Say goodbye to our beloved telephone operators. AT&T has announced that on January 1st of 2023, customers with digital landlines will no longer be able to dial 0 for an operator or call 411 for directory services.
This comes a year after the company already ended these services for its wireless customers. AT&T is not the first to make this change. The age of the internet has made these services all but obsolete.
When landline telephones were first being popularized in the early 1900s, an operator had to physically change the cables to make the connection, next came electronic switchboards. Now with the internet, the services 411 or an operator provided are easily sourced without having to speak to anyone.
According to Bloomberg while AT&T has 200 million wireless customers, it only has 8.5 million landline connections.
In 2000, Verizon switched to an automated menu to handle incoming calls. According to a Verizon statement, nearly 40% of their inquiries were miscellaneous requests, like asking for the temperature and cooking time for turkey.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics only 550 operators in the US were employed in 2021. That’s barely a fraction compared to the 180,000 operators who worked post World War I and the 350,000 who were employed by telephone companies in the mid 20th century.
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The US Department of Agriculture has announced that over $500 million will be used to connect the unconnected. Many rural areas across the United States have little to no access to high speed internet. Which is why this program is targeting rural communities in Alabama, Alaska, California, Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas, and Wyoming.
Federal funds will be awarded in a combination of grants and loans and will be providing access to affordable high-speed internet for these communities who are often overlooked. Details of how the funds will be deployed are pending.
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