RT&T

* See also Utility_Stuff and Utility_Distribution
* See also Rapture Society
* See also Rapture_Electronics and Technologies
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The Rapture's Central Phone System was based in a section of Minervas Den.
Central switching between building cluster 'Local Offices'
Phone lines 'bundled' with other utilities in the 'Utility Aqueducts' traversing Rapture.
The technology start point would likely be the latest WW2 Era Technology. Rapture might then 'upgrade', but consider that the system needs a consistent system to have any utility.
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Rapture Phone System :
* RT&T - Rapture Telephone and Telegraph
* Many phone wires were later damaged by Splicers running around inside the walls ( were chewed on/whatever )
* Wires damage by water problems ( collapsed sections, etc ... ).
* Relay systems in "Local Office" have to be working (and the city exchange) - usually one Local Office per large building
* Inter-office Lines have to be intact, many trunk lines go all the way back to the central switching ( in Minervas Den )
* Local Switchboards used in buildings could be substituted - requires an operator (NPC)
* Many Public Payphones - usable by general public (for a fee) - Payphone calls $1
* 'Private' lines connected to the Exchange ( 'Upper Tier' Residences have them usually )
* An Independent system can be setup if equipment is available ( ie- within an industrial complex - again with operator )
* Separate Call-Box system for City Constables ( simpler system for safety apparatus )
* Clandestine phone lines (generally simpler) might be utilized well before Rapture had its 'Troubles'. Knowledge and equipment to set such up is not unobtainable.
MMORPG : 
* Connectivity back to city utilities grid (phone exchanges) required before can be used.
* Phone line to the city exchange is quite useful - often a priority to get working to your project worksite ( temp system at least ) for issuing orders, buying supplies, etc...
* Restoring phone service in a Residential Block/Business/Factory/Industrial site required to meet prestige 'achievement'.
* Player Missions to repair phone lines in various locations.
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Phone Numbers Listed on Payphones - Rather Odd that They Are so Long :
:Operator 8790843
:Security 9809804
:Medical 8092309 ( Seriously you could bleed to death dialing a number this long )
Ignoring illogical numbers, If these 'services' were subject to 'private' competition, then the list would probably be longer and more 'flashy' like advertisements. Several "Private Security" each with its own 'territory' ( and jurisdictional issues and varying 'ordinance' enforcements ... ) I seriously think wouldn't be THAT kind of "Security" number here. It would be *Rapture Security* - The City Constables, who would enforce STANDARD LAWs everywhere consistently without discrimination by location.
Other phone number Categories :
* Leak Alert
* Parasite Watch 
* Suggestions
* Fire ( Crassus - A Famously Rich Roman - ran a private fire department which he would delay the firefighting UNTIL he had bought the property at a 'fire sale' price from the distressed owner -- "Rich as Crassus" was a byword in Rome. You don't want 'Conflicts of Interest' for your emergency services ... ) 
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Your Rapture Directory (Phone Book, RT&T ) :
"... in your Rapture Directory" (heard in Minervas Den)
Not known whether the phone company ( Rapture Telephone and Telegraph ) maintained The Rapture Directory, or someone else ( as a separate business ).
There must've been many many copies of this (phonebook) directory to be found, and they are a valuable source of information because such a directory includes ADDRESSES of businesses, which can be located on old maps of Rapture.
Perhaps for the sake of 'play' interest in the MMORPG, only pages are to be found ( Splicers used most of the original supply for TP or somesuch ), and many surviving pages are water (or other) damaged.
Depending on what the found page contains, some may only be worth turning in to City Hall for the Bounty, while others might contain clues to possibly valuable salvage locations ( and used as Props in Missions )..
There would be a New Rapture Directory for the MMORPG's restored phone system in New Rapture ( don't forget to get your business listed ... ).
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McClendon would have eventually had an autodial one of these offered as a product.
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I Made Those Phones 'Ring' By Hitting Them :
Unlike in BS1/BS2, in the MMORPG you can smash payphones and bubblegum machines and newspaper dispensers to get the CASH in them. But you would be stupid, as compared to what little old (R$) money in them you might find, they are worth far more intact, as working useful objects or as a source of parts. An Anti-Griefer mechanism to handle Players, who destroy resources just to (sociopathically) deny them to other Players, will find their 'Team' NPCs quitting their 'Team' leaving that Player rather vulnerable out in 'the Wilds' ( as well as attracting dangerous Splicers who don't like Idiots destroying their stuff "Griefer Player" Punishment Instituted - You have to be pretty lame to have Splicers thinking YOU are an unacceptable sociopathic moron.).
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Pay phones - "Ring ..." :
SO If you whack a payphone in BS2 with your Melee Weapon, it makes a nice ringing sound.
They didn't work in BS1.
It is too bad they did Not have some 'Use' action for these in-game Phones in the Solo games - Something like random of :
* Out-of-Order recording/tone/static/busy-signal 
* A Big Daddy (Ommmmmmmmmm ?) or a Little Sister ( cutsie voice ... ) 
* A/several deranged Splicer rantings/just-laughing 'on the other end' 
* "The Time is" Crackle-Crackle-Pop click (old service from Rapture Central Clock)
* Someone shrieking "I Told You Not To Call Me Any More !!!!"
* Or a number of similarly odd Audio Recordings when they Ring and YOU 'answer it' ...
* Sander Cohen advertisement (Yes, that kind of spam on the Phones...)
