How were telephone bills calculated in the early days of the telephone (late 1800s- early 1900s)? I'm thinking in particular of the days when you still had to talk to an operator and ask her to connect you to your other party. Did somebody at the telephone company sit there with a stopwatch to time your call, or was telephone service offered for a flat fee? Also, how much did a local telephone call cost in the late 1800s (say one Manhattan residence to another Manhattan residence)?
In the UK, at least, the service was initially flat rate. In fact London subscribers could be connected to microphones in certain concert venues - St Martin in the Fields is the only one I am certain of. I'd like to find out more about that - was there an additional monthly fee? Were they able to "multicast", i.e. connect one microphone to several subscribers?