Slashdot Mirror
AT&T To Decommission Pay Phones
oahazmatt writes "According to MarketWatch, AT&T said that its pay phones will be phased out over the next year. A company spokeswoman declined to say how much revenue its pay-phone business generated, but the number is small and declining. 'The first public pay-telephone station was set up in 1878, just two years after Alexander Graham Bell invented the talking device. The first coin-operated pay phone was installed in Hartford, Conn., in 1889. For decades after the pay phone's invention, many Americans relied on them because of the expense and difficulty in obtaining reliable home service. Only after World War II did the telephone become a household necessity.'"
Now where is Superman supposed to change?
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
Where will Clark Kent become Superman?
..Because there are cellphone everywhere? But if you find yourself without cellphone in a situation,would some stranger lend you his for a call you want to make?
Oh its about profit...ok..
Wincopy
We just had a "buggy whip" moment. And it's only accelerating.
Welcome to the singularity.
668: Neighbour of the Beast
Oh look, a violent crime. Better go to the nearest payphone and report it so I don't get roped in to the case just 'cos I'm concerned about someone being beaten to a pulp.
Oh, no payphone.
Everybody and their dog has a cell phone now. I think the last time I used a pay phone was the day I decided to get a cell phone.
I remember when I was young...when Mom would drop me off a the movie theater, or a mall...she'd make sure I had a dime to call home if I had to, etc...
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Death of an era, really.
As TFA says though, almost anyone and everyone has a wireless handset. I recent switched to a PP cell myself.
That's the real key... Pay phones were anonymous, with Pre-paid you can pay cas for the phone ans sim, using bogus info where needed. You can still be invisible.
-nB
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
Bell did not invent the telephone. It was Antonio Meucci!
When I moved to Atlanta in summer of 2004, it was the lack of pay phones in Midtown that finally made me purchase a cell phone. Had there been easily accessible pay phones in the city, I would most likely still rely on them. I wonder whether we'll see a significant increase in cell phone subscription now, or whether there aren't enough crazy luddites like me left anymore.
keep the phone add dsl to the line and a wifi connection - good to go.
emergency calls?
It's about phreaking time.
I find that most of the pay phone I've seen in and around my area, are either defaced with either gum or other crap, missing the handset all together, or broken (with the phone intact). With the advent of cells phones, becoming a necessity these days, do pay phones really much matter? I think not.
At least according to AT&T, the phones aren't just going to disappear. What the article says is that AT&T is getting out of the pay phone business, turning some or all of their phones over to independent operators.
Or is it because it is harder for them to eagerly hand over the identities of the callers to the concerned and not-so-concerned officials?
The British Telecom phone booths look really nice not to mention all the handy hooker ads inside :-)
Your pizza just the way you ought to have it.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
People are treating ATT like the scum of the Earth here, which they may be in their mobile business, but I can't see why expecting to break even is such an evil goal.
Pay phones here in Canada are up to $1 a call now, ridiculous, when it was a quarter merely a few years before. The downturn in usage means increased cost per call for the few people that still use them, which drives a cycle that forces everyone to get some sort of cell phone.
Both my brother (an academic) and my mother have pay-as-you-go plans, which cost them about $120 a year. That's really not too bad, considering they're light users. They enjoy the convenience of a cell phone, and also the security from being able to call emergency services wherever they may be, as opposed to having to locate the nearest (dwindling number) payphones.
I simply do not see pay phones as having any further use to our society. They were important pieces of technology from a bygone era, that's all.
A lot of people (most?) these days have cell phones - I'm not saying its right, but that's the way it is.
bork bork bork!
Every year that passes it gets more and more difficult to communicate without being monitored.
http://imdb.com/find?s=all&q=Phonebooth&x=0&y=0
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
the public telephone sanitizers? Time to start looking for a new job I guess...
When I lead with a Lebowski quote, are you really expecting deep thought?
That said, this is a momentous, well, moment. (BTW, that's an indirect Austin Powers reference.)
(Thanks for killing the joke.)
