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Telstra pulls the plug on Australia's 'talking clock' which has given 'millisecond precise' time for the past 66 years. The Daily Mail reports that the phone service talking clock is to be shut down after 66 years.
The speaking clock function that gives people the precise time down to the second will be a thing of the past come October.
For the last 66 years, Australians have been able to dial 1194 to hear the old-fashioned voice of a man telling them the exact time. 'At the third stroke it will be 1.10 and 40 seconds,' before a beeping sound plays and the the new time is repeated.
The service still receives about two million calls a year - a lot considering today's technology.
Telstra, which provides the service's network and billing, is pulling the plug on October 1 - saying it's not compatible with their new network technology. It was always the best way of setting clocks, especially since many mobiles don't have visible seconds on their clock. I will miss it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 24 2019, @08:26PM (2 children)
Myself, I used to use this same time service (the US version) to set clocks/watches back in the days before I had a Linux PC with a working NTP syncing to the internet time servers.
Not long after I had a Linux machine running an NTP client (chrony to be exact) to keep its clock synchronized, I quit calling the telephone time service, because it was just easier to set the clock/watch that needed to be set using the computer as a time source rather than picking up a phone and dialing the call in time service.
However, two million calls in a year indicate that at least some people do still call the number. Presumably to set a clock, since there is not much of any other reason to ever call it. So I wonder what those people will do when it retires?
(Score: 1) by anubi on Wednesday July 24 2019, @11:28PM (1 child)
Is our WWV, Fort Collins, Colorado, next?
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 3, Informative) by Muad'Dave on Thursday July 25 2019, @02:02PM
They've already floated that possibility [npr.org].