原文
20世纪80年代前，对于中国老百姓来说，电话是一件很奢侈的用品。那时候，一般只有工作单位里才有电话。80年代开始，电话开始进入一般家庭。但在当时，在家里装上一部电话也不是一件容易的事情，因为那时安装电话，先要缴纳几千元安装费，这对普通家庭来说，并不是一个小数目。
90年代后期开始，电话安装费逐渐降低并取消，电话普及的速度越来越快。如今，拥有家庭电话已经是很平常的事情。
相比起固定电话，移动电话（手机）的发展更加迅速。20世纪90年代移动电话刚进入中国时，由于价格昂贵，只有很少人用得起。那时候的移动电话体积比较大，像一块砖，被人们称为“大哥大”，是地位高和有钱的象征。而如今，一个收入非常普通的劳动者或一个中小学生，也用得起移动电话。据统计，2015年底，平均每百户中国家庭拥有224.8部移动电话。
电话的普及在某种意义上改变了人们的生活方式。比如，以前每逢春节，人们都要到很多亲戚朋友家拜年，这已经成为一种习俗。如今，几乎每个家庭都有了电话以后，人们很多时候，尤其是对于住得比较远的亲戚，就通过打电话的方式拜年。所以，春节这天从零时起，是电话最繁忙的时候。这些年，随着移动电话的普及，发短信拜年的也越来越多，而这两年随着微信的流行，人们通过微信拜年的也越来越多起来，连电话都不用打了。
参考译文
Telephones used to be a luxury for Chinese ordinary people before the 1980s. In those days, telephones were available only in work places. In the 1980s, telephones began to enter ordinary households. But it was not easy then to have a telephone installed at home, because one had to pay an installation charge of thousands of yuan, which was a large sum for an ordinary family.
From the late 1990s, the installation charge gradually declined until it was canceled. The number of telephones was going up more and more quickly. Today it is a very common thing to have a home telephone.
Compared with the land line telephone, mobile phones (cell phones) have developed more rapidly. When the mobile phone entered China in the 1990s, few people could afford to buy it due to its high price. In those days, the mobile phone was very big, like a brick. It was called “da ge da” (Big Brother), a symbol of high status and great wealth. Bur today, even average income people or school children can afford one. According to statistics, for every 100 households in China there were 224.8 mobile phones by the end of 2015.
In a sense, the popularization of telephones have changed people's lifestyle. For example, during the Spring Festival holidays years ago, it was a custom for people to go to many relatives' and friends' homes to pay a New Year call. But today, with telephones in every household, people often offer New Year greetings by phone, especially to the relatives far away. Therefore, from zero o’clock of the Spring Festival the telephone line is the busiest the whole day. With the popularization of mobile phones in recent years, more and more people offer New Year greetings through short messages. With the popularity of WeChat in the past two years or so, more and more people offer New Year greetings through WeChat, which has replaced the telephone call.