On Wed, 14 Feb 2007 20:36:13 -0500, "Don Phillipson"
wrote:

"mm" wrote in message
.. .

Did dial-up ever cause a shortage of phone lines? I never heard that,
but I am surprised if the phone companies had the capacity to fulfill
maybe a 50 to 300% increase in demand over the course of 10 years,
from soon after dial-up's startup to its peak. . . .
When I first got dialup, there weren't that many ways to use the Net,
I didn't have that as many ways as one might have. So I was only on
an hour or two a day. And even when I got more uses, I tried to stay
on no more than maybe 3 hours to not tie up the phone lines. . . .
Cnversely, is there now a lot of excess capacity on phone-only lines,
now that many people have switched to cable? Doesn't even
switching to DSL end up using new central station hardware, leaving
old phone-only hardware unused?

This seems unlikely because intercity calls began approx.
1960 to use microwave rather than cable links between
cities.

I wasn't really thinking about intercity, only about the number of
lines in and out of my local exchange, and in and out of the exchanges
that provide service to ISPs. And I also mean whatever resources I
use when I'm on the phone.

After all, there was a reason they promoted party lines, or ONLY
provided party lines some place, so that only one party out of all
those sharing a party line could use the phone at the same time, that
it takes resources for each phone line.

In locations where everyone had a private line, that worked I believe
because they knew not everyone would be on the phone at the same time.
All day is farily busy, and there are probably especially busy times,
different ones for downtown versus residential areas. But not
everyone is on the phone at the same time. When 20 to 40 to 80
million people in the 90's were on the phone for an extra 3, 6, 16
hours a day, how did they have enough of these resources? Again, not
talking about the functions that microwaves perform.


Modern circuitry has allowed microwave capacity
to increase to supply current demand just about all the
time. Even if cell phones do not wholly supersede
wired telephones, the same circuitry could be applied
to supply phone service on a smaller scale.

I don't understand the last sentence.