WASHINGTON, Jan. 25, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ --
Following is the daily "Profile America" feature from the U.S.
Census Bureau:
FIRST TRANSCONTINENTAL PHONE CALL
Profile America — Sunday, January
25th. On this date in 1915, east and west were linked by
voice in the first transcontinental phone call. This event was a
conference call involving Alexander Graham
Bell in New York, his
assistant Thomas Watson in
San Francisco, President
Woodrow Wilson in Washington, and the president of the American
Telephone and Telegraph Company in Georgia. Using the new commercial service was
a major financial commitment. The charge for a three-minute call
from New York to San Francisco started at $20.70. That's over $486 today. Over 97 percent of America's
households have phone service. Landline and cellular services
combined cost these households an average of $1,270 per year. The cellular service cost alone
is over $900. Profile America
is in its18th year as a public service of the U.S. Census
Bureau.
Sources:
Kane's Famous First Facts, 7718
Inflation:
http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=20.70&year1=1915&year2=2014
Phone service percentage:
http://factfinder2.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=ACS_13_1YR_DP04&prodType=table
Phone service expenditures/pg. 4:
http://www.bls.gov/cex/2013/combined/age.pdf
Profile America is produced by the Center for New Media
and Promotions of the U.S. Census Bureau. These daily features are
available as produced segments, ready to air, on the Internet at
http://www.census.gov (look for "Multimedia Gallery" by the
"Newsroom" button).
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SOURCE U.S. Census Bureau