2500 AT&T

[Pourme]

~

I posted earlier about this phone on the "first" phone bought in 2019, thread. I have a gutless WE 317s (included a pic), I rescued from a dealer. It made a attractive wall hanger, but useless.  I want to find a donar 2500 I could use to breathe new life into the 317, doing no more harm to the phone.
I found this 2500 in a shop for $5.60+tax. I knew NOTHING about these phones but was willing to risk $6 on it. It won't help my 317 but, this piece has made me take a hard look at the evolution of of phones. As collectors we celebrate them as the beautiful, practical, dependable, easy to operate, communication instruments the are and have been through the decades. 
We, as collectors, have many examples of each step along the path, shouldn't we have at least one example of the finished product, just before we all stuffed them into our pockets?
It works really well, I dropped it on my foot and it just bounced till it hit a wall....No harm to foot or phone. This body used to look like that because it took that much space to house the 'innards'. Eighty percent of the inside of this one is just air.
Well, I cleaned it up, I'll find it a place where it can represent the fact that sometime it's not so much the destination that matters but, it's the journey.

I continue to celebrate the journey!

Benny

[HarrySmith]

Good buy. Yes, the evolution of electronics is pretty amazing. When I was in the Navy, early 1970's, the computers that ran the sonar system had cabinets about 7 feet tall & 4 feet wide stuffed with circuit boards. There must have been about 50 of them, all housed in special air conditioned spaces. The only spaces on the ship other than the officers quarters that had A/C. Now all that would probably fit in your pocket! I have a NOS circuit board at home from 1957 that was used in a radar system. I will get a picture of it up here tonight. Pretty amazing!

[Pourme]

I too an old enough to have witnessed a lot of this technical journey. It has had my interest since I can remember. The first hand held "transistor radio" was a biggie for me....Mine was a Channel Master....I even remember the smell!

[RB]

I have one of those ATT 100's too...
Don't know what I am gonna do with it???

[Stormcrash]

Personally I have a soft spot for 80's/90's AT&T stuff.  These Traditional 100 phones, while certainly not classics or rotary, are perfectly fine phones.  Even after the end of US manufacturing, at least AT&T phones continued to be well built and reliable in the context of their day

[shadow67]

My parents just gave me this one from my childhood home. Dated 1985. Still has the original number card on it. Even though it is AT&T and not Western Electric, Dad said it came from Illinois Bell.

[Stormcrash]

Very cool Shadow!  I wonder if Illinois Bell/Ameritech had some deal with AT&T.  Interesting that your 2500 has an electronic ringer, I have a pair of AT&T 2500 phones from 84 that have bell ringers in them, but strange short travel buttons on the dial.  Do the dial buttons on yours have a lot of travel to them?

[dsk]

This story (about the 2500) shows me clearly the difference in the development in Norway VS. USA.

In 1953 they designed the last version with traditional ringers here.  Next step was a new rotary (dialog version) with dynamic transmitter, and electronic ringer.  (OK the did a limited testing with a push-button replacement, but these were only used by employees in the tel-co etc.)

First in 1982 the push-button telephone came to the regular users, it was a totally new design, fully electronic and was made in 2 versions DTMF and pulse.  The cowers was delivered in several colors, and could be changed by the user.

And so came the deregulation, a great number of telephones made in foreign countries, new standards of telephone jacks replaced the old 3 prong plug/jack (RJ 45 with some different pinouts depending on telecos, adaptors to foreign standard plugs etc.) A period where ISDN was popular...

Today the landline are almost history, even VOIP is loosing, and the telephone jacks are officially standardized to RJ45  using the 2 center pins. The truth is that people use what they have, 3-prongs, RJ-something, twist and tape or???

I guess I know 3 other families with something more than mobiles, even at job we only have mobiles. (we are about 100 at job)

[Pourme]

Personally I have a soft spot for 80's/90's AT&T stuff.  These Traditional 100 phones, while certainly not classics or rotary, are perfectly fine phones.  Even after the end of US manufacturing, at least AT&T phones continued to be well built and reliable in the context of their day

A very good point. Where as these in comparison to our 3 to 4 pound (or more) phones, it's easy for us to say these are cheap plastic phones. The other side of the coin is that the quality we are used to in our collectible phones is alive and well in these phones, I consider the end of the line for "The Telephone" journey.

I have used mine for a few days and it is a very good phone. The quality of it is apparent. It is most certainly is disposable and not meant to be repaired. Which is in keeping with the standard of the day. Most things are meant for a xx-years of use then replaced. This will probably be usable decades into the future.   

I'm pleased to have this one here to represent it's place in the natural historical progress of telephony. 

Mine finished.

[shadow67]

Stormcrash, the buttons are what I would consider to be standard travel, not short. It has AT&T embossed under the handset and on the body. Plugged it in and called it. Loud electronic ring. thanks

[Stormcrash]

I have used mine for a few days and it is a very good phone. The quality of it is apparent. It is most certainly is disposable and not meant to be repaired. Which is in keeping with the standard of the day.

I think this sums it up pretty nicely.  Repairability and quality are two distinct factors of a product.  It is possible to have a durable, reliable and overall good product even if it's not repairable.  With the rapid increase in electronics integration and the shift away from telephone leasing to ownership, AT&T cut the repairability of the phones, while still making an overall quality product. 

Given how streached the cord was in the first photo on the thread, along with some grime and scratches, you can tell that phone saw a lot of use.  Yet it still works perfectly and has held up very well physically.  Since this has an AT&T property sticker apparently even lease phones made more sense to replace if they failed then repair, as long as the quality meant they wouldn't need replacement very often.

Stormcrash, the buttons are what I would consider to be standard travel, not short. It has AT&T embossed under the handset and on the body. Plugged it in and called it. Loud electronic ring. thanks

Thanks Shadow for the update.  Seems there was a lot of flux in AT&T designs right after the breakup.  The Trimline went through  3 revisions in as many years, so it makes sense that the 2500 did as well.  Was yours still made in the US?  I wonder if the short travel keypads were made by Western Electric prior to breakup for CS units?  They almost feel like clicking on a mouse button, and visually they only move about a millimeter.  Annoyingly both of my 84 2500 phones have a bit of hiss/whine to them that no other phones on my line do, I suspect something in the newer network or keypad used on them.

[shadow67]

Yes the bottom of the phone says AT&T Technologies Made In USA

[robert_m]

Yes that appears to be ATT Consumer Lease Products Phone, I dont beleive they offered that one in years, its the signature traditional and has been for a long time, but pretty sure they still have the older 2500s and older trimlines still for lease in a few select colors.

For those that dont know you can still lease, its QLT now instead of ATT but same stuff.  I Still lease 2 princesses from them, breaks no problem, want diffrent phone or phone color no problem.....  they send new or reconditioned, you put yours back in box slap label on and put in mail box. DONE.

Ive have a few signatures go bad since ive been leasing from them since around 1992.  And had a couple turn yellowed (UV) no problem they replace it, no cost to me.