Even less than a 150 years ago that would have been impossible. And prior to that communication among normal people could take months.
I remember calling someone in another country was super expensive but you could predial some super long numbers which made it cheaper somehow
Lol before smartphones became ubiquitious, my parents went to these stores to buy these weird pre-paid long-distance phone cards to relatives in China because in this era, minutes were still limited and data plans were expensive af.
Like you’d dial a local number in the US then you’d use the phone’s numpad to enter your destination number they’d call your desired number for you then connect you…
Idk how that worked
I saw them being sold anywhere from $10 to $50 with varying minutes
It’s kinda like a gift card. You scratch off a number in the back and that’s your access code, then you just call the number corresponding to your region.
Some phone cards were so scummy and they deducted your minutes while its waiting before it even gets connected. Or just calling to check minutes, and they deduct your minutes for that call before you actually make the long distance call. So you’d have to shop around in different stores to hope their phone cards are less scummy.
Ever since 2014/2015 they got actual smartphones and then just started using WeChat. Free calls and video calls over the internet. And now mobile data is unlimited (and actually affordable compared to before).
But problem is… now CCP is listening in the livingroom… 👀 (cuz they use voice memo instead of typing… so WeChat gets permanent access to the microphone permission…)
I used those to call back to the UK when I moved to the US, back around 2005.
When you entered the number you wanted to call, it would do a VOIP connection from the line you were on to that company to a line in the destination county. So it was an Internet call for the international part (which is how they did it cheaply).
I realized that because the cards I bought were from a company with “VOIP” in the name!
I had one of those Radio Shack tone dialler boxes so that I could pre-program the free US number and the card id number.
150 years? That would have been damned near impossible 25 years ago, or at least prohibitively expensive for a civilian to just do off the cuff.
I picked a longer timeframe because I knew people would have focused on non-civilian communication being possible.
Ventrilo was cool tooEdit: replied to the wrong comment.
I was once skyping from Germany with my friend who was deep in some South American jungle and my brother somewhere in an African rain forest.
And I had to tell them my line was about to drop because I was entering my town.
And I had to tell them my line was about to drop because I was entering my town.
In NYC subways, my parents would make phone calls on the D-line while it’s above ground, then once it was about to enter 36 street (upbound direction), they’d be like “about to enter the tunnels, call again when have time” and sometimes they’d keep talking until the signal actually gets cut off.
The most memorable part was the manhattan bridge. They’d get the phone ready and the once they see daylight (or sometimez the night lights, if it’s 6PM), they’d press call and talk for the entire duration of the bridge crossing. Like I remember once I was with my mom and we were heading home, and the subway got the the bridge segment, and mom called home to my older brother to tell him to start cooking the rice with the rice cooker so it’d be ready when we got home.
SO NOSTALGIC
Ok people, how do you get texts in the air? Do you have to buy airplane wifi?
American Airlines is offering free WiFi via AT&T. I also found out if you have WiFi calling enabled you’ll even get phone calls. But that also translates into SMS over WiFi. Baring that, iMessage, Signal, WhatsApp and Messenger all work over WiFi as they don’t need cell service, just internet.
Some airlines now provide different levels of free wifi the entire flight. Some require a free account that can be a pain to setup, some limit the access to specific apps like Whatsapp, and some like Qatar airways give you full high-speed low latency access.
But wifi on airplanes isn’t new, but used to be exclusively paid for slow internet access.
Early Chinese immigrants to the US had to write letters to get physically carried across the pacific ocean… which took like months I think. I don’t think a telegraph cable even exist across the ocean back then.
Now I can just video chat my aunts in China in HD in real time… (tbh I haven’t really talked to them since I left when I was 8, I only ever like briefly say a few words when mom was calling)
So bizzare to be born in this time period…
Like I could just summon any information on a glass thingy whenever I get curious
I can literally get to know someome 1400kms away and be a buddy with, and can do this with whoever i want in the world in about seconds if i just feel to, that’s crazy shit if ya ask me
Hey you
BE MY FRIEND¹
HI HI HI
OMG THIS IS CRAZY
THIS IS JUST ELEMENTAL WITCHCRAFT
This message isn’t real
You’re just hallucinating electrons
Lol
¹Just kidding… unless… 🥺👉👈
Dear wizard, i , axolotl magnificus, indeed want to be your friemd if you feel to
Lol so um… like… how do we do this? do we just click the button on the diplomacy menu and then… like… chill for the next 30 turns? (Civ Reference)
You didn’t give dates but there were definitely telegraph cables crossing the oceans prior to 1900’s
Were regular people able to send communication or was it just political/military/business communication?
I often find myself texting onboard an intercontinental flight, and in the other end is a coworker onboard a ship, so that we can plan the days ahead.
