It was a nice spring afternoon , most everything was going fine, considering the circumstances.

about 4:30 dad comes home from work, washes his hands and face, then on to the over stuffed chair to rest his weary bones a bit prior to supper at 5:00.

and then the whole house heard it at the same time, eighteen ! dollars !, what the ?
Who's making all these long distance calls?

There is 11 long distance calls on here ! whats going on ? come and look at this !

well, after a good 12-15 minutes , mom came in and reminded him that his mom had died last month and she was letting the family know about the arrangements.

well he sank in to his chair to about the size of a dinner roll.

You see in 1967 , in eastern Iowa with a single line phone ,the bill was $7.00 for the service and our usual bill was about $11.00.

The reason I write of this is;
Just yesterday one of the tiny town business owners mentioned that her family just spent over 3 grand on I-phones for the four of them

I about fainted, on the spot.

and , AND! thats with out usage billing and insurance .

they just plan on spending that amount every two years or 29 months.

the one girls I-phone got lifted while they were playing in the swimming pool in St. Martin, last month, they tracked it to Mexico.

( my phone cell cost $39.00 )

so I am all caught up to the year 2013 now re: cell phone stuff)

We used to drive down to my dad's office on a Saturday (late '60s or early '70s) to make long distance calls to family rather than make them from home because the office had a flat rate for phone calls.

I distinctly remember when I was a kid my parents waiting till the evening to call "long distance" because it was cheaper at night (less business traffic ?)

my iphone is having an issue with the battery charging port and I'm afraid it may crap out some day and not take a charge. I do get a $450 reinbursement from my employer every 2 years so maybe after the new phone comes out the 6 will get cheaper. But paying 1k for a phone ? Theres months on my phone bill I don't even use the actual phone function. I txt and surf and play games and take pictures with my phone. I don't use it for talking!

That's pretty funny, sounds like me freaking out about the electric bill, especially in the summer running A/C and a dehumidifier. I also went cheapie on our smartphones. $100 ea, and the teenagers paid for their own. 4 lines of service on Total Wireless prepaid sharing 15gb per month = $100 plus tax total. Three GRAND for four phones?!?!? Over my dead body!

$3,000 for 4 phones sounds about right for latest generation smartphones, like an iPhone 7 or Galaxy S8. That works out to about $700 plus tax per phone.

Most people opt to lease phones, or at least pay in monthly installments over 24 months, so the cost is spread out to $20-$30 per month, per phone. But some folks do choose to purchase them outright up front.

I buy my cellphones outright, but I typically get phones that are one or two generations behind, so you can get them cheaper. And I wait for them to go on sale. For example, I just spent $350 on a Galaxy S7, on sale. Full price for a Galaxy S7 is $500+. A newer Galaxy S8 would run $750+.

So what is this iphone you speak about??? With my bad hearing, I'm not sure one would work with me.

When I was living in Santa Barbara, I would call my parents in VA on the WATS line each Friday after work.

I can't imagine spending that kind of money on phone service.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: 41,

To her dying day not that long ago, my grandmother was always in a hurry to get off the phone with us because it was a long distance call. I don't think I ever had a call with her lasting more than a couple minutes.

quote:

Originally posted by jhe888:
We used to drive down to my dad's office on a Saturday (late '60s or early '70s) to make long distance calls to family rather than make them from home because the office had a flat rate for phone calls.

I did similar when I worked for Control Data Corp. in Minneapolis. CDC had a WATS line, which employees could use for free on weekend evenings. After waiting an hour for my turn, I'd speak with my folks. Hardly private, sitting in a room with others awaiting their turn. But long distance phone calls were expensive in those days.

quote:

Originally posted by 41:
So what is this iphone you speak about??? With my bad hearing, I'm not sure one would work with me.

My hearing loss is pretty bad. I do not use the phone for "phone calls" except occasionally when I'm in the car and the phone plays through the car radio amplifier and speakers.

However, the iPhone is really useful to me for things like text and portable email, GPS for driving directions, access on the move to things like bank accounts, credit card accounts, etc. The Kindle app for reading a book if I'm in a doctor's waiting room. SIGforum-on-the-go. Tracking flights when my wife is traveling to or from Ohio to visit kids / grandkids. Backup device in case iPad goes flaky when I'm using aviation apps, in the air. All kinds of stuff.

