[svilen_dobrev]

in 1980-90ies, playing with the switch was the way to get to "external" and dial things outside of a hotel (or office or factory, for example). And it worked because the central city-level switch-stations were replaced with much-faster-digital ones, while the local hotel/office/whatever were still old slow ones. So the old ones missed the too-fast-random-pulses series while the central ones picked it. Eh, one has to try multiple times to win that lottery..