It was very reliable and simple in any case (talking about AT&T). Long distance phone calls were also about 50 cents/minute interstate (and even longer distance intrastate) in the early 1980s and for a long time you couldn't even attach your own gear to the phone lines in your house. You had to rent AT&T phones. Some of this is a function of the general technological advance between then and now of course but Ma Bell was certainly not a fast moving organization.

From a 1976 SNL skit: "We don't care. We don't have to. We're the phone company." Government monopoly wasn't nirvana by a long shot.