Slashdot Mirror
Requiem for the Disappearing Pay Phone
StarEmperor writes "This Washington Post article describes the steady disappearance of pay phones as cell phones become more commonplace. Many pay phones, which used to generate hundreds of dollars per month in revenue, are now used so infrequently that they cost money to operate. I wonder what kind of environmental hazard is posed by junking thousands of pay phones?"
Without pay phones pictures the back cover of 2600 will seem sooooo boring.
Wearing pants should always be optional.
they cost less. $.50 cents for one phone call is ridiculous
Where will Clark Kent change into his Superman costume?!
... all the spilled oil, gas, antifreeze and other automotive gook from the accidents caused by people using their cell phones while driving...
-RickTheWizKid
..."Just hang up and DRIVE!"
You've never seen those start-your-own-business things with payphones?
Put them anywhere! tons of revenue!
Check it out!
Maybe they could replace them with Suicide Booths :)
Karma: The shiznight, mostly because I am the Drizzle.
... payphones are great to have in an emergency - and there are tens of millions of people in the US w/o a cellphone.
The real question is: are they going to keep operating those phones that lose them money? Should payphones be thought of as something essential like public transportation, and possibly subsidized by the govt?
I wonder what kind of environmental hazard is posed by junking thousands of pay phones?
Ummmm. How about approximately 0? How many pay phones per person? Like 1/100 at best. Now think about all of the diapers and soda bottles and old tires and other crap that people throw out without thinking. There are things worth worrying about and then there is the noise.
As for getting rid of pay phones, I'm fine with it. I mean, when was the last time you saw a working pay phone?
I am not a number! I am a man! And don't you
They are available online, ebay, etc. The only trouble is, they have been "adjusted" to not require coins. If you were to want to make it a real pay phone, you would need the totalizer circuitry (not something the phone cos want to have in the wild ... look up the term "red box") and a ACTS phone line - convincing the telco to do that for you would be difficult....
c kTheWizKid
Just my 90-cents-for-the-first-three-minutes-worth...
Ri
When I recently opened the Back to the Future DVD trilogy and watched the second movie, there was one scene where Marty Jr. was using some kind of futuristic-looking pay phone. I laughed to myself and said, "I guess they didn't see the end of that one coming!"
Slashdot's first reaction to VMware
How come this always gets brought up on slashdot?
How is junking old phones any different then any other waste? Are there uranium pay phones out there? Admit it the u.s. wastes tons pay phone is a tiny tiny part of a very larger picture
***I GOT NUTHIN***
>I wonder what kind of environmental hazard is posed by junking thousands of pay phones
Probably not worse than the millions of home phones that break down or are replaced by newer models. And DEFINITELY not worse than the millions of cell phones - and proprietary batteries - that are starting to be thrown out (what was the statistic I read? Kids in Japan who keep up with "fashion" replace their cell phone every 3 months, and in North America every 18 months? I know, I know, no link, no proof, etc... whatever.)
ClutterMe.com - easiest site creation on the Net. Just click and type.
the payphone out in the Middle of Nowhere already disappeared. Here is a link to the going-away of it and why. Basically, the National Park Service and the Mojave National Preserve thought that there would be too much environmental impact if the booth remained too much longer.
--Fuzz
Pay phones still have some use... doesn't anyone watch The Sopranos?
is it where they change into their gangster clothes?
If you mod me down the terrorists will have won
I only agree if the cell user is not using a headset and using a phone with special hands free dialing features. Otherwise, we might as well ban conversation between 2 or more occupants of a car.
I'm not sure where you are geographically, but over here in the UK the old red phoneboxes would be far too heavy to install in a house without major reinforcement for the floor. I'm guessing they were solid steel/iron, with about a million coats of paint each over the graphitti/urine ;-)
Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
They should convert them into WiFi hotspots.
How will we make anonymous calls without a payphone?
I don't really use the telephone a whole lot. I've never seen a need for a mobile phone, and part of the argument against one went kind of like this: Well, if I'm stuck somewhere and I really need to get in touch with someone, I can always use a pay phone. And if its not important enough to spend 35 cents I really don't need to make the call anyway. I guess not eh? At some point in the future I might have to spend $(minimum cell phone cost) every month just to get the same service I would have formerly gotten from the once-ubiquitous (and free if I don't actually have to use them) public pay phones.
The same thing happened to rail transit in most American cities about 40-50 years ago as road systems improved and more people bought automobiles.
"(Man) tries to live his own life as if he were telling a story. But you have to choose: live or tell." --Sartre
This is bad news for all the people who can't justify paying $30+/month for a cell phone. With ubiquitous pay phones in case of emergency, knowing you could find a near by pay phone. From this article, it could soon become very hard to find a pay-phone when one is needed. This will be big problem for the lower middle class, who can't justify paying for a cell phone, but live areas, where cell toting yuppies, have caused most of the pat phones to be removed. The poor may be less effected, as, according to the article, phones in poorer areas are still profitable.
How can the government ensure your security if you use public pay phones?