Back in 98, dad managed to reach me on board an intercoastal flight (bos to LAX) from a small sailboat heading to the bahamas. He was on a VHF and hailed a passing cruise ship. Their radio OP had i think a shortwave, and was radio buddies with some ATC guys in the Midwest. He reached out, and one of them went on the air asking if anyone in his airspace was flying BOS to LAX with an unacompanied minor. My plane responded, a stewardess came and got me, and I was able to talk to my dad for a few minutes before we went out of that tower’s VHF range (I guess)
GMDSS has a system and procedure for routing phonecalls over VHF. It’s expensive as hell, and the conversation happens over open frequencies, but it works for those times when there’s an emergency. Works all over the world where there’s maritime VHF comms and the GMDSS convention is in effect.
A coworker of mine got a scare once while we were doing a seismic survey far off the coast of Brazil. A message was passed down from the bridge that he had to come up and phone home ASAP. Cases like these rarely happens unless there’s a family emergency such as death and whatnot.
Well, we were all concerned for him, but when he came out to the backdeck, he was laughing at the entire ordeal. Turned out his dad had come across a really good offer for a quad bike, and needed to know if he should order it for him.
I’ve not been on a plane in a few years, and the idea that we have wifi on the plane seems weird
It’s a double-edged sword.
I would even go as far to say as we do not have it under control* right now it’s massively being exploited and endangering humanity.
*I’m missing a better word for this. I don’t mean government control but so corporate lobby and malevolent influence of other entities can’t run rampant.
I can’t get shit in the air.
Might be a digestion issue.
150 years ago, you being on a plane wouldve been unthinkable, let alone instantaneous international communication
Seriously I was astonished hearing our teenagers complaining the plane wifi “sucks” because they had bad ping at fortnite. Like seriously think about it 1 second ungrateful brats.
Didn’t have internet when I was in Guangzhou all the way until my family left China 2010
I still don’t know if it was even a thing in my area or if it was just because of money issues.
The idea of an airplane itself would he quite a stretch in 1876 considering the Wright brothers made their famous flight in 1903.
But instantaneous communication? They had telegraph at that time. Even international lines.
My point was more about instantaneous communication for civilians between a ship in the middle of the sea and an airplane half a world away.
Even if the plane existed you’re not gonna be running a telegraph cable to that or the ship. Even if you focused on radio, a general passenger wouldn’t be able to use it on a whim.
focused on radio
And there, you’d be looking at 1901 for the first trans-Atlantic signal.
But then again, a general passenger couldn’t use the plane’s radio on a whim back in – oh, 2003 (first airplane wifi came about in 2004 apparently). There are some layers to this thought.
Even 30 years ago it was possible, but not easy, and definitely not cheap
You think that’s crazy, how about the fact that we have the tech to record and remotely view the conversation you two had from anywhere in the world. Computers, man…
For a while now I’ve had a theory that there is a positive correlation between our emotional intelligence and our expanding ability to communicate.
Civilian Instant messaging from a ship in the Mediterranean to a Commercial plane over the US was impossible 10 years ago.
10 years ago was 2015. In-flight wifi was definitely already a thing. I just pulled this from an old email.
Enjoy 20 live TV channels and a wide array of on demand TV options as well as other services including WiFi connectivity, messaging, and movies!
This is from Southwest Airlines from 2014.
Actually ten years ago was 2016 and public WiFi absolutely sucked ten years ago.
Look I said 10 years ago it would have been rare but you certainly don’t need to go back 150 years.
It wouldn’t have been rare at all because it wasn’t rare.
Yes, you wouldn’t be video chatting (and still shouldn’t be… it is a plane for crying out loud). But emails were 100% a thing and I had plenty of gchat conversations with colleagues that included the phrase “We are about to land, Ill get back to you when I am at my hotel”.
Yeah people are talking like 2016 was 2006.
Like remember how much better Skype was in 2012 than any of the crap we have now?
Ventrilo was cool too
Vi sitter i Ventrilo och spelar DotA
I feel you man
VENT! Ha, I remember using that back in the Counterstrike days.
I’m supposed to say ‘fun times’, but I sucked at Counterstrike. Not actually that much fun for me.
Xfire’s corpse in the corner: …
Holy shit, xfire… That’s a deep cut.
Unreliable certainly. For as long as there’s radio coverage there’s a way, but it used to be impractical to give passengers enough bandwidth. 20 years ago you’d have to ask the captain nicely to get a call routed (read: have an emergency)
If you allow civilian HAM radio, you go back a few more decades (not quite applicable to planes, but definitely applicable to boats). If you allow Morse code you go back yet a little further.
I can get real-time death threats from some kid from Australia while sitting in Europe, it’s truly a great time to be alive
