I'm pretty sure dial tones are still with us, but I guess busy signals are a lot less common.
Voice mail was not an improvement. If I wanted to talk to you I would call you. Except most of the time I would probably send a telegram telling you I was going to call you so you would know 1) that nobody died (unless someone had died) and 2) when I was going to call you.
Long Distance Calls (yes, a proper noun) were fun - dial O and ask for the Long Distance Operator, who would ask you what city you wanted to call.* They would connect you with the Long Distance Operator for that city if you were really, really lucky. Most of the time they confirmed your number and told you they would call you when a trunk line was available. Once you got the Long Distance Operator in the city you wanted to call, they would connect you with their entral Exchange who would then tell you the number you wanted was busy. Then you reversed the whole procedure and finally got a call telling you that both a trunk line was available and the number you wanted to call was available. (The destination Central Exchange would call the number you wanted and inform them there was a Long Distance Call for them and to stand by until a trunk line became available.) This could literally require two (or more) days.
Telegrams were much easier - 12 cents a word, plus the person at the other end needed to give the boy delivering it a dime. You could call Western Union if you had an account. If not, a telegraphy station was not that far away if you were in the city, or down at the train station in just every small town. $Diety help you if you lived out of town. Not more than an hour from when you slid your message slip over the counter the boy was delivering the telegram.
The War Department used Western Union to warn Pearl Harbor and Manila that Japan was more likely than not going to attack. Manila got the word direct as the Army had a WU account; Pearl got the message about two hours after it was received at the central WU station due to heavy commercial traffic which was being sent at priority rates while the War Department used standard rates. If you ask me, it's a lesson about why you do not really want the .gov to try and save money.
stay safe.
* - podunk places did not have Long Distance Operators so your call was routed through some big town/city with an available trunk line to the central exchange in Podunkville. When they had a trunk line to Podunkville available.
"Hold the wire" was not an instruction to the customer but to the Operators along the line. A process often emulated by MARS operators. (Does anybody else remember MARS calls? Over.)
