Calling all old time dogmen/women

Back when there wasn't any free long distance calls or cell phones. What was your phone bill like?

 

Dumb high!

 

We wrote letters LOL!

 

lol Didn't have a phone

 

WOW, those are not the answer's I figured except for Arizona GameTime. I'm talking when people still used house phone and it was ridiculously high to call the city next to you if you weren't both in the same area code.
Bell, I've heard that before but it doesn't seem possible. You would have to sent however many letters to everyone you knew at the time and they would have to respond to you. That would give them a few days advantage.

 

Well, for one, kids weren't permitted to use the phone unless they had permission. Generally, we just walked to our friend's house to ask if they could come out. No one made a ton of calls and when you went out there were no interruptions. No answering machines either. When we moved to the DC area in 1970, you could pay a little extra a month to get an area code with an extended local calling range so you could call all the suburban areas. Long distance calls were a big deal and people didn't use the phone all that much in general. Your calling plans also had options for lower rates if you paid per outgoing call or party lines where several neighbors shared the same phone number. People just didn't use the phone near as much. It wasn't always the main way of communicating.

 

Fir many years during the 80's and 90,s my phone bill would be higher then my house payment...... 350$ a month to southern bell was not unusual. Be on the phone for hours to hooten, mayfield, hall, mtn man, barney fife. And of course many others ...... the only way around it was some guys did have 1 800 numbrs ...

 

If someone passed away or you needed to convey other news to family that was spread around, you did a phone tree. I would call x, x would call y, y would call z.

However, like FB said, if you were on the phone long distance for hours, it was a horrendous bill.

But local phone service was CHEAP. It was subsidized by long distance. When Bell atlantic lost the monopoly, basic service costs rose dramatically.

 

I got to thinking about this after I replied and remembered back in '69 when Mom got a phone. It was a party line. lol When I got home from school all the girls in the area were on the phone gossiping and you would have to tell them to get off the line so that you could make a call. Then half the time the nosey bitches would try to listen.