Landlines have been digitized too, a distinct difference to what an analog landline offered.
It was more intimate, you could hear breathing for example.
It was more intimate, you could hear breathing for example.
They switched to digital because it reduced their costs, instead of multiple trunk lines you could get away with fewer fibre lines.
You mean they had a cartel for decades, kept prices artificially high, didn’t compete and the government did nothing?
Yeah sounds like the cablecompanies…
I remember that happening in the 90s due to deregulation and breakup of at&t. 10-10-321 had a lot of commercials in the 90s[1]. I'm sure they're on YouTube. Most people I knew would go to a convenience store to buy a pre-paid card for long distance. 1-800-collect was a similar service that had a bunch of ads for calling collect.
It kind of makes calling confusing (and required going to a store and buying something upfront), but I remember younger people (who probably weren't paying for the landline at home) never really considered using their home phone's long distance service. I think most landline services kept their high prices because the few that used it were too lazy or didn't know better. I wouldn't be surprised if it's still expensive (I haven't had a landline in over a decade).