I never realized, before I had one, just how useful it would be.

quote:

Originally posted by ChicagoSigMan:
To her dying day not that long ago, my grandmother was always in a hurry to get off the phone with us because it was a long distance call. I don't think I ever had a call with her lasting more than a couple minutes.

LOL, my grandma is 96 and its the same, how are you doing, everything OK? OK ill talk to you later. She still thinks its a long distance call from TN to MI so she wont stay on long at all. We always laugh, I have 2 minutes, that's enough time to talk to grandma real quick.

You folks who speak of using the company WATS line back in the old days -- I used to work for TPC (The Phone Company). In the Central Office equipment room there was a working pay phone used for test purposes. The coin box was unlocked. We could make long distance calls with one quarter; drop it in the slot, it would be "collected," fall into the unlocked coin box at the bottom from where it would be retrieved and redeposited in the slot. Rinse, repeat.

I can remember when traveling, you would call home person to person ask for yourself, your parents said you were not there to the operator, this was the free signal that your plane arrived and all was ok.

quote:

Originally posted by bendable:..

The reason I write of this is;
Just yesterday one of the tiny town business owners mentioned that her family just spent over 3 grand on I-phones for the four of them

I about fainted, on the spot.
...

Yeah, but "back in the old days", you could buy a house for $18 dollars, you could fill up the car's gas tank for 3 cents, and feed your familiy of 27 people at McDonalds for a $1.00 and get 35 cents back.

Of course it was a hunnert and forty eight degrees in the summer with snow up to your armpits, and nobody had shoes.

At least that's how I think I remember it...

quote:

Originally posted by jhe888:
We used to drive down to my dad's office on a Saturday (late '60s or early '70s) to make long distance calls to family rather than make them from home because the office had a flat rate for phone calls.

Sounds like a WATS line.
That was pretty impressive at the time. My boss at the time had one and it seemed like that made you big time back them. Iphones were decades in the future.

quote:

Originally posted by sigmonkey:

quote:

Originally posted by bendable:..

The reason I write of this is;
Just yesterday one of the tiny town business owners mentioned that her family just spent over 3 grand on I-phones for the four of them

I about fainted, on the spot.
...

Yeah, but "back in the old days", you could buy a house for $18 dollars, you could fill up the car's gas tank for 3 cents, and feed your familiy of 27 people at McDonalds for a $1.00 and get 35 cents back.

Of course it was a hunnert and forty eight degrees in the summer with snow up to your armpits, and nobody had shoes.

At least that's how I think I remember it...

but also remember, you only made about $37.50 per year in salary ....
folks only ever seem to remember how much stuff cost "back then" not how big a percentage of their income it took to purchase.

The first memory I have regarding phones was that we were on a 3 party line. My parents couldn't afford to make long distance calls so long distance communication was done via hand written letters. My mother would write 2-3 letters a day and get 2-3 letters a day. That's just how it was done back then.

Jim

quote:

Originally posted by 2012BOSS302:
I can remember when traveling, you would call home person to person ask for yourself, your parents said you were not there to the operator, this was the free signal that your plane arrived and all was ok.

We use to do that but we just let the phone ring twice and then hang up.

In 1967 the range on that one telephone was 6 feet. You could go out to 25 feet with a longer mounting chord if you paid extra and signed a release that you wouldn't sue Ma Bell if you tripped over it and bumped your head. And on top of all that, they might charge you for a colored phone, but the one phone you got came with the service. In 1967 $11 would buy you more gas for your 5 MPG gas eater than it could hold because the tanks only held 25 gallons.

Where can you go with that cell phone? Long distance? What's that?

quote:

Originally posted by 2012BOSS302:
I can remember when traveling, you would call home person to person ask for yourself, your parents said you were not there to the operator, this was the free signal that your plane arrived and all was ok.

I was going to mention this. Except my family used my Mom's little brother Gordon's name. I guess there was little chance he would really call,lol.

My old man a was phone installer at WPAFB. When a phone went bad, the USAF would toss them out. The old man would un-trash them, repair them and bring them home. In the 1960s, we had a phone in every room except the crapper. Even our tool shed out back had one. This was unheard of at the time. We were billed only for one phone. Ma Bell smelled a rat and would send out someone to climb a nearby pole and send a signal into the house to see how many phones were ringing.
I was trained from age 5 to immediately unplug all the phones except one anytime the ugly OD green Ohio Bell Rambler was seen in the neighborhood.
The old man enjoyed this game tremendously. My Mother, as usual, was horrified.
Our bill was 12 bucks a month, IIRC.