From Ken Endacott
Australia had barbed-wire telephone lines that served many farms up to the late 1960s, just like those you describe in the rural US in the early 20th century (21/28 December 2013, p 76).
The granddaddy of them all was a 700-kilometre-long line in Western Australia. This was a single galvanised iron fencing wire on poles. I once spoke end-to-end over this line, but the weather usually made it necessary to call a farm part way down the line and they would relay the call.
The lines were eventually replaced in 1964 by a microwave radio relay system, for which I was the design engineer.
Hawthorn, Victoria, Australia
