[Craig Sawyers]

I suppose you guys already know the Strowager story? He was an undertaker in Kansas city. But his competitor's wife was a switchboard operator. So when someone tearfully told her that they needed an undertaker, his competitor got the job.

So Strowager reasoned that an impartial system had to do away with the switchboard, and set about automating it, eventually setting up a company to commercialise his patent, which covered pulse dialling and connection apparatus to route the call.

Craig