Well, well, well. This week, 100 years ago, Geelong was the first city of many to receive a new, automated telephone exchange. In its day, it was the first automated Telephone Exchange in the Southern Hemisphere and the second in the entire British Empire. I guess Australia has always been a tad ahead telecommunications wise.
Today, you wouldn’t even think of talking to an operator, just to catch up with a friend, but rewind 100 years, it was on a whole new level of its own. It was described by the Geelong Advertiser as “supernatural” and “ingenious”, words which we would definitely not use to describe our copper network today. How times have changed! Telstra have uploaded a set of photos onto Flickr, so check them out here!