Born in 1933, it was the first automated system of its kind in the world.
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Voice extinction for the speaking clock. The first automated system in the world intended to give French legal time via a telephone call, will be stopped on July 1, 2022, Orange announced on Tuesday May 3. Accessible from all over France via 3699, this service “part of the French industrial heritage”according to the operator, cost 1.50 euro plus the price of the call.
Born in 1933, the speaking clock, a world first, was invented by Ernest Esclangon, astronomer and director of the Paris Observatory. Orange has been a partner of the Paris Observatory since 1991, when a dedicated infrastructure was built to ensure the distribution of legal time in France with a time precision of around 10 milliseconds.
The discontinuation of this historic service is the consequence of the “planned end of life” equipment essential to its operation, and above all “the steady and significant decline” number of calls to 3699. “The digitization of equipment, the multiplication of sources that can give the time (mobile phones, computers, tablets) inevitably contribute to this erosion”, Orange further explained in a press release.