668: Neighbour of the Beast
...they muted the speaker so the red box wouldn't work anymore.
I remember when they were 2 cents for local calls
(we were so poor we didn't have a car, or a TV or a phone...)
At least, back when I had one, they were a lot more expensive than pay phones for the kind of very occasional use described-- since you had to pay $25-30 every 2-3 months or so (details varied by vendor) to keep the phone active -- but potentially cheaper then regular cell phones for use that was regular but not particularly heavy.
They might have friendlier plans now.
One could buy all the payphones, stick a wireless access point in them and an ADSL port on the other end of the line.
Hmmmm... With the dollar going off the cliff I might just be able to afford it.
Deleted
They were $0.10 in the 1960s.
Athiesm is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby.
Even worse, where are pranksters supposed to phone in bomb threats from? You can't do it from your cell phone, they will find you right away. OMG IT'S BIG BROTHER'S DOING!
Seemed right to me the first time...
At least, back when I had one, they were a lot more expensive than pay phones for the kind of very occasional use described-- since you had to pay $25-30 every 2-3 months or so (details varied by vendor) to keep the phone active -- but potentially cheaper then regular cell phones for use that was regular but not particularly heavy.
They might have friendlier plans now.
bork bork bork!
Sigh... yet another classic movie cliche goes the way of the DoDo.
AT&T continues to maintain it's Telephone Lease Program, but no longer maintains pay phones.
How absurd. Did I mention I hate those bastards? I decided to give them a try, especially given their "30-day money back guarantee". I'd heard they had improved, they were a new company, my slashdot posting history aside. I found out two days later that I would be getting the same, standard 6/768 DSL they give everyone, not some new 8meg/2meg package the sales rep sold me on.
Cancelled immediately. AT&T issued a bill for $100. Settled for $50. For 3 days of service, even with a "money back guarantee".
So much for giving them a second chance. I'll never, ever, ever, ever do business with AT&T again. For any reason. To the end of my days. Those bastards will never, ever change.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
doesn't have the same ring as "this phone boot reserved for Clark Kent".
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
I use a pay as you go phone from TMobile. After years of paying $50/mo or more to Verizon I smacked myself in the head for being such a dolt. I reviewed my bills and found that I use less than 100 minutes a month. I fill my phone with the highest cost card ($100) which gives me 1000 minutes that last a year. At $0.10/mi, I spend ~$10/mo. for a cell phone. For light users pay as you go makes sense.
Where are the mods when you need them?
Who choose not to have a cellphone because they:
I only reluctantly got a cellphone a few years ago. AFAIC, they're as close to a travesty as one can get; they've got more computing power than a PC did a decade ago, but are even less usable than the GI Joe walkie talkies I played with as a child. (I believe the audio was clearer.)
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
Bow-ties are cool.
What about all those movie story lines where they show them on a pay-phone or in a phone booth?
Talk about an end of an era!
It was bad enough when Superman lost his changing room, but now to have lost them all together...
Now where are people going to steal phone book pages from?!
It truly is a sad day indeed.
-Goran
Carpe Scrotum - The only way to deal with your competition.
What's 2600 supposed to put on their back cover now?
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
With pay phones finally out of the way, there will be plenty of room for the new suicide booths!
I was moderating that thread but I figured I'd point out it's high time we... er... repurpose all those payphones before they're thrown away. Perhaps we'll be seeing more payphones on ebay?
(C'mon, who doesn't want a pay phone to hack around with?)
Skiffy is Spiffy, but Ort is tort.
And most homeless people don't bother with pay phones either. It turns out that with the prices for calls the way that they are, that it tends to be cheaper to just use a cell phone anyways. That and people can reliably return phone calls.
More likely they're using the prepaid variety. I would be as well if I weren't on a family plan with a couple of big talkers.
Uh, why? Pay-go doesn't meet my needs for reasons outside of price now.
That's good to hear, for those whose needs are in that direction.
I made no assumption. I stated my factual experience, and mentioned that it was outdated and that things may have changed. Heck, you quoted the whole message, is it too much to ask that you also read the whole thing?
