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Local calls were unlimited in the 1970s and 1980s, like the are now. I think that this was true everywhere in the US but with different RBOCs perhaps some had different rules.

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Guy I went to college with in the late 1990s had measured phone service [0] at home in Illinois. It's still alive today [1] and it's the cheapest way to get a phone line, with the caveat that substantial usage can become pretty expensive.

[0] https://www.techopedia.com/definition/4986/measured-telephon...

[1] http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jan/17/business/la-fi-lazar...

Yeah, but there was the concept of intraLATA toll calls. Or "local-toll" calls. These weren't long-distance, but they weren't free, either.

I remember calling my grandparents in Arizona cost 5¢ a minute, but calling relatives in the next city over—about 10 miles away—cost something crazy like 29¢ a minute.

This was in California. I'm sure the rate structures varied from state to state.

That's how I remember it too. Most local calls perhaps were included with the service, but a call to the other side of town might be considered long-distance. I do remember that the rates varied wildly. My parents would occasionally question me or my sister about a specific call on the bill that cost a lot.

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