Telephone

The telephone was first installed in Jura in 1898. It was put at the Post Office. The maintenance cost was of 5 pound per year and was paid by the Jura Association. Later, two further phones were installed in Ballard and at the Jura Hotel. As all these three phones were on the same line, the addressee of the phone call was established by the number of rings.

Little progress occurred until 1949, when a manual exchange with 20 lines was installed. Effie MacDougall was the telephonist for 25 years. To make a phone call, we needed to pick up the phone and ask Effie to be put in contact with one of the 50 lines we were looking for. After that, an automatic exchange with 50 lines was finally installed.

The system was modernised in 1994 with the installation of a digital exchange. From then, all the subscribers to the line were given a 6 digit numbers. Most of the islanders know many numbers by heart, as the landline remains the first form of media communication given that there is little to none mobile signal on the island.