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Customers who do nothing more than buy a phone like the one that is installed in their home can unquestionably save money. A standard dial phone, which is leased for 91¢ a month in Michigan, $1.50 in Oregon and $3.03 in New York, can be bought at American Bell stores for $35. While it would take a Michigan resident about three years to pay for the purchase, a New Yorker would save the price in lease fees in only twelve months. According to a New York City department of consumer affairs study, if all New Yorkers decided to buy their phones rather than lease, they would save $600 million over the six-year life of the phones.
Many customers are in fact taking an economical approach. According to Phone City, the largest non-Bell retail outlet in Manhattan, the bestselling phone is a $32.95 replica by ITT of the standard Bell rotary unit. But the temptation is to upgrade. The next most popular phone is Bell's Trimline ($72), the familiar model with pushbuttons in the handle, and similar versions by other manufacturers. At some American Bell stores, buyers are picking up phones with flair, like the suave, curved Genie ($99) and the French-inspired Celebrity ($159). The fastest-growing sales are being run up by the cordless phone ($130 to $299), which can be carried around the house or outdoors and has a range of up to 700 feet. The portability of the cordless phone occasionally causes problems. "I love the convenience," says Beth Jackson of Charlotte, N.C., "but next time I'm getting a different color. Mine is beige, and I've lost it under the leaves several times."
In this brave new world of telephone ownership there are a few pitfalls. Owners who are replacing their AT&Tphones must return them to a local telephone service center to avoid paying leasing charges. Installing a phone that has been bought is easy, provided that the residence has previously been wired. New phones have simple clip plugs that can be adapted to older existing outlets with an easy-to-use converter. Buyers who ask Ma Bell to make the hookup, however, can be charged up to $40 an hour. Some phones now being offered for sale are cheaply assembled and may last only about two years, compared with the old AT&Tphones that were designed to dial and ring for 15 to 20 years. Although the Bell System still makes free repairs on the phones that it leases, it charges about $30 for a service call on a customer-owned phone. With the cost of phones declining, ITT's Miller predicts that buyers will some day opt for cheap throwaways that can be tossed in the garbage instead of being fixed.
Since the average American home already has 1.6 phones, manufacturers are selling more than simple communication. Says Randall Tobias, president of American Bell Consumer Products: "We expect there will be telephones in rooms where their principal function is decorative." Some phones are designed as objets d'art: a porcelain unit with a hand-knotted silk cord ($495); the shimmering Shellamar Abalone, with its own pearlescent finish ($250) by TeleConcept Inc. of Hartford, Conn. Others are objets de nostalgia: the 1930s-vintage Candlestick ($139) with its separate mouthpiece and earpiece; the Country Junction ($265), which has an oak case and two brass bells.