Most Americans don't, which is why they carry so much debt and the economy is shitting the bed.
Blar.
From TFA - AT&T is only operating pay phones in 13 states, will phase those out, hoping/expecting another firm or firms to pick up the slack.
Therefore, this already doesn't affect 37 states - whose pay phones are still working without AT&T. It didn't say America would lose payphones, it said AT&T is getting out of the business.
Nothing to see here.
Pathological kinda promises Path + Logical - but instead, you get stuck with pathetic.
AT&T: "Fuck the poor."
One more thought - your elitist classist statement turns my stomach. people like you are what's wrong with capitalism. /. Isn't name calling fun?
Here's one more thought your sanctimonious statement turns my stomach. People like you are what's wrong with
I laughed at the weak who considered themselves good because they lacked claws.
this is what i did for my wife through cingular.. she only ever uses it to call me to come change her flat tire - OJT doesn't seem to be working for her
'...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
right now, i feel like i am in the middle of a cell phone conversation since a person near me is for no uncertain reason shouting into their cell phone. is it possible for att to take the phones but leave the booths?
A hand up and a foot on every chest...
phone. Alot of people wont let you use their cell phone.
Your F**Ked.
I go to a little private college that's kind of in the middle of a more ghetto part of the city, there's always sirens going on and every few weeks there are always reports of an attempted rape or robbery, and I'm not just talking the usual bikes. We have these little emergency stations through out my campus, it's a big pole with a panic button, and I think a handset to talk to public safety. They're pretty much our pay phones that can only call 911, which is what I hope the decommissioned pay phones will still be able to do. At least then I won't feel completely fucked if I forget my cell phone off campus and some guy is running at me with wearing a ski mask or swastika and it really is nice to be able to call 911 on a landline and not have to look for the nearest street sign to pinpoint my location.
...So cell phones aren't that expensive, and even deactivated ones can usually still call 911. But what if the batteries die? I know I generally have to charge my phone at least twice a day. Damn thing won't last more than 8 hours on a charge. Sometimes it's as low as 5.
This sucks. Even though I have a cell, I still use pay phones fairly often.
aint i been saying, i been saying for a long time
ATT is evil.
but its life.
sometimes people learn from their bad choices... others dont... this is just once case of a company over 100 years old that is still learning. and still F****** up
I think it's their responsibility to provide public phone service for whatever reason, emergency or not. They have the resources and revenue to provide it.
Well, I guess I have to get rid of my beeper now?
I guess I need to get into new tech gadgets. Basically, I really only want to know the type of phone that I can make anonymous phone calls in case I was to be wanted by the most ruthless gang of thugs on the planet: the American Authorities.
/.
I make that comment thinking of the bad joke that I came up with the other day. Joke goes like this...
THIS MAY BE OFFENSIVE TO GANG MEMBERS OR LAW ENFORCEMENT, OR BOTH. I don't mean it to be. Ponder it.
Four wanna be, are-a be thugs are sitting around the bar, an African American, a Mexican, a Skinhead and a white guy.
The African American says, "I got the Bloods and Crips, and they got my back."
The Mexican says, "I got MS-13 and they're international, most violent, and they got my back."
The Skinhead says, "I got the skinheads." Chirp-chirp. Non of the thugs want to mess with him.
The white guy says, " I got the cops, and they got my back."
Hmmm.
It's a terrible joke. Remember Rodney King. Remember the tampered evidence at the OJ trial, and he might have done it.
The point is that fighting is wrong. Whether you're labeled as the good guy or the bad guy, it's still wrong. One of the commandments says that we are allowed to use evil to banish a greater evil. I disagree. I don't believe that I'm disagreeing with God. I strongly believe that the message from God was misinterpreted by man (Moses?).
Anyway, back to the topic of eliminating pay phones. As a fugitive, I would no longer be able to make a phone call that was untraceable to me. I'm not stupid enough to use my own cell phone so that telecoms can gladly comply with any existing law, or law in the future that makes them hand over a transcription, voice recording, date, time etc of my calls. Well, that's not true. I am stupid enough to use my cell phone, even though I know it's being monitored. I would do it because it's convenient, and I'm a white guy. Ha ha ha.
