Students study switchboard phone system in Internet Ecosystems course
Located within the fourth stack of Franklin Hall sits an old switchboard phone system, its origins and history relatively unknown. Believed to have been donated by the Smithville Phone Company to the university decades ago, the switchboard used to sit in the Radio-TV Building, but many of its facts of time and origin are a mystery.
Julien Mailland, an associate professor of media management, law, and policy at The Media School, believes the switchboard was given to IU in the late 1960s, based on a small, yellowed paper calendar from the year 1966 stuck onto the front of the equipment. He surmises that year may have been the last time the device was used.
Mailland is currently teaching a course titled Internet Ecosystems, which is part of the media management, law, and policy track. Lectures are often hands-on in an effort to help students understand the mechanics of everyday technology through physical demonstrations.
Mailland said the media management, law, and policy track aims to help students understand the basics of the technology they will use to do business in their desired industry. He named those that may go into marketing for a platform such as TikTok as an example, accentuating the importance of understanding its mechanics.
“The idea of this class is to give students the basis so that they can understand the technology, economics, and legal issues surrounding it, so that they can be proficient and educated in the industry that they go into,” he said.
In late February, Mailland taught a lesson on the history of telecommunications, delving into the mechanics of switchboards and other systems. He explained that initially, calls were connected manually by switchboard operators who then used a table to find the destination’s circuit. This method was relatively inefficient because it was limited to one call per line. In the 60s, computers introduced multiplexing, which allowed multiple calls to come through the same phone line.
After spending the first half of the class period lecturing, Mailland walked his class over to stack four in Franklin Hall where the switchboard now sits near a foosball table, allowing students to view it in person.
When Mailland previously taught classes at RTV, he said he used the switchboard as a visual demonstration within his lessons. For the Internet Ecosystems lecture, he said he wanted his students to view the switchboard in person so they could not only better comprehend the lecture content, but also to put certain mechanics into perspective.
Xavier DeVany, a junior majoring in media with a concentration in management, law, and policy, said he had never seen a switchboard in real life before taking Internet Ecosystems. He said seeing the switchboard up close helped him to better understand the concepts Mailland teaches in the course.
“Class material can simply be theoretical, so to see a tangible device that was used before a time that I can conceptualize makes the material feel more authentic, and it’s easier to understand when I have something that I can touch,” DeVany said.
“Learning needs to be visual and physical. If you can see the devices that are being talked about in class in person, and actually get a chance to interact with it, it makes things come full circle.”
Matt Pierce, a senior lecturer who specializes in telecommunications, said the switchboard is known as a “private branch exchange” or PBX switchboard, meaning it was likely used to direct calls within businesses, such as hotels and office buildings, that had many telephones.
Based on phone numbers posted on the switchboard for locations in Kokomo, Indiana, Pierce surmises it is there that the switchboard was last in service. The last time it was in use is unknown.
“The sticker on the switchboard for a time and temperature number sponsored by a bank in Kokomo, and the telephone number GLadstone 7-3271 on the dial, suggests this unit was last in service in Kokomo, Indiana,” he said in an email.
After extensive research, Pierce believes the system is part of the model 500 telephone series of switchboards that were used from the 1950s through the 80s. These models were manufactured by the engineering company Western Electric, which operated until 1996.
Although much of its history is up for debate, the switchboard still functions as a useful artifact to help students better conceptualize lessons and class concepts.