The latest phone book

If you’re not exactly a digital native, you’ll remember the bulky phone books with wafer-thin, densely written pages. Until the 1990s, they were used regularly – to look up a forgotten phone number, to ask for a date with a pounding heart or just for a childish joke. Today they have become rare.

The history of telephone books is closely linked to the technical development of telephony. The first attempts with the new medium of telephone took place as early as 1877 in Switzerland between Bern and Thun via a telegraph line. As a result, one deputy noted: “From the experiments I’ve done so far, I’ve got the impression that the phone is a marvel in the state of childhood, which has yet to undergo several improvements.”

The business community, on the other hand, was convinced of the new means of communication. In 1880, Wilhelm Ehrenberg, an entrepreneur active in Zurich, submitted a permit application to the Postal and Railway Department to build a telephone network in Zurich. The Federal Council decides to grant the concession. This is the first telephone directory in Switzerland with the designation « List of Zurich Telephone Society speaking stations » 1880 in Zurich. This first telephone directory in Switzerland – a thin book – contains 99 entries.

Shortly after this decision, the federal government probably regretted it, because the federal government relied on the “Regulation on [die] Build public telephone stations» since 1880 active in the construction and operation of public telephone stations and networks. After the Zurich network was bought back, the Confederation finally had all public networks under its control from 1886 onwards. Telephone lines are being installed throughout Switzerland, first in the economic centres, followed by the intercity connections between them. This means that calls can also be made between cities and no longer just in a city network.

The first such interurban telephone line is built between Zurich and Winterthur and goes into operation in 1883. It is an ambitious project for the federal government because the costs for the construction of the telephone network are very high. The telegraph director expects about 400 francs per kilometre. This corresponds to a current value of approximately 128,000 francs per kilometre. Nevertheless, the federal government tries not to let the taxes on telephony rise too high so that more and more people can afford a telephone.

However, in the early years of telephony, the purchase costs and call rates for a private telephone are expensive and – as with all telecommunications services – there is great skepticism among large parts of the population. In 1881 only a few hundred households still had a telephone connection.

However, the benefits of a telephone are so great that skepticism is diminishing. In 1882 there were already 1,000 connections. In 1895 there were 21,000 connections, in 1905 50,000 connections and in 1915 about 80,000 connections throughout Switzerland. However, due to the high connection costs and call costs, only wealthy individuals usually have a telephone. Many craftsmen are in the phone book for this, because a telephone as a fast means of communication brings professional advantages.

This remained the case until the 1920s. A division between urban and rural areas can also be clearly seen in telephone directory entries, as telephone lines are only gradually moved to the countryside. It is therefore not surprising that the telephone rings earlier in urban centers than in rural areas.

In 1925, 154,000 people in Switzerland already had a telephone connection; this with a population of about 3.8 million. After the Second World War, the number of connections continued to rise. The same goes for the annual report PTT about 415,000 connections listed as of 1945. A dedicated telephone line is slowly becoming the norm. To teach children how to use a telephone and telephone book as early as possible, they learn at school how to use the telephone rolls and how to find the telephone number of the baker or aunt in them.

Costs fall with every new connection and the increase in connections continues rapidly due to the economic growth in the post-war years. In 1965 there were already 1,466,000 connections, followed by a further increase to 3,277,000 in 1985. The peak was reached in 1995 with 4,318,000 connections. Due to an instruction from PTT of 1992, valid until liberalization in 1997, entry in the telephone book is obligatory for all fixed connections.

Between 1980 and 1997, virtually every household in Switzerland had a telephone connection. This means that each of these households is covered by a telephone directory entry. Because not all municipalities have published address books, the telephone books for these years are publicly accessible address files.

This mass production of phone books is a complex task to manufacture and an incredible mountain of paper. Richard Erisman, former CEO Swisscom Directories Ltdrecalls an estimate that a train carriage from Bern to Zurich could have been filled with paper from all telephone directories in a year’s time.

New analogue telephone directories were published every year for every municipality in Switzerland until 2022, but the number of copies and the number of entries are steadily falling. At the end of 2022, this era will come to an end and telephone books will then bear witness to an analogue world.