I don't know if pay phones are the last bastion of democracy, freedom and everything that is wholesum. I hope not.
Nine-eleven sparked a boom for the cell phone business. I don't care if there is a conspiracy to plug us all into the system. I just want to maintain my right, granted by God, and our Forefathers, to bring down the system when it pisses me off.
Thank you, My first time posting to
Now where/how exactly can Neo get back to base? Or for that matter Morpheus :(
While AT&T will be getting out of the payphone operating business, TFA explains that they will still sell service to independent operators. I think it's safe to speculate that most of the phones will be simply be sold to other operators, in place, not ripped down. It would be quite expensive to retrieve and dispose of 65,000 hunks of steel and plastic, whereas there are still companies who feel they can make money operating pay phones. Most valuable: street locations, whose back surfaces can be covered with high-profit eye-level billboards.
Airplane Photos, Airline News, Planespotting Guides
If I have hit a nerve than GOOD. perhaps it will get you to rethink your sickeningly elitist ways.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
The last time I used a payphone, because my cell had run out of charge... ...someone had urinated in the booth, or close enough ...the phone book was mostly torn out ...the phone itself was not clean
Who wants that?
"The pay as you go phones are for people who are either A) poor (obviously because they can't manage finances since they bought this)".
I'm poor due to having a rare genetic disease, and my life saving were drained by western medicines useless bullshit before my research led me to find out what my bodies problem was, and then I went to two specialists and my diagnosis was confirmed.
Now I'm poor, I don't like it, life is very difficult being poor, but I somehow get by, and now with the loss of pay phones, "pay as you go" phones are all I can afford.
So... just how is it that you can be so BLIND to other circumstances for people to be poor?
Or are you just an arrogant prick?
If it don't GO... chrome it. ~ Frank Banks
Read this ripoff. Lots of "profit" opportunities for companies that dump regulated pricing, say 10,000%, on top of the extra cell phone pricing power and dumping a potential subsidy.
One more thought - your elitist classist statement turns my stomach. people like you are what's wrong with capitalism.
========
Because being a whiney socialist/marxist is just so 'honorable'?
A few years ago, the phone service died at my house. They said it would take a week to repair it, so I had to buy a cell phone to get buy. To this day I wonder if the phone company had ulterior motives...
I remember using a red box with the pay phone by the student union way back in the days when I was in college.
I didn't get much use out of it because it really only worked for long distance calls, and the only people I wanted to call that were long-distance were my parents, and I didn't want them to get any blow-back if it went sour. But it was a fun experiment.
Of course, the red box's days were numbered when COCOTs started replacing real phone company pay phones.
This is an obvious a move by The Architect to remove those pesky hard lines from The Matrix.
Those will still be in place as public urinals. They just won't have that occasional annoying ringing while you're in there now.
You stated, as if it were fact, that "pay-go" phones were very expensive, then added "at least they were a couple years ago". I stated *currently* factual information to rebut your claim.
Also, when I was dispensing what I *thought* was helpful information to you, how was I to assume that "pay-go" phones were not suitable to you for reasons OTHER than as stated? Despite what several have told me, I am not a mind reader.
Next time, try to be less insulting. You might get more people to help you when you need it.
Uh, why? Pay-go doesn't meet my needs for reasons outside of price now.
That's good to hear, for those whose needs are in that direction.
I made no assumption. I stated my factual experience, and mentioned that it was outdated and that things may have changed. Heck, you quoted the whole message, is it too much to ask that you also read the whole thing?
bork bork bork!
This sucks. Even though I have a cell, I still use pay phones fairly often. Just because *you're* an idiot doesn't mean that we all are. My cell lasts several *days* on a charge (and that's if I use it -- well over a week if I don't use it much). You either have a whiz-bang power-hungry cell, or your battery is in dire need of replacement, but you'd rather whine about it than just get a new battery.
