Switchboards to Family Plans

In the early days of the telephones all calls went through a switchboard operator. The operators at first were boys, to present a more professional demeanor, they switched to women. Upon picking up the receiver, the operator then connected the line to the person they called wanted to talk to. The phone slowly found its way into the homes of the majority of the population. It took decades, however, for every household to have their own individual phone number. Instead of assigning each home a phone number, they used the 'party line' system. The number had a letter with digits after it. The song Pennsylvania 6-5000, is a song by Glenn Miller in 1940. It was an actual phone number to the Pennsylvania Hotel in New York. http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=15122.
http://www.telcomhistory.org/images/main/2%20-%20emma%20nutt.jpg
The switchboard operators and party lines were too easy for another person to listen in on what was suppose to be private conversations. The major problem with the party lines was for emergency services. People were suppose to get off the line when it was needed for fire or police, however some refused and lives were placed in danger. This was the push for every person, now being a 'subscriber' to have their own private ten digit phone number. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Numbering_Plan

In order to get a phone, one had to go to the local telephone company store to rent the phone and return it when one moved. )No, we never had the avacado or yellow, dad was pretty strict and stuck with the beige) The first phones had rotary dials. It took time to put in the number since one had to wait for the dial to return back before selecting the next digit. In the beginning the cords were short. I remember sitting on a step stool in the kitchen in the 1970s when making phone calls. One could stretch the cord out, but then it would get tangled up around the stool and the dog walking around you
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The end of the 1970s saw the phasing out of rotary phones for touch tone, or push button phones. It took less time to call someone, and with this newer communication technology, there came about the cordless phone. Teenagers loved the new cordless phones, they were able to have a private conversations with friends without a sibling standing next to them making their own noises.  The next big break-through in telephone communication came with the cellular phone in the 1990s. The first cell phones were large and too expensive for the masses.

Over the next few decades, the cell phone would see a switch from small, flip phones which fit in the palm of the hand to those which take the space of the whole hand. Plans for the phones changed also. In the beginning there were single lines, like the landline, but as more people got phones for the family members, the providers found there was a need to package multiple lines for one price.