who remembers this concept? a "long distance" phone call?

[1]

i'm watching "the bad and the beautiful" (1952) tonight on tcm.

they had these "transcontinental" phone calls that i never experienced, but then there was this "long distance" phone call that i absolutely remember.

i remember talking with my mother who always wanted to cut the call short because it was a "long distance" phone call and therefore expensive.

i'm old, but not that old.

when did this memory fade from our experience. i am 53.

when did the thought of a "long distance" call go away?

i know you young ones have no idea of that concept. how about someone younger than 53 but not yet of the cellphone age piping in?

[Oeditpus Rex]

1. These don't exist anymore?

"AT&T? I have a few questions about my bill."

[Aristus]

2. I remember dialing direct for the first time back about 1981 or so.

Before that, I had to dial "0" and say: "Operator, I'd like to place a long-distance call, please."

[1]

7. "Operator, I'd like to place a long-distance call, please."

isn't that so bizarre?

even the concept of dialing "0" and getting a human operator instead of a recording reassuring us that our "call is so important to them".



long distance? like that ever made any kind of sense. a call of 10 miles costs less than a call of 500 miles to them? electric bits running over existing wires? even if you had to amplify the signal that would be peanuts.


color me skeptical...

[DarkTirade]

3. And now we have things like Vonage and Skype that allow you to call

just about anywhere without any cost. :P

[Pierre.Suave]

13. I use the SHIT out of Skype

to talk to friends all over the world for FREE!

Did you see that? I said for FREE!

it is amazing.

[rurallib]

4. My mother would call her twin in Phoenix once per month

they would talk about ten minutes and it cost a shitload of money for those days. I think it was about $3, which would be about 5 hours work.

[SeattleGirl]

5. I remember the first time I made an overseas call.

It was in the mid-70's. I had to call the operator, tell her what number I was trying to reach. She then said that she would call me back when she was able to get a connection. Once she called back, I sat through a series of clicks and such, and finally, the call went through.

Glad I didn't have to do to many of those.

[LuckyLib]

6. I remember my family, living in California, calling our midwestern relatives maybe twice per year

for a long distance call. Each of four kids would get a chance to talk to Grandma and Grandpa for maybe 1-2 minutes. It cost a bundle.

[1]

8. i know...

i would have like a minute to talk with my mother.

she always made me stop. "its long distance, dear"

the same analog traveling over the same existing wires. i'm just starting to get pissed.

[auntAgonist]

9. I remember calling family overseas and having to really listen

because the delay was SO confusing .. the echo all very strange.

My mum and dad used to cut conversations short because "this is costing you money, It'll be my turn to call you next"

:hi:

ah the memories.

aA

[1]

11. like when they did remotes on television news shows from far away...

hello...

*pause*
*pause*
*pause*
*pause*
*pause*

hello!

*pause*
*pause*
*pause*
*pause*
*pause*

yes!

*pause*
*pause*
*pause*
*pause*
*pause*

hello?

etc...

[auntAgonist]

12. yup .. exactly! Welcome to DU!!!

[1]

14. thank

*pause*
*pause*
*pause*
*pause*
*pause*

you...

[northzax]

10. well, I can tell you that

I, personally, have not paid a long distance bill since 1999 when I gave up on landlines for good.

[drmeow]

15. It certainly seems to be something

the grad students (i.e., employees) in my lab don't understand since they use their "long distance" cell phones as their local number which means if I need to call them from the lab about work the grant or department has to pay toll charges. It annoys the f**k out of me. I shouldn't have to pay to call my employees. Or use minutes on my PERSONAL cell phone to call them (and its not like work is about to provide me with a cell phone with long distance service).

[KitchenWitch]

16. I remember...

I am almost 44.

I remember calling my grandma collect because she was a phone company retiree and one of her retirement benefits was free long distance. The line would have a lot of "white noise", the occasional cracking and popping and a low grade hiss.

[1]

20. i guess it wasn't that long ago...

it just seems now with cellphones all calls are unlimited.

btw, i live in a very remote little town. unless i were to call one of the 200 that live in my little hamlet all of my land line calls are toll calls, even to the next town over a mere 7 miles away.

i pay a satellite company outrageous amounts of money to avoid paying the phone company even more at $.10 per minute for a dial up for my precious internet access. and i don't have a cellphone because they don't work out here.

moo! or quack! ah, rural life...

[enigmatic]

17. "Long Distance Call"- Muddy Waters

http://recluseshow.blogspot.com/2008/03/long-distance-call-muddy-waters.html

[trof]

23. "Long Distance Information,

give me Memphis, Tennessee.
Help me find the party that tried to get in touch with me.
They would not leave a number, but I know the place to call,
Cause my uncle took a message, and he wrote it on the wall.

Long Distance Information, get in touch with my Marie.
She's the only one who'd phone me here from Memphis, Tennessee.
Her home is on the south side, high up on a ridge,
Just a half a mile from the Mississippi Bridge.

Long Distance Information, more than that I cannot add.
Only that I miss her and all the fun we had.
But we were torn apart because her Mom did not agree,
And tore apart our happy home in Memphis, Tennessee."

[harmonicon]

18. they do still exist, but they're cheap

I haven't had a land-line phone since 2001. When I did, I made loads of long distance calls, and it could get kind of expensive, and that was when they were becoming cheap. I do remember waiting until certain times of the day to call people, because long distance was cheaper after a certain hour. I think it was 10 cents a minute on weekends and after 9 at night or something. It was 20 or 40 cents otherwise, and when I was a kid (1980s - ish), I think it was like 50 cents a minute.

[FloridaJudy]

19. Hey, I remember "Phone Phreaks"

People who could hack you a free long distance call by whistling into the line. The most famous was Cap'n Crunch, so called because he used a whistle he found in a box of cereal. A bunch of my engineering major friends built boxes that allowed you to bypass the long distance charges. Illegal as hell, of course, like a lot of file-sharing now.

Some things never change, and the ingenuity of techies in getting around the rules is one.

[IntravenousDemilo]

21. How about this one?

SCENE: THE JOHNSON HOUSE, 1970

(PHONE RINGS)

BILL JOHNSON: Hello?

OPERATOR: I have a person-to-person call for Dennis Johnson.

BILL JOHNSON: Sorry, he's at work right now. Try back later.

OPERATOR: All right, thank you.

BILL JOHNSON: OK, good bye. (HANGS UP) That was Denny. They're on their way.

[FloridaJudy]

22. At my house it was

"It was the kids. They got home safely".