Use your cell phone, or get one! That way your phone records are just a computer away from the people protecting your safety.
Do not assist the Terrorists!
What we see depends on mainly what we look for. -- John Lubbock Now search for that bug slave!
Indeed, if you search, there are quite a few pay phones on ebay. Pretty impressive.
In general, pay phones were mandated by public safety regulations, not profit motive. Problems ranging from smashed handsets to stolen phone books to smashed window glass plagued public phones constantly.
If pay phones were profitable, why did the Baby Bells allow anyone to start running them? It would have been a very strange business decision given their history of profiteering in the post Ma Bell era.
--Gus
I could go on and on... it will be sad to see the payphone go. I swear I could strangle the jackass who actually took a call in the theater during the Two Towers last week.
In high school i worked at a Mail Boxes etc on a street corner in downtown Fremont CA. My boss used to complain about the pay phone in front of the store because the kids coming home from school hung around next to it for hours everyday to the disturbance of everyone around. We talked about it once and the gist of it was that the phone companies come to small businesses like liquor stores and offer a set amount of cash over a period of time to lease the store front spot for the phone. You sign a binding contract, usually 10 years, sometimes more. You can not back out of the contract no matter how badly you want it gone.
So no they dont own the land, it's leased. At least here in CA that seems to be the case.
1. Terrorists and other street criminals don't use public telephones -- mostly they don't work, it's inconvenient and there's no privacy.
2. Criminals use stolen cell phones to make their calls and throw them away every couple of days.
I am not a number! I am a man! And don't you
Payphones have all but disappeared around London, since so few calls are made on them and almost everyone has a cell phone. This trend started years ago. When I was last in London cellphones even worked down in the Tube.
One thing disappearing payphones would mean: One more parking place available at finer gas stations and 7-11's everywhere.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
San Jose Mercury story: hundreds of mailboxes removed from San Francisco bay area, due to low usage, garbage thrown in mailboxes, fear of more anthrax attacks, etc. etc. I can't help worrying about all anonymous means of communication shutting down.
I wonder what kind of environmental hazard is posed by junking thousands of pay phones?
How about junking hundreds of thousands or millions of cellphones. Plus the batteries each unit may go through in a lifetime. There's no way those things last as long as a nice clunky pay phone. I know we have a couple of dead ones around here somewhere, and a lot of people upgrade simply for fashion or features.
Yes, people are looking into recycling the phones. It's difficult because the materials are so heterogeneous, and though a few like tantalum are quite valuable, the labor to break up the phones can outweigh that. A nicer idea -- hand-me-downs to less wealthy developing countries, for sale or parts. Cellular phones have a disproportionate value in countries that never got the telephone line infrastructure in the first place.
Pay phones would make more money if they, like, accepted lots of it, in large denominations, when being begged to.
Oh, do I have a rant for y'all.
===
Gather 'round the pixels, folks, and let a still green traveller relate a story from the olden days...
End of September, actually. Toorcon -- I flew out to San Diego to join Hikari's bad ass hackfest. Was so excited that I'd actually gotten my degree three days previous (not -- but that's another story entirely) that I didn't even think to check *where* in San Diego I was going.
Lesson #1: For f*ck's sake, know where you're going after the airport.
Figured I'd just check the net when I got there. *laughs*
Lesson #2: For f*ck's sake, KNOW you'll never get a net connection when you really, really need one. (Reference: "The Inverse Square Law vs. The Presence of Microsoft Powerpoint: May The Enemy Never Discover The Network Cloaking Power of Talking To People When Powerpoint Is On")
So. Rumor has it San Diego's Airport got a new water fountain once...it's talked about in hushed whispers, the emergency budget excess of 1983 brought a quenched thirst upon every traveler since. According to legend, other plumbing amenities relating to the invention of running water shall someday visit themselves upon this fine structure.
No friendly arrows, no Internet Cafe's -- and though the Starbucks served coffee, it came in Disass only. There wasn't even a poorly secured baggage handling network waiting to provide me with my next stop (not that I'd ever poke around an airport network; for God sakes lad, they have guns! And Latex Gloves! I plead Joey's Soverignty!)
So what could I do? Went to call my apartment.
On a Pay Phone.
Lesson #3: For f*ck's sake, buy a cell phone. Seven Eleven has them. They're FREE(after many rebates you'll never recieve). There's a REASON they're so profitable -- because PAY PHONES NOW SUCK.
Proof:
You want proof? My previous ranting is insufficient to show that I indeed know large scale suckitude when I recognize it in my cold, not quite dead flesh?
Got some overpriced food. Requested change in quarters -- I was off to the telephone to get fully ripped off, but there's a LOT of hotels in SD and I didn't much prefer to check each one.
"Bzzzzzz. I'm sorry, this phone doesn't accept coins for long distance calls."
Lesson #4: Remember how you heard that pay phones weren't making money? They mispelled "taking".
After bitching and moaning, I remembered I could charge my card to my credit card. Yes! Maybe my legal tender, unconstitutional to refuse (but we'll ignore that) couldn't get me moving, but surely the mighty power of Visa -- it's everywhere I want to be, and I want to be in a nice bed, and in that bed...er, anyway.
