Call Me: Past to Present Edition

White Stripes: Hello Operator

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Hoyt Axton: Telephone Booth

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Brian Setzer: Pennsylvania 6-5000

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Drive-By Truckers: George Jones Talkin' Cell Phone Blues

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This week's theme got me thinking about how greatly telephones have changed in the last few decades. Years ago operator assisted long distance calls were common. So were phone booths and letter prefixes. Land line hard wire telephones have becoming increasingly scarce with over 285 million American mobile subscribers.That's about 91 percent of the total population of the United States. Some 24.5 percent of U.S. households have also dumped their landlines which translates to about 52 million mobile-only subscribers. Worldwide, mobile subscriptions have reached 4.6 billion! Quite the distance we've traveled since Alexander Graham Bell said to his assistant, Thomas A. Watson in another room, "Mr.Watson, come here, I want to see you."