by Justin Brown, FF/EMT-P
5/11/2011

From the Middlesex Daily News, May 12, 1964:

A Holliston family is connected with a telephone milestone.  The 1.5 millionth telephone set to be installed in Massachusetts outside the metropolitan Boston area was recently installed in the home of Mr. and Mrs. Basiil Kontoyianes of 51 Gorwin Drive.

Being part of telephone history is nothing new for Mrs. Kontoyianes, the former June Phipps of Ashland.  One of her relatives bought original New England Telephone Company stock about 85 years ago.

Installation of a panel telephone in the Kontoyianes kitchen points out the growth of telephone service in New England during the past two decades. Total number of telephones in the company's entire area - Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island - passed the 1.5 million mark in 1943.  The total for the five-state area is no 3.7 million.  Paul J. Lacroix, manager of the company's Framingham office, points out that this gain was made possible by heavy construction expenditures.  Total telephone plant investment since 1943 has increased from $359 million to $1.5 billion.   Annual construction expenditures are 11 times greater than in 1943.  Plant investment per telephone has grown from $23 in 1943 to $403 now.
 
Among the major changes since 1943 are: Implementation of customer and operator direct distance dialing; conversion to dial operation of more than 98% of all  [[article cut off here]]    ...improvements such as color sets, Princess, wall sets, speaker phones; improved transmission; and "After 9" calling rate reduction.

The Kontoyianes family is up-to-date telephone-wise with home interphone service.  Steady users are their three children Katherine, 9, Stephanie, 8, and William, 6.  Mr. Kontoyianes is a radiological officer at the Massachusetts Civil Defense Headquarters. 
They lived at 73 Tremont Street, Marlboro, before moving to Holliston last fall.  He graduated from Marlboro High School and Boston University.  His mother is Mrs. Helen Tsakinki of 66 Prospect Street, Marlboro.  Mrs. Kontoyianes graduated from Ashland High School and attended the University of Massachusetts, the New England School of Art, and Boston University.  Her mother is Mrs. C.R. Poole of 100 Union Street, Ashland. 

It's amazing the amount of money that was spent to build the telephone infrastructure -- a sum impressive by today's standards, let alone in 47 years ago.  Little did they know at the time, that just a half-decade later people would be walking around with devices on their hips that allow them to see who they are talking to via video call, check the weather, transfer money in their bank account, and send an email with just a few swipes of a finger.  Where will technology bring us in another 50 years?