May 1966 -- NYT -- Suffolk County Long Island telephone subscribers were angry at a change in billing practices. NY Telephone switched to a message unit system instead of itemized toll charges for calls outside one's calling area on Long Island.
With "message units", the bill only shows a gross number of units rather than individually itemized calls. The units charged per call vary by distance and time.
Business people said they needed itemization for tax purposes.
Others complained they had large bills but no way to figure them out.
The phone company said the switch saved customers 20% in bookkeeping costs. From the phone company's point of view, it is much simpler than listing on a bll a slew of 5c and 10c toll calls.
The above refers to Suffolk County on suburban Long Island (still mostly rural in 1966). The rest of NYC and adjacent suburbs went to message units -- along with direct dialing -- around 1950.
I don't know how the phone company recorded charges back then. According to the Eng & Sci history, AMA tapes included message unit calls, so detailed records were available even if not shown on the customer's bill. But message units could also be easily recorded on the same meters used to track local calls, just incrementing the counter as needed per call. AMA was developed with No 5 crossbar in
1948 so it was theorectically available for NY.
Could anyone elaborate on this process?
Message units or measured service is still used today in places.