“Unlimited minutes” is what we like to hear these days.
Listen, hold that incoming call from your buddy in Hong Kong
for a sec….
This month is the 100th anniversary of the first transcontinental phone call in the United States. Alexander Graham Bell—in New
York City—called his long-time assistant, Thomas Watson—in San Francisco—over the new ATT&T line that ran 3,400 miles
across the country.
“Ahoy!
Ahoy! Mr. Watson, are you there? Do you hear me?”
Watson took the
call, and history was made.
In 1915 folks had
reason to tell themselves that the world was getting smaller. Little did they
know….
The first commercial
long-distance call was made on the evening of January 25—a fellow in San Francisco
called his mom on the East Coast.
Now, of course, he
didn’t have unlimited minutes. That call cost him about $7 a minute in 1915
dollars—roughly equivalent to about $135 per minute today.
“Hi Mom, it’s me,
Bobby, guess where I am!”
p.s. in 1915 a
coast-to-coast railroad trip lasted 90 hours—almost 4 days.
Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2015
No comments:
Post a Comment