U.S. Census Bureau Daily Feature for December 7

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Dec 07, 2014, 12:01 ET

WASHINGTON, Dec. 7, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Following is the daily "Profile America" feature from the U.S. Census Bureau:

PHONE FOR THE HOLIDAYS

Profile America — Sunday, December 7^th. The nation's telephone systems are humming with activity as holiday wishes by the millions criss-cross the country. It was much different in 1876, when there were all of three telephones in the country. But Alexander Graham Bell's startup proved a keeper, and a decade later there were 167,000 phones in the U.S. By the 50th anniversary year of the phone's invention, there were nearly 18 million in the country. In 1926, a three-minute call from one of those phones in New York to another in San Francisco carried the considerable charge of $11.30, the equivalent of almost $152 today. Now, 70 percent of households have landline phones, and 89 percent own cellphones, with lots of free long distance included in the many plans. Profile America is in its 18th year as a public service of the U.S. Census Bureau.

Sources:
Early telephone history: Historical Statistics of the United States, Part 2/pages 784 & 783
Inflation calculator: http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm
Households with phones/pg. 10: http://www.census.gov/prod/2013pubs/p70-136.pd f

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