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 publictelephoneboxes
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