Phones to work in the MMORPG for various game element access.
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Observation : Were those Phones in the Ryan Amusement (and elsewhere) Gift Shop meant to be usable by "Wizard of Oz" Munchkins (so low) ?? - They are awfully close to the groundThe Game Avatars 'Point of View' apparently is set to be about 'chest level' so you can sight down the gun and Plasmid hand. The phone position seems set for that.. I also still think those Pay-phones should have allowed you to bash them to steal change ... OR had them play odd recorded 'Out of Service' messages and such -- Well, the MMORPG can improve on them.
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Phones in Rapture ( They 'Missed the Boat' In BS1/BS2] ) :
Rapture may have fallen apart, but they still could have had the Telephones do something. It would have been fun with the phones in Rapture -- When activated to get some deranged Splicer on the other end ranting at you ( a dozen or so different recording Assets would have been sufficient - They spent that much effort on "Epstein the Swami" ), mixed in with dead-lines, busy-signals, out-of-order-recordings and ringing-but-no-answer. Throw in a few 'Faction' pre-recordings and strange noises coming over the lines.
That's what you might get on some of the Phones in "the Ruins" in the MMORPG.
Rumor - If you did get someone on the other end, and you "Electro-Bolted" it - They would scream, or some similar effect ( burn it out, so it don't work no more - dumb though, cuz a working Phone is a fairly valuable resource. )
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Raptures 5 Digit Phone Numbers :
Seen on various advertisement Signs. Rather odd emergency numbers seen on Payphones in-game though.
Allows 100000 phone locations ( so with 20K - 40K people will be able to work ), besides PBX (Private Exchanges) extensions. Nothing says that outlying areas can't have 'long distance' 'Area' Codes to expand the system. (( Sorry, No "Cable" To The Rest Of The World ))
By the time of the MMORPG, the majority of the phone numbers aren't in a working state, though remarkably some of the strangest places can still have working lines. Other places, enterprising people built/maintained their own local systems, some primitive, others more substantial. ( We Need to see at least one 'tin can on a string' at a Splicer guard post somewhere ... )
With Rapture's entrepreneurial spirit there might have been multiple phone companies besides just RT&T, but it may have fallen out that the people setting up in business looked at the small customer base and their requirement to interchange compatibly with every phone user for ordinary phone service, and figured out they couldn't make it work business-wise (so eventually a consolidation). Specialized phone networks/exchanges and compatible sub-suppliers, and the newer 'data-comm' computer data systems, those may have been better opportunities. ( 'The Yellow Pages' might have been called 'Your Rapture Directory' ) 
RT&T was associated in many ways with Minervas Den, because of the phone system automation employed in Rapture ( automatic dialing, minimal operators ). Rapture's phone system was planned and able to improve on Surface world systems from the start - no need for backward compatibility/older in-place systems.
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Phones We Should Have Had (in BS1/BS2) :
I always thought the phones in the game should have interacted more - either a busy tone on the activate or a 'Sorry telephone service has been interrupted, but will be restored soon by our personnel" recording or periodically some Splicer answering on the other end with some varying gibberish. Hearing one periodically ring off in the distance would have been interesting. Whacking one to get cash could have been done -- But with the majority of them already 'pre-whacked' ( by Splicers wanting money for a 'Pepbar fix' ).
In the MMORPG they could actually work -- call a store/company to get their merchandise menu, a government office for more fun paperwork ( text menu ), ring a 'Team' member to issue orders, or them to ring YOU to give results/news (text), call another Player to use usual audio communication, etc ... 
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Phone Answering Machines :
If you can do Accu-Vox, then you can do some mechanism as a recorder on Phonecalls.
This would be a MMORPG mechanism for getting messages sent to you ( versus some Personal RRadio widget ), where you get calls and you call in to your machine from public phones. Central call messaging might be logical at (my) RT&T in Minervas Den complex.
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We Can have phone messages Recordings from 'the old times' found out in the Ruins ( similar to finding old mail, memos and such correspondence ) - to serve as story links/fillers ( a variation from the Audio Diaries ).
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NOTE - Radio Phones can tie into the phone network ( via the interlink receiver radios )
Rapture Central would have their 'Switchboard' tying Radio Links to Phone lines. 
The Radio system is part of Rapture's infrastructure. Restoring and maintaining the existing system would be the source of 'Make Work' type Missions ( specific training/Skill required for different ones ).
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LATER - Tin Can And String Technology :
In the 1880s, many farmers communicated by connecting their phones to barbed wire fences. This process often allowed for up to 20 people to be connected at once, everyone’s phone would ring regardless of who called, and the invention helped many farmers overcome depression and loneliness.
I wonder if you can do that with Pipes ? ( Radio waves !!! - with radios is probably easier )
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A real Dial-system phone routing relay for selecting between 100 lines (3 wires each) 
Possibly kept in operation with RT&T, but eventually managed by The Thinker functions ( and similar might be used for in-house systems in various large companies ).
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Another variation on the early typewriter ( before the well-known linear style mechanism drove all the others to obsolescence ). NOTE how few keys it has. Its Keyboard might be something used in the MMORPG for Keyboard Inputs on some of the latest Telephones ( ex- some kind of Mini-Terminal which came out just before the 'civil war' started. )
Phone systems in some countries had text keyboards decades ago - ex- Minitel in France Mini-Tel : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minitel ) 
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