What Happened to the Answering Machine?

Why did 6 of every 10 American homes keep an answering machine in 1997, and where did it go? Its fate was set in a Washington courtroom in March 1988, when a federal judge let the Bell companies store your messages. For decades the Bell System kept recording devices off its lines. Inventors built machines that lifted the handset, PhoneMate sold a 20-message reel-to-reel model in 1971, and in 1990 alone Americans bought more than 11 million. Judge Harold Greene bet the cheap box would keep phone company voice mail in check. For a decade, it did. What this video covers: 1934 - The Bell Labs answering machine its own company buried 1954 - The FCC finds no need for answering devices 1971 - PhoneMate and the fight to plug in without permission 1988 - The judge's wager on the box beside your phone 1991 - Home voice mail arrives with a stuttering dial tone 1999 - Bell Atlantic concedes that most homes still prefer the box If you ever stood over the machine with your arms folded, deciding whether to pick up, tell us whose voice you were waiting for. Subscribe for more histories of the sounds and machines that filled American homes. The phone company fought the box for decades, then took its job.