My daughter, Emma, soon to be 13, is in the office with me today and I had some fun sharing with her a couple of facts from this Alcatel-Lucent infographic about the history of the copper telephone line. Two examples: In 1918 it took an average of 15 minutes just to set up a call and it wasn’t until 1940 that telephone numbers allowed for direct customer dialing.

I’m glad she didn’t ask if I remembered these milestones.