Actually, MOST of the US, at least "Bell" areas, was already 10-cents by the mid-1950s.
Louisiana as an entire state was the last holdout. I understand that Louisiana briefly went to 10-cents in the 1950s, but it went back to
5-cents. I will have to research this... I sort of wonder if Southern Bell (yes, it was Southern Bell for Louisiana, and also Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, and Kentucky, until 1968/69 when South Central Bell broke from Southern Bell retained by North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida)... if Southern Bell raised the rate unilaterally raised the rate to 10-cents without going through all of the proper procedures of the Louisiana Public Service Commission???Louisiana did increase to 10-cents, at least in South Central Bell exchanges, effective January 1979. I don't know when the non-Bell exchanges changed their rates.
Similarly, I don't know how uniformly the "Bell" 10-cent rate (or higher starting in the 1970s) applied to non-Bell exchanges in any state. Of course, GT&E and other large independents probably fell in line with the rate that Bell used. But even in the early 1980s, there were still many non-Bell exchanges in rural areas and villages which still had 5-cent local calls at payphones. I've even heard of a few rare cases where the independent telco in such small villages had one or two public phones which were FREE for local calls, but you had to pay (coins I assume, although collect, third party, calling card, etc. would still be possible) for toll calls.
I wonder what the situation was in Canada? Afterall, there is Bell Canada in most of Quebec and Ontario, and until 1975, they were considered a BOC, as AT&T still owned a (small) part of them. And also the Maritime Provinces, which Bell Canada also owned a part of those telcos. Did Canada migrate to 10-cents for local payphone calls at roughly the same time as most of the US? What about western Canada which was GT&E in British Columbia, and provincial government owned telcos in the other three provinces, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba? Also, back then, with the exception of Bell Canada for Quebec & Ontario (but not the subsidiaries in the Maritimes) and the GT&E-held British Columbia Telephone Company which were federally regulated by the CRTC, all of the other major telcos in Canada and the small independents scattered about Ontario and Quebec and even back then a few other provinces, were regulated by provincial government telephone regulatory boards. Now, virtually ALL telephone regulation in Canada is ONLY by the federal CRTC.
What about Alaska? They have always been a scattering of independent local telcos, although GT&E and Contel at one time owned some of them. At the time that most of the mainland US was increasing to 10-cents, Alaska was not yet a state of the US, but only a possession.
Similarly what about Hawaii? They too were not yet a state but only a possession until 1959 or 1960. But unlike Alaska, Hawaii was a single uniform non-Bell telco for the entire state. It was the Mutal Telephone Company of Hawaii, later renamed Hawaiian Telephone Company. GT&E bought them out in 1966 or 1967, and Verizon inherited them in 2000. But Verizon sold Hawaii to the Carlyle Group effective May 2005, and the local telco in Hawaii is now named "Hawaiian Telcom" (that is Telcom, not Telecom).
- a/b