Recycling Pay Phones into Terminals

Roland Piquepaille writes "Two weeks ago, The Washington Post published a story about the death of the pay phone. It was aptly named "Requiem for the Pay Phone." Basically, it argued that as cell phones use increase, pay phones are retired from the streets. Now, according to Fortune in "Making Pay Phones Pay," Bell Canada is trying to change this situation. "Bell Canada recently started converting public pay phones in Toronto, Montreal, and Kingston into terminals for 'Wi-Fi' Internet connections. Some U.S. phone companies may soon follow suit." Check this column for more details and concerns or visit the Bell Canada's AccessZone page for details on the program and pilot locations."

Comments

How about 911?

[Ryu2]

I just thought of this.... Could it be a point of argument that removing pay phones reduces access to 911 emergency services for those economically disadvantaged who don't have cell phones? Have there been any studies done to test the validity of this (eg, crime rates vs. pay phone presence?)

My proposal.

[kaosrain]

Why don't we all band together, and whenever a user submits a dupe we all add them to our 'foes' list? Doesn't directly stop anyone from posting repeats, but if I knew that submitting one could get me hundreds of foes, I'd probably check my submissions for duplicates.

Re:Money

[kawaichan]

how payment might work:

1) Your laptop/PDA/whatever requests an IP address via DHCP.
2) Access point hands out IP address, makes a note against that IP address that "has not paid yet"
3) At this point, all that you can do is access HTTP and DNS.
4) You point your browser at any web site - let's say http://slashdot.org for grins.
5) DNS succeeds.
6) Your computer does an HTTP GET.
7) Access device sees you've not paid yet. Sends HTTP REDIRECT to https://fork.it.over.to.me
8) Your laptop looks that up. Gets an IP address.
9) Your laptop requests page.
10) Page comes up - input credit card here.
11) You do so. Access device marks you has "paid for 1 Hour". Ports open up.
12) You again try /., and it goes through.

Cafe Security

[HealYourChurchWebSit]

While this plan isn't without its merits, its also going to be without users such as myself for some time. No matter show secure the "FI"delity is stated, I get about the same warm fuzzies transmitting anything of any value over such a system as I would shopping online at an internet cafe.

And its not really the systems themselves that concern me, but the human error factors ... and mostly privacy factors. I can't imagine any large corporation implementing such a system without the temptation of at least using my demographics, if not outright selling any non-secure personal information to me to the highest bidder.

This not to say I'd never use it ... just not for anything really important or private. At least for now.

Just so we're all clear...

[Anonymous Coward]

Dupe 1 (orig)
Dupe 2 (orig)
Dupe 3 (orig).

Ok? Check the originals for more comments, I don't think it'll fly unless it's outrageously cheap and can maybe be paid just by walking by with an RFID tag or something else equally effortless. Geesh.

Maybe

[Znonymous Coward]

Maybe people like me would use the pay phone more if it were 10 cents per a call, not 50-75 cents like it is now. And maybe I would have a "land line" phone in my home if it weren't nearly $50 a month after taxes, FCC feens, 911 imposed fee, etc.

Or, the monolpy phone companies can just coninue to loose money and customers to cell phones.

[/rant]