"Thank you for calling 1-800-CALL-ATT. For a credit card call, press this number or we'll sic Carrot Top on you."
"Thank you for selecting a credit card call. If you have a Mastercard, press 1. If you have an American Express, press 2. If you have a Discover Card, press 3. If you have a Visa, get a very strange look on your face."
"Thank you for getting a very strange look on your face. An operator will be with you shortly to further refuse payment for services."
You have to understand. I just graduated, I've got a LONG trip ahead of me -- this is right before the Singapore trip -- of all the problems I imagined possible, not having enough to pay for a single phone call was rather disconcerting.
I briefly considered my options for having myself placed under arrest. I hear those guys get a phone call. But then I realized their call is on a pay phone too. Oops.
Ended up calling my mother's company on their 800 number, tail between my legs, begging for info off a single web page. You'd THINK it ends here...
'cept the person I reach, despite the net connection on her desk, doesn't particularly know what to do with it. So she calls her husband. To access the net. For me.
Ever browsed the web through a listener that doesn't know what she's hearing but has to translate it into something she's saying? You Will, and the company that will bring it to you...
Anyway, no reason to rant further -- it was one heck of a trip, an absolute blast -- but indeed, no matter what country I ended up in, the pay phones were as spastic as an epiliptic monkey with a broken pacemaker.
I did like the 90 second pay phones, that took 75 seconds to establish a call. talkfastdoesn'tevenbegintocoverit
Needless to say, I am now vastly more knowledgable about that which is GSM.
--Dan
I could go on and on too. I swear I could strangle the jackasses who confuse the tools people use with the stupid things they do with the tools. I could also strangle the jackasses who have cellphone envy and try to mask it as some kind of superiority.
I work hard to make sure I have the resources to live the kind of life I want to live. I want the ability to stay in touch with people I go shopping with so we don't have to agree to meet at the food court. If my girlfriend is in a car accident again, I want her to be able to reach me as soon as possible. If there's an earthquake and I'm trapped in a building, I want to be able to call for help and tell them I'm alive but bleeding and running out of air. If I'm on an airplane and hostages take over with box cutters, I want to say goodbye to my girlfriend before the plane runs into a building.
I'm tired of anti-cellphone BS. There are no legitimate complaints against the phones themselves, and the complaints about the users have nothing to do with the phones.
Grow up, people.
Actually, it really is a genuine "Red Box". The REAL coin-tone generator circuit board in a real Ma Bell payphone is in fact in a red plastic box. That's where the term "Red Box" came from.
-- You are in a maze of little, twisty passages, all different... --
I've also heard these days that the phones turn off the handset microphone until you've paid up, so you need to do some funky tricks to get your signal in.
Tim
Omnia vestra castrorum habetur nobis.
I'd agree with this EXCEPT that a person talking to the driver knows when the driver has to concentrate on something coming up and instinctively SHUTS UP.
:)
Concentrating on Talking while driving actually distracts people from driving well. Bad drivers can often be seen doing all the talking while driving. Basic natural instinct, you cannot devote concentration power to upcoming events (getting cut off and allowing the extra space) and hold a full blown 2 way all out conversation.
Drivers do their best thinking/working shit out because the mind is alive with activity while driving, just don't ask them to concentrate on a conversation with someone else.
Think about it the next time you're driving
Yo Grark
Canadian Bred with American Buttering.
Canadian Bred with American Buttering
Because they're the most idiotic idea ever dreampt up. Why buy a NEW phone each time you need more credit when you can keep a higher quality phone, and merely buy credit at the store?? Can you think of the waste caused by 'disposable cellphones'?
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
I would imagine not nearly the environmental hazard posed by all the cell-phone people who upgrade their phones each time a new plan comes out with a free phone. Pay phones do not, that I know of, have batteries in them, and are fairly recyclable. (Aluminum, or in older cases, cast iron cases, which translate nicely to melting down). The plastics are recyclable as well.
The fact that large companies (like phone companies or even large corporations) are now being watched closely when disposing of potentially dangerous materials (including computers) means they will probably be stripped, recycled, or waste-reclaimed in China somewhere.
Not many of these phones would hit landfills as "phones" at any rate, unlike the thousands of Cell Phones that people tend to toss out like household garbage, complete with batteries, etc.
Maeryk
Feminine Protection? What is that? A chartreuse flame thrower?
Hands-free sets do not make driving while talking on a cell-phone any safer. See this paper from the New England Journal of Medicine for details. Basically, they cross-correlated traffic accident reports with cell phone logs and found that talking on a cell phone while driving quadruples the risk of getting in an accident, regardless of whether or not the phone is hands-free. This increased risk of accident is comparable to the increased risk of accident while driving drunk.
The difference between talking on a cell phone and talking with a passenger is that the passenger is aware of the driving situation and can halt the conversation and/or call the driver's attention to the road in case of emergency.
"It take 9 months to bear a child, no matter how many women you assign to the job."