SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
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 Thursday July 25 2019, @04:01AM
You have made a demonstrably untrue statement.
Example 1: When the existing technology is based on the RS-232 protocol and the new stuff is ethernet, the existing twisted-pair copper wiring will have to be replaced, if it was installed when RS-232 was the new juice. Furthermore, a service implemented using RS-232 is not going to work side-by-side with ethernet over the same copper; It would need RS-232->ethernet bridging equipment installed, at the very least, along with all the extra configuration overhead and on-going maintenance that would entail.
Example 2: Broadcast TV going digital. Once that slice of spectrum is re-purposed for digital TV, existing analog TV receivers cease working.
That being said, both those examples are hardware issues, and need not have any impact on an end-user of a service. A talking clock can most certainly be re-implemented in whatever new back-end tech they're rolling out. The decision not to is pure greed on their part.