In France, the era of automatic time announcements ended after 89 years on Friday night. At midnight, the state telephone company stopped the service, announcing the time until the second and after the fourth beep for a fee of 1.50 euros.
The service has been used less and less in recent years. Since practically everyone can see the exact time by looking at their smartphone, there was hardly any need for it.
That was different on the launch day in 1933, according to broadcaster BFMTV. On February 14, the world’s first automatic speaking time announcement went into effect at the Paris Observatory, an astronomy research center. 140,000 calls were received on the 20 lines, of which only 20,000 could be answered by the technology at the time.
Previously, employees there had to answer questions about time personally on a telephone line. The technology is continuously modernized. Since 1991, the announcement has been linked to an atomic clock in the observatory. With the stored syllables, the service could have run until 2085 without further effort.
Source: Krone
I am Ida Scott, a journalist and content author with a passion for uncovering the truth. I have been writing professionally for Today Times Live since 2020 and specialize in political news. My career began when I was just 17; I had already developed a knack for research and an eye for detail which made me stand out from my peers.
