Reality: A picture of the Swedish telephone exchange, with some 5,500 incoming lines.
https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/the-stockholm-telephone-tower-1890/
Even if there was primitive multiplexing on those cables, I am fairly sure a 100 Mbps link could handle all of them these days with bandwidth to spare.
Edit: Telephony multiplexing didn't show up till 1910 but telegraphy multiplexing was around since the 1870s. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiplexing
Can't imagine the weight of all those, never mind trying to find a particular one that was flaking out because some animal chewed through it or something.
Welcome to /c/fakehistoryporn@lemmy.world , where fake history is made. Find a historically significant photo, come up with a fake history title, post it, laugh.
The name is a reference to the fact that the pictures should be worth marveling at. This is NOT a place for hardcore pornography. Tasteful nudity is fine as long as it fits within the context of the post (please mark it as NSFW).