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Originally posted by Pipe Smoker:

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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.

Yes! I couldn't recall the name "WATS line," but that was it.

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Originally posted by ElToro:
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!

I don't think a charging port repair is very expensive at those third-party repair kiosks.

In college there was one rotary dial phone for forty guys. No long distance and you better get off quick or else. People wrote letters back then. I also learned party line etiquette as a kid. If you picked up the phone and someone else was speaking you hung up. If you did not they would not give up the phone in an emergency.

When I lived in rural Wisconsin we could be reached by dialing five digits. Every call outside of ten miles was long distance and very expensive.

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Originally posted by YooperSigs:
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.

Why should they care how many phones there are, when there is still only one line?

I remember my relatives in MT were all on a party line back in the day - I have fond memories of picking up the phone and listening for a minute or so...

I also remember getting busted going to Dad's office and making many long distance calls to MT, and having to fork over a few dollars to cover the calls.

I remember my Dad's phone bill rant of 1986. It was when my little brother and a cousin discovered a certain 900 number.

Rawny:
Ma Bell would charge you an extra fee for any phone more than one. Dad did not want to pay.

When my son when to college, we got an 800 number so he could call home for free. Young male, away from home, in college, call home? In your dreams.

I don't think that I have said anything on any phone in the last 5 years , that could justify a $700.00 telephone.


Another fella claimed that its just the cost of having children in this day and age.

I love my iPhone, for directions to a job, work calendar, internet, audiobooks, app's and so much more.But, I can remember when I was a kid, having a 4 digit phone number on a party line.

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Originally posted by Rawny:
Why should they care how many phones there are, when there is still only one line?

You must be young.

In the Old Days, you did not own any equipment, you rented it from TPC (The Phone Company). Ma Bell realized income for each and every device that she rented to you. It was a violation of your service agreement to connect anything to the phone line unless it was supplied (and charged for, each month) by Ma Bell.

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Originally posted by 41:

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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.

+1

Leasing phones... my grandparents were leasing their (1) phone well into the 80s. my dad hit the roof when he heard this as this was well after the days of leasing the phone was 'required'. Soon after they canceled the lease and got a new phone and my dad crawled under their house and added some lines to every room.

also, my dad was self employed for a while in the early 80s and I remember them spending like $200 1982 dollars on an answering machine. this thing was made by Coda-Phone and built like a tank. it had an analog number wheel that showed how many messages ( could hold up to 15- 20? i think) although it was a rotary dial, it wouldn't die and my folks were using it as their answering machine on their home phone until the 2000s when the answering function finally died, phone function still worked though

now everyone has voicemail on their cell. and nobody has a house land line. i have lived in this house for 9 years and if you held a gun to my head i couldn't tell you the #. only reason we have it is its cheaper to have a phone with the cable and internet. if you need me call me at my desk at work during the day or text me or call my cell

Like others have said, there's a lot of function with cell phones now.

Wasn't Encyclopedia Britanica a fairy big investment back then. And also now the phone replaces your daily news paper subscription.

And there was the thread about magazine subscriptions, Sig Forum is now my main "magazine".

How much did people spend on postal stamps to have on hand for bills and letters?

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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 think they called those "WATS" lines.

As a kid I remember having a signal to relatives if we safely arrived somewhere after a road trip. The people traveling would call the house they had left hours earlier, and let the phone ring twice, and hangup. No charge if the call wasn't picked up. Worked great for everyone but my Grandmother. We'd get home after a visit, call and let it ring twice. Then invariably my Grandmother would call our house, just to verify we had rung twice, and that it wasn't some other caller who had decided to hang up after two rings!

My wife and I have Republic Wireless. We paid $150 for each phone about 3 years ago (Motorola Moto Gs). Monthly cost is $10/line...after taxes and fees the combined bill for both phones comes to right around $25/month. That gets us unlimited voice and texting...no data. The phones piggyback off of wifi whenever it's available to keep costs down.

This actually works out really well for us since service from all of the major providers is terrible at our house, so making calls over WiFi actually allows me to make calls in the house rather than having to go out on the front porch like we used to have to do with the old AT&T plan.

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Originally posted by YooperSigs:
Rawny:
Ma Bell would charge you an extra fee for any phone more than one. Dad did not want to pay.

Same here. We had one rotary phone hanging in the kitchen with a cord long enough to reach into three other rooms.

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Originally posted by bendable:
I don't think that I have said anything on any phone in the last 5 years , that could justify a $700.00 telephone.

I think you're missing the point. Smartphones are much more than just telephones. They're basically small computers. If all you need is something to make phone calls, you can do that with a $20 cell phone.

Well beyond simply making phone calls or sending text messages, smartphones these days are used for watching TV and movies, listening to music, taking professional-quality photos, playing video games, reading books and other publications, handling tasks at work, creating and editing documents, handling banking transactions, keeping track of personal calendars, sending emails, surfing the web, and countless other tasks.

In fact, there's a growing number of people (especially in the 20s-and-under crowd) that don't even own a computer, and do all their computer-related tasks with just their smartphones.

So while you might not spend $700 on just a phone to make phone calls, would you spend $700 on a powerful computer with massive capabilities that could fit in your pocket and almost instantly access the near-entirety of human knowledge anywhere you go? Oh, and it also makes phone calls.

I have heard it said that the I-phones have four times the computer ability of many of the early space mission capsules