Last years COLA, 1 % this years COLA zero:(
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Most of those old phones were either made by Northern or Stromberg-carlson or Western Electric. They were designed to last forever. Those were days when a phone was considered vital and if you had a problem you called 24/7 and by the time you ended the call someone was at your door to repair things.
In the 50s they were already replacing actual operators with automatic analogue switching systems but if you were calling outside your area you had to go through an actual operator who had to manually connect the call. (before area codes).