How the Telephone Has Changed: 1980-2010

Over the last few decades, talking to people on the phone has become easier and less expensive. It has changed the way that we communicate with each other. The changes didn't come all at once, but they did come. This is the story of how the telephone has changed in my life; and in turn, I think that it is typical of how the telephone has changed in the lives of most Americans.

Phone Choices are Better

When I was little, we had something called a party line. Most of the people at the time could have their own phone lines (I'm not that old), but we lived off a highway between two small towns. With a party line, we had our own phone number, but other people used the same phone lines. If we wanted to make a phone call, we had to check to make sure that nobody else was already using it. We were able to get our own phone line in 1989, I think. We always seemed to be the last people to get the latest technology where I lived. Evidently, there are still party lines in some remote places in California.

We also had these things called rotary telephones. You had to dial them by spinning a dial a certain amount for each number. My parents didn't own their phones; they had to pay the phone company for it every month. They had a red phone and a black one. In the 1980s, people started getting touch-tone phones, like most people use today. Eventually, also in the late 1980s, we finally were able to get touch-tone service where we lived, and we were able to go to the store and buy the telephones that we wanted. We didn't have to pay to rent them every month either.

The Price of Using a Phone Has Gone Down

The cost of using a telephone has gone down. Today, some people use Skype to call their friends for free; we use Vonage and pay about $25 a month. For this flat rate, I can call anybody in the United States and talk for as long as I want to. I can also talk to people in the UK, Canada, and Mexico (and probably several other countries) for as long as I want to as well.

It wasn't always this way. When I was in elementary school, I had to pay if I wanted to call my best friend that went to school with me. She lived in one of those places where phone service was limited; for her, she had to pay long distance if she wanted to call someone who lived across the street. It cost about $.30 a minute to talk to her. That was in the 1980s, where you could buy a hamburger for $.50.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the telephone companies had been deregulated (one of the reasons why we were allowed to buy our own phones, finally) and phone companies started to compete with each other. Companies like AT&T and MCI always advertised on the television. Some companies started offering long distance service for $.15 a minute (anywhere in the country!). The rate then fell to $.10 a minute, and then $.05 a minute, until today, where people often get unlimited long distance included with phone service. These companies were always trying to get you to switch to their service. They would often give you a discount for switching, but the constant pestering to switch could get on people's nerves.

In 1997, the price of calling internationally was still pretty high. I took a trip to Australia that year. I remember calling my boyfriend (now husband) from Australia; I bought a phone card, and it cost between $1.50 and $2 a minute. When I moved to Italy a few years later, the cost of calling my family in the United States had fallen; I could afford to call them for an hour or so every month without it breaking the bank. Now, the cost is minimal.

Cell Phone Service Spreads

People that I knew started getting cell phones when I was in high school. They were fairly large, and most were installed in cars. Only people with a lot of money had them. The cost of using them to call locally was about as much as it cost me to call Australia.

When I was in college, I was able to get a cell phone. My phone was a lot smaller than the earlier phones, but it was still about the same size as your average landline handset is today. I had a plan where I could talk for about 10 minutes a month. The phone had no bells and whistles at all. I was living in Los Angeles, so I had pretty good coverage, but service in some locations was still pretty bad.

In those days, people started getting pagers. They are pretty much obsolete now, but back in the days when cell phone service was expensive, people would call your pager number, you would input your phone number, and the other person would call you back. At first, most of the people that had them were doctors or drug dealers, but eventually it got to the point where most average people had them. That is, until cell phones became relatively cheap to use.

Today, of course, cell phones are a lot smaller. You can fit them in your pocket. They also have plenty of features, like cameras, the ability to play games, and text messaging. If you have an iPhone, you can carry around your entire collection of music with you (or at least a lot of music; some audiophiles might have larger collections).

Surprisingly, Cell Phones Are Not Less Expensive, Although Service is Better

One thing that has surprised me about cell phones is how they are not less expensive to own than they were ten years ago, at least if you have a cell phone plan. It's less expensive to talk on a cell phone, but not less expensive to own one. Since that doesn't really make a whole lot of sense, I will explain.

When I first purchased a cell phone, I had a plan with ten minutes a month. The phone contract cost me somewhere between $10 and $15, though. Today, the cheapest cell phone plans are $29.99 a month, so the price to have cell phone service has actually doubled in the last 15 years. However, these $29.99 a month plans offer between 200 and 500 minutes a month. While it is technically cheaper per minute to use a cellular phone, it's actually more expensive for people that only want to have a phone for emergencies, and don't want to use their phones more than 10 minutes a month; that is, if you want to have a phone plan.

Prepaid service can be less expensive than my old phone plan was, however. T-Mobile has a prepaid program where if you buy one $100 phone card, you only have to renew once a year, even if you buy less expensive phone cards after that. This has been less expensive than the old plans; I think I spend about $40 a year on cell phone service this way.

Answering Machines Have Changed the Way We Talk

Answering machines have changed the way that the average person talks on the phone, and the amount of time that we are reachable.

In the 1980s, if you called your friend and they weren't home, you were out of luck. You'd have to call back later and try again. Of course, back then, nobody had cell phones either. When the telephone companies were deregulated, not only did the prices fall and touch-tone service was introduced, new fancy products were invented for the telephone. One of these inventions was the answering machine.

At first, answering machines were machines that you bought that were separate from the telephone. They would have tiny cassette tapes where you would record your message to the person calling, and then the tape would record whatever the caller had to say to you. If you were gone for too long, the tape would fill up and then nobody else would be able to talk to you.

At first, people weren't used to talking on answering machines. Many people hated them. However, if you had to leave a message for someone, it was a good way to get the message to them without waiting for them to come home.

With the invention of the answering machine, screening calls began as well. People would wait until someone started to leave a message, and then they would talk to them if it was somebody they were interested in talking to. Now, it's a lot easier to screen calls with Caller ID, unless it says "Out of area" or "Unavailable"; then you fall back on the answering machine.

Most answering machines are built into the telephones that we buy. Whether we are using a cellular phone or a landline phone, we can take a message without buying a special machine with tapes.

Caller ID Has Changed the Way We Talk

Along with answering machines and cell phones, Caller ID has changed the way that we talk on the phone. My family was first able to get this service in the early 1990s. At first, you had to buy a little box that you would attach to the phone line. Now, most phones already have it built-in; my phone will even read out the caller ID to you. Vonage doesn't even charge for the service.

Caller ID has changed the way that many of us talk on the phone. Before caller ID, if someone called, you pretty much had to pick up the phone when it rang. If it was a telemarketer, or someone that you didn't like, you were stuck talking to them. Now, you can choose to not pick up the phone when they call, or you can let the answering machine pick it up.

What Will the Future Hold?

We have seen many changes in telephone service over the last 30 years. While I used to have to share a phone line with my neighbors, pay $.30 a minute to call a friend that went to school with me, and couldn't reach someone when they weren't at home, now I could reach this same friend on the phone for free, no matter where she was (as long as she had her cell phone with her).

More than likely, phone service will continue to evolve. Telephones are now converging with computers. Cell phone internet service is likely to get cheaper over time, and new features will be available. Video conferencing is likely to become easier to use. Whatever the case, we will probably see as many changes in the next 30 years as we have seen in the last.