1.1.1 The telephone

• Telephone


  In the 1950s, represented the cutting edge of technology
• Telephones in the 1950s

  • Large and expensive to purchase
  • Inconvenient to use
  • Needed to call an operator to make long-distance calls
• Telephone call cost


  Charged in units of three minutes, each unit costing the equivalent of between 2 and 19 pence in decimalised currency
• Few people had a home telephone and even fewer made long-distance calls, so most people made use of public telephone boxes
• Subscriber trunk dialling (STD)


  Advance in technology introduced in 1959 that allowed users to make long-distance calls directly, without an operator, and to be charged only for the actual duration of the call
• Subscriber trunk dialling (STD)


  Telephone became easier and much cheaper to use, as a result more people began to use it and for longer calls
• First ever public call on a mobile phone

  Made in 1973 on a Motorola device resembling a brick at 22 cm long, weighing about 1 kg and with a talk time of just over 30 minutes
• Nowadays it is extremely unusual to find someone who has neither a home telephone nor a mobile phone
• The telephone changed from a status symbol


  To become simply another piece of the modern world, just as the computer has made a similar transition