who was the original "disconnect lady" and who's voice is on the telco
recordings now (also on the time and temperature recordings)?

---

Request for Question Clarification by mvguy-ga on 07 Aug 2002 14:38 PDT

For which telephone company or companies?

---

Request for Question Clarification by lisarea-ga on 07 Aug 2002 16:13 PDT

I could've sworn I filed this one in LONG-term memory, but apparently
not.

Maybe if I leave a few clues, someone else will be able to find the
info.

1. Certain nerdly elements at Bell Labs/Lucent still celebrate her
birthday. I believe she's still alive (or was a few years back, last
time I was rubbing elbows with that particular herd of nerds).

2. I think her name is Grace or Mary or something like that. 

3. Somewhere, out there in the world is a story that describes how she
read each number in a practiced tone of voice so the numbers could be
cobbled together electronically without sounding too dissonant. She
worked some incredibly long hours at a time, getting the recordings
just right, and there's some little tidbit about her getting something
like $250 for the first job. That last part could be something else
entirely, though.

4. I *think* she did her first recording around the time that the
original Electronic Switching System (ESS) was introduced, sometime in
the mid-60s or thereabouts.

5. It's on the tip of my tongue, so if anyone knows a good tongue
surgeon, let me know.

And someone hurry up and answer this one. I really need to get some
sleep tonight.

Lisa.

If you'll forgive me a slight detour here before I answer your
question, I'd like to take a moment to acknowledge the seamy
underbelly of Google Answers. Certain questions set into motion a
veritable frenzy of activity, resulting in a team of researchers
searching desparately for an answer, similar to the common film
portrayals of hardnosed detectives tracking down a serial killer. OK.
I'm exaggerating. I just wanted to point out that it was pinkfreud-ga
who actually found your answer, but she's being all coy and making me
answer it instead of her.

So, with no further ado, the voice in question belongs to one...

Jane Barbie!

From the 15th edition of Newton's Telecom Dictionary by Harry Newton:

"Barbie, Jane. The electronic "Voice With A Smile" on many telephone
company intercept recordings. Ms. Barbie does her work for Electronic
Communications, Inc. of Atlanta, GA."

Here's a direct link to archives from the Telecom Digest that
pinkfreud located:

http://hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives/back.issues/1992.volume.12/vol12.iss501-550

From this archive:

"Subject: Re: Jane Barbie (was The Purpose of the Three Tones) 

In article <telecom12.483.4@eecs.nwu.edu> edg@netcom.com (Ed
Greenberg)
writes: 

> Jane is a real person who recorded for the Bell System for many
years.

Here in Ohio Bell territory, it has become rather rare to hear the 
pleasant woman's voice admonishing you to "first dial a '1'," or 
saying much of anything else for that matter. 

Instead we get a recording that sounds like it was made by a tech who
didn't like OBT anymore. It's extremely scratchy, and typically goes 
like this: 

"<unintelligable> call as dialed. Please <unintelligable> 
try your call again." "

and 

"In article <telecom12.496.8@eecs.nwu.edu> shaun@octel.com (Shaun
Case)
writes: 

> Jane Barbie is the real name of the woman who did the American 
> English Aspen prompts. There's a signed B&W photo of her up in our 
> voice lab, which I just viewed scant moments ago. Jane also did
voice
> work for Pac Bell, specifically directory assistance (411) and 
> time-of-day (767xxxx). Yah, she's the Time Lady. If we had a scanner
> handy, I'd post a GIF, but ... alas. 

Jane Barbie was also the female voice heard on the voice-overs for 
WWVH (the Hawaiian version of WWV). 


[Moderator's Note: Her voice was also used for Time of Day here in 
Chicago for many years (312-CAThedral-8000). She had recorded the 
phrase 'at the signal, the time will be' and the digits which were 
then patched together as appropriate. PAT] 

------------------------------ 

Date: Sun, 21 Jun 92 13:00:15 -0400 
From: krfiny!jeffj@uunet.uu.net 
Subject: Re: Jane Barbie (was The Purpose of the Three Tones) 


Here's an article of tangental TELCOM interest I'm forwarding from 
sci.electronics: 

from helfman@aero.org (Robert S. Helfman) 
Message-ID: <1992Jun16.071044.1540@aero.org> 
Subject: Re: Accurate Clock thru RS-232?? 

Visiting WWV was a real kick for me as an adult, because as a kid, I 
remember hearing that voice booming out of the night "National Bureau
of Standards WWV. When the tone returns, Eastern Standard Time is: xx
hours xx minutes". Of course the wording changed when Washington 
discovered someone lived west of the Mississippi and they went first 
to Greenwich Mean Time, then UCT. 

The voice announcements were done by Don Elliott of Atlanta; the guy 
now (the format changed a couple of years ago, I think) seems to have
a distinctly Eastern-seaboard sound, to my ears. (Does anyone know any
more about who it is?) The "At the tone, xx hours xx minutes 
Coordinated Universal Time" has a slightly stilted "lilt" to it that 
conjures up "The East". 

The announcer for WWVH in Hawaii was Jane Barbe of Atlanta, who was, I
believe, the "Time Lady" and several other announcements for the 
former Bell System and the Baby Bells (y'all devotees of 'comp.dcom. 
telecom' probably know that already!) "

You can also reach the archives of this mailing list here:

http://telecomdigest.org

It's a great resource for telco-related questions, and they're all
really nice people, too.

Hope this answers your question. 

Lisa.

Search terms:

Pinkfreud searched on:

://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=%22her+voice%22+numbers+%22intercept+recording

to come up with her relevant link.

I searched on a bunch of things that didn't work; and then, once I had
the name, I searched under my desk, where I found my copy of Newton's
Telecom Dictionary.

---

Clarification of Answer by lisarea-ga on 07 Aug 2002 19:15 PDT

The plot thickens!

The correct spelling is:

Jane Barbe

Here's here webpage:

http://www.etcia.com/jane_barbe.html

And here's more information on her:

http://www.navyrelics.com/tribute/telephonetrivia.html

A Google search on "Jane Barbe" brings up lots of other relevant links
to her as well.

thank you, your research really helped me, and now I have posted a new
question! Great job!

Then: 
1) Joan Kenley
2) ???

Now: 
1) A computer
2) Joan Kenley


Wired Magazine Online Version, _Voice of the Revolution_, September,
1995 by Sarah Borruso:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/3.09/voices_pr.html

I remember an article in Reader's Digest about her sometimes in 1995. 
She lives in San Francisco, I believe.

>> Of course the wording changed when Washington  
discovered someone lived west of the Mississippi and they went first
to Greenwich Mean Time, then UCT. << 
 
Small correction. There is no such time as "UCT" or "CUT"; the correct
abbreviation is "UTC". See International Standard ISO 8601 for more
(ANSI X3.30 and NIST FIPS 4-1 in the US, and EN 28601 in Europe).

It is short for Co-ordinated Universal Time, but UTC is one of a
series of UT time scales UT, UT0, UT1, etc based on various reference
points of the Earths orbit and motion. See "The Calendar FAQ" for more
on that, or the Date and Time information in the Usenet sci.astro
FAQs.