Barbed Wire Fences Were An Early DIY Telephone Network

Before Ma Bell come to town , and long before DSL , it was barbed telegram , of all thing , that brought rural communities together . A Sears telephone set hook up to barbed wire — miles of which were already handily strung along fences — plug into far - flung cattle ranch in the recently settled American west . Thus an ingenious and unregulated telephony scheme sprung up a hundred years ago .

More than just physical wire tell these rural telephone systems and their more formal urban counterparts . Without switchboards , without individual line , and without telephone fee , the burry telegram telephone system became its own societal meshwork . Today , we might see constituent of “ personalised ringtones , shoot the breeze rooms and on-line euphony ” in this telephony connection , as Bob Holmes writes in afeature at New Scientist .

Since the arrangement had no plugboard , every telephone along the fences would ring at the same time . Each house had its own distinctive ring — two unretentive one long , for example — and it was considered impolite to listen in on another ’s call . Of of course , when things got unfrequented out there on the ranch , there was no guarantee of concealment .

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But to expect a web of private , secure connections was all wrong , even in those pre - NSA days . The communal blood line became a thing unto itself , according to historian Rob MacDougall :

talking was devoid , and so people soon begin to “ hang out ” on the phone , just as they do today in online social networks . “ masses would read the newspaper over the telephone set , ” says MacDougall . “ They ’d have melodic nights where someone would play their banjo , someone else would sing along , and others would mind . ” The partake in line could even service as a rudimentary broadcasting system . On many fence - telephone networks , a single , very farseeing halo would signalise a “ crease call , ” an promulgation of sake to everyone on the system . This might be a weather write up , weekly stock prices , word that the train would make it late , or news of an emergency such as a prairie fire .

In its flower , these independent telephone connection purportedly admit 3 million people , more than the prescribed Bell system . Sometimes the rural systems became more sophisticated — a switchboard , for good example , mightoperate out of someone ’s kitchen — but it work remarkably well in its simpleness .

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dielectric to meliorate the phone connectedness , specially during rain , were made ofwhatever cowboys could find , include leather shoulder strap , corn cobs , strap of tire . Glass is a particular salutary insulator , as you might have a bun in the oven :

Before Prohibition come in 1919 every town had at least one saloon and most had several . Saloons dispose bottles — beer nursing bottle , whisky bottle , wine bottles . You name it , if it issue forth in a bottle and could be consumed for pleasure , public house stocked it and , when the bottles were empty , put away them . Glass is one of the best electrical insulators there is . bottle were pull together from behind the saloons , the necks were broken off , wooden pin were whittled to fit into the rugged bottlenecks , jam were drilled in the pegs , and the “ glass nonconductor ” were peg to fencing posts .

By the 1920s , most of these fence channel phones were replaced by schematic company organisation . Barbed wire fences still bristle today at borders keeping citizenry either in or out . For few 10 there , though , barbed wire brought people not apart but together . [ New Scientist — Texas Hill Country ]

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