深圳经济特区在建设初期,可以用“三个不”来形容,即“道路不平、电灯不明、电话不灵”。后来随着基建工程兵的南下,深圳的路是逐渐平了,电灯也明了,但在电话这一块,依旧是不灵的。
The Shenzhen Special Economic Zone could be described as “three-noes” in its early stage of construction: no flat road, no bright light, and no efficient telephone. After the southward movement of infrastructure engineers, roads were gradually leveled, and lights were brightened, but telephone communication remained poor.
1984年之前,深圳用的还是老式的纵横交换机,电话机是磁石手摇式的,俗称“摇把子”。全市的电话机只有500部,家庭都没有电话,即使是公务人员家里也没有电话,市政府临时通知开会,由工作人员骑着自行车一家家上门通知。市民要打电话就得去深圳市电话局里排队,有时一排就是几个小时。
Before 1984, old-fashioned crossbar telephone switches and telephones armed with magnetos and hand-cranks, commonly known as “cranks,” were still in use in Shenzhen. In the entire city, there were only 500 telephones, none of which belonged to households or civil servants. When the municipality called a meeting on short notice, staff would ride their bicycles door to door to spread the word. Citizens had to wait in line for hours at the Shenzhen Telephone Bureau to make a call.
打市内电话都如此不便,打长途电话或者国际长途电话就更复杂了。人们要先叫通长途台进行挂号,再告诉总机呼叫人的电话号码和姓名,以及被呼叫人的城市和电话号码。以上信息由长途台登记完毕后,挂号才算结束,这时呼叫人就只能先收线,然后在原地等着长途台的通话消息。大家都集中在办公时间来挂号,电话常占线,有时一个电话一天都打不通。
Making a local call was very inconvenient, much less a long-distance or international one.People had to call the long-distance station to register, then provide their phone number and name, as well as the city and telephone number of the subscriber they dialed.Once registration was complete, the long-distance station recorded the above information, at which point the caller had to hang up and wait for the long-distance station to leave a callback message. Because of the high volume of registrations during office hours, lines were often busy and even disconnected throughout the day.
内地的消息走不出去,外地的生意也不敢进来。有些来谈生意的港商都不敢在深圳过夜,生怕因为“电话不灵”的问题,错过了股市、汇市的行情,影响到商业上的决策。当时想来深圳发展的外商很多因为通话难的问题暂时搁置了投资项目。“通话难”成为当时深圳经济特区发展的一大瓶颈。
Localnews could not spread outoftheChinesemainland, thus outside businesses did not dare enter. Some Hong Kong businesspeople wereafraid ofanovernightstayin Shenzhen for fear ofmissing the stock andforeign exchange market, which could affect commercial decisions due to poor communication. This “difficulty of telecommunication” forced many foreign investors who wanted to develop in Shenzhen to temporarily shelve investment projects, which became a major bottleneck for the development of the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone.
为了彻底解决通话难的问题,深圳特区“新事新办,特事特办”,尝试引入外资合作经营市内电话业务。彼时,恰好香港的英国大东电报局公共有限公司(以下简称大东电报局)提出了与深圳市邮电局合资经营深大电话有限公司(以下简称深大电话公司)的想法,深圳市政府得知此事后便积极推动。1983年11月11日,深圳市电信发展公司(隶属于深圳市邮电局)和大东电报局签订了合资经营“深大电话有限公司”的合同,次日,深圳市政府就批准了该合同。同年11月28日,深大电话有限公司正式成立,自此,内地第一家中外合资电信运营企业在深圳诞生。
To fully address the issue of problematic telephone communication, the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone attempted to draw international investment in local telephone services with the principle of “handle new cases with new methods, handle special cases with special methods.” The idea of forming a joint venture, Shenda Telephone Co. Ltd. (SDT), by British Cable Wireless Public Company Limited (CW) in Hong Kong and Shenzhen Post Telecommunications Office (SPTO) prompted the Shenzhen government to push the cooperation. On November 11, 1983, the Shenzhen Telecom Development Company (SPTO-affiliated firm) inked a joint venture contract with CW, which was formally authorized by the Shenzhen government the following day. On November 28, SDT was officially established, and Shenzhen thus became the birthplace of the first Sino-foreign joint venture telecom operation firm on the Chinese mainland.
《关于合资经营“深大电话有限公司”合同的批复》
The approvaldocument of the joint venture contract for Shenda Telephone Co. Ltd.
今日互动:您还记得家里的第一台电话是什么时候装的吗?您有跟电话有关的故事吗?欢迎留言分享,小i将从留言中选取幸运儿送出小礼物。
Todaystopic:Do you remember when the first telephone was installed atyour home? Do you have any storiesabout telephone?Feel free to leave your comments andluckypeoplewill receive gifts.
来源:深圳市档案馆、i深圳
编译:深圳政府在线、Shenzhen Daily、GDToday
Transedited by: Shenzhen Government Online, Shenzhen Daily, GDToday