Why the personal interest with the North Pittsburgh Telephone Company?
Why in the world is the Telephone World webmaster so intersted in a small independent telephone company? The answer is simple I used to live in the area served by this phone company. Back in January 1982, I moved to Gibsonia, PA and was served by North Pittsburgh for telephone service. Prior to this, I lived in western Washington state, which was served by Pacific Northwest Bell (later US West, now Qwest). As was the case for most modern Bell areas, the area was served by #1AESS and #5 Crossbar switches. These for the most part were quite boring and not much character to them. But, back in the early to mid-1980s, North Pittsburgh and the surrounding area (United Telephone (now Sprint) for the north, for example) had a variety of switching types Step by Step, Crossbar and early electronic switches. These provided character to what normally was a mundane system. I lived in the Gibsonia exchange area, which at that time was served by a #1EAX (Electronic Automatic Exchange) which was Autom
