiture, customers in increasing numbers chose to install and use telephones not manufactured by Western Electric, AT&T's wholly owned subsidiary. To fulfill the demand, the Bell System decided to offer a series of specialty telephones that could be purchased or leased. The series was called the Design Line telephones. The name did not refer to one particular telephone type; rather Design Line was the collective name given to all the specialty phones, including the Candlestick phone, Country Junction phone, Mickey Mouse phone and others. [1] The phones were among the few that could be purchased in the early 1970s.
Western Electric broke tradition, by obtaining housings for some of the sets from other manufacturers or local contractors in Indianapolis. In all cases, Western Electric supplied the internal electrical components of the phones, such as ringer, receiver, transmitter, and induction coils. Early Design Line sets displayed this disclaimer:
As a consequence, Bell customers still had to pay a monthly lease fee in order to rent the phone's internal components, which remained the property and responsibility of the local Bell provider. Design Line phones are among the few lines of phones produced by Western Electric that were more renowned for looks than durability. Because the majority of the Design Line phone housings were not made by Western Electric, Bell System standards were less stringent for exterior housings than for the phone's internals.
Beginning in around 1980, the Bell System allowed customers to own the entire phone, including internal components. Sets were marked with "CS" to indicate the phone was entirely customer owned.
Some Design Line sets had the option of rotary or touch-tone dialing others were only available with one or the other. The Design Line telephones available from the Bell Telephone Company around 1980 include: [2]
Other Design Line telephones available in the 1970s and early 1980s include: [1]
The arrangement in which Western Electric components were installed into Japanese-made housings ended around the time of divestiture. Character phones, such as the Mickey Mouse phone, were made in China using the Trimline handset, rather than just the receiver with dial in the base. These phones were still sold as a part of the Design Line series.
In 1985, AT&T Technologies redesigned its consumer telephone products to be cheaper to build and be more competitive in the marketplace by adding electronic ringers and a redial function. In 1986, they moved telephone production out of the United States. After this time several new Design Line series telephones were marketed and discontinued. One example of a "Design Line" phone was model 140, marketed in the mid 90s. The phone was similar in size to the 2554 wall phone, but had unique features:
The phone also required a handset cord which had a long straight section as the connector to the base was located on the bottom of the phone, and not facing outward on the side.
In 2000, Lucent Technologies spun off its consumer telephone division, resulting in the Design Line being redesigned. The basic design was retained, except that the handset was more rectangular in shape, and an "AT&T" badge was placed on the outside of the handset. The phone also replaced the traditional 100 series (the 2500 and 2554 telephones) for consumer use, as Lucent kept the phones because of their high demand for business use after spinning off its consumer division.
A telephone is a telecommunications device that permits two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most efficiently the human voice, into electronic signals that are transmitted via cables and other communication channels to another telephone which reproduces the sound to the receiving user. The term is derived from Greek: τῆλε and φωνή, together meaning distant voice. A common short form of the term is phone, which came into use early in the telephone's history.
The Western Electric Company was an American electrical engineering and manufacturing company officially founded in 1869. A subsidiary of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company for most of its lifespan, it served as the primary equipment manufacturer, supplier, and purchasing agent for the Bell System from 1881 until 1984, when the system was dismantled. The company was responsible for many technological innovations, as well as developments in industrial management.
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The model 302 telephone is a desk set telephone that was manufactured in the United States by Western Electric from 1937 until 1955, and by Northern Electric in Canada until the late 1950s, until well after the introduction of the 500-type telephone in 1949. The sets were routinely refurbished into the 1960s. It was one of the most widely used American combined telephone sets to include the ringer and network circuitry in the same telephone housing.
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The Trimphone is a model of telephone designed in the early 1960s in the UK, the first prototypes appearing in 1965. It was positioned as a more fashionable alternative to the standard telephones available from the Post Office Telephones, the nationalised predecessor to British Telecom. The name is an acronym standing for Tone Ring Illuminator Model, referring to the then innovative electronic ringer and the illuminated dial. The luminous dial or betalight contained the mildly radioactive element tritium, which later caused some concern about safety. In June 1991 the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority at Harwell was fined £3,000 by Wantage Magistrates Court for accumulating radioactive waste, having collected several thousand Trimphone luminous dials in a skip.
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