Home > 1A2 phones & parts > Info center > What killed 1A2?

What killed 1A2?

What killed 1A2?
1A2 died a slow death, starting with the growing popularity of "electronic" key phone systems in the early 1970s, and ending around 2006 when Cortelco stopped making the ubiquitous 2564 six-button phone.

Here are some of the factors that helped electronic phone systems to kill 1A2:

  • Simpler, faster, easier installation with fewer wires
  • New features such as memory dialing, voicemail, computer programming and Caller ID
  • Competition from new manufacturers
  • Integration of cordless phones into systems
  • Smaller phones that could handle many lines
  • Fewer mechanical parts that could wear out
  • System features -- such as which lines ring at which phones -- could be easily set up and modified by programming, rather than by wiring changes
  • Phone displays
  • Smaller KSUs that use less power
  • Decline of electronic manufacturing in the USA and growth in Asia
  • End of government-endorsed Bell System monopoly in providing phone equipment
  • End of Western Electric manufacturing in the USA
    • Increasing number of computer people involved in corporate telecommunications departments