 I don't know if I would have survived that. In the early 1980s, the cost of prison phone calls were actually pretty comparable to calls on the outside because calls in general were expensive. Back then, AT&T had a monopoly on phone service, and the cost of a call varied a lot depending on how long it was, the distance, the time of day, or the week you called. Bianca Tylek is Head of Worth Rises, which is a group that does advocacy on various criminal justice issues.