U.S. Census Bureau Daily Feature for June 1: First Phone Booth

WASHINGTON, June 1, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Following is the daily "Profile America" feature from the U.S. Census Bureau:

FIRST PHONE BOOTH

Profile America —Wednesday, June 1st. The first public phone booth was installed on this date in 1880 in New Haven, Connecticut, just four years after the telephone was invented. These first public telephones were supervised by attendants, while those operated by coins came along nine years later. Today, it's increasingly rare to see a pay phone beyond transportation terminals, but the latest models have computer-like features, and worldwide, some booths are converting to wireless fidelity hot spots. Now, almost 98 percent of U.S. households have telephone service, and the number of Americans using cell phones doubled to about 70 percent from 1998 to 2005, and to around 90 percent more recently. Smart phone ownership surged from 35 percent five years ago to around 68 percent today. You can find more facts about America fro the U.S. Census Bureau online at www.census.gov.

Sources: Kane's Famous First Facts, 7731
Phone booths/accessed 4/4/2016: http://www.bookrags.com/research/telephone-booth-woi/#gsc.tab=0
Hotspot growth/accessed 4/4/2016: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2172374/New-York-phone-booths-makeover-WiFi-hotspots.html
Cell phones 1998-2005: http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2009/11/27/cellphone-ownership-soared-since-1998/ 
Households with phone service: http://factfinder.census.gov/bkmk/table/1.0/en/ACS/14_1YR/CP04
Cell phone and smart phone ownership/accessed 4/4/2016: http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/10/29/technology-device-ownership-2015/

Profile America is produced by the Center for New Media and Promotion 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 "Audio" in the "Library" pull-down menu). 

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SOURCE U.S. Census Bureau

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