Frankly, if I knew someone with a cell phone who was still using pay phones (for reasons other than lack of service), I'd have serious questions about their intelligence.
I wonder what will happen in locations that have no cellphone coverage, such as at Phantom Ranch at the bottom of the Grand Canyon? There used to a single AT&T pay phone down there, which became exorbitantly expensive the last time I used it ($4.95 for the first minute). I suppose some third party service will pick up the slack, but the costs are sure to become even more ridiculous. It might be cheaper to carry a satellite phone!
that 2002 movie Phone Booth was supposed the be in the last phone booth in NYC, i'm sure prop houses can stockpile them for the ever important suspension of disbelief.
then again, there will be a similar problem when horror movies eventually acknowledge that most people have cell phones. most of the classic horror movies work around the premise that you can't just call somebody and the cast has to continually walk into some sort of trap.
What about places where you are not supposed to use a cell phone such as Hospitals?
In my experience, the people dubbed anti-social aren't flat out unwilling to communicate with people, they just are unwilling to communicate with MOST people. I myself am often considered anti-social, but if the conversation is dealing with something that interests me, I'm chatty as hell. Phone phreaks (and BBS users) were very into communicating with one another about techie related things.
... or people who value the anonymity they provide.
Hey, perhaps it's all part of the War on Lib^H^H^H Terror?
I have to deal with this here in the US. The apartment complex that I live in has gates at all the entrances (not on the parking lot), to improve security. Of course they do nothing of the sort - I jimmy them open almost once a month when I forget my keys while doing laundry, and the thugs that are too stupid to do this just break the gate - happens about once a year. Only one of the gates has a device to buzz someones apartment, and that is the front-facing gate that no one uses because all the parking is in the rear. Half the people that come visiting either don't have cellphones, so instead they just sit out in the lot and honk their horn until whoever it is they are waiting for comes out. All hours of the day and night.
Just because management thinks these flimsy pieces of metal decrease crime (or know that idiot customers think that) and they are too cheap to put in more call boxes. Can't wait till I get hired on permanently so I can buy a house.
I am the head librarian at my library. We host two pay phones in the library. Since about 4 years ago those phone calls stopped being net revenue generators for the library. We pay about $50/month for each of them. We then get a cut once the usage goes above that.
We are going to absorb the loss for at least the next few year because we have an older user bases that expects the access, but they won't live forever. Also, as a public law library, we are not expected to turn a profit on our services.
But the phone company tech do complain about travel times between servicing the pay phones. There are less and less pay phones around, so each tech have to cover larger territories. If the only pay phones left are in public buildings like ours, then the monthly charge will increase, eventually we will have to re-consider our decision to hold on to them.
Once you dropped below certain critical mass, without the economy of scale, I don't see how the service can be sustainable in the market place without subsidies. And I don't see it coming.
The places that people would need a Pay Phone will no doubt get ont through free market. Not that the free market solves all problems, but I think this one it does.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
"Nearly every scholar agrees that Bell and Watson were the first to transmit intelligible speech by electrical means. Others transmitted a sound or a click or a buzz but our boys [Bell and Watson] were the first to transmit speech one could understand."
That's from your link buddy.
Does not reading a link that proves you are wrong, while obliviously arguing otherwise make you even more stupid then?
Yes. Yes it does.
I challenge you to find an AT&T pay phone in my neck of the woods (San Francisco). Most of the ones I've seen recently have look-alike paint jobs, but upon close examination they're owned by some no-name operator (and priced to match).
And it happened in Europe -- and in particular, mobile phone-happy countries like Sweden and Norway -- even longer ago. Last time I found myself in need of a phone on a street in Oslo in the middle of the night, I was hard pressed to even find the type of coin the phone took. Then, when I plunked them in, it turned out to be broken.
It makes sense, if you think about it. Who wants to be in that business? People used to gripe at how expensive pinball games had become compared to video games, but if you consider how much wear and tear all the moving parts in a pinball machine get -- not to mention the abuse from being pushed, pulled, shoved, kicked, and dropped on the ground -- the maintenance far outweighs the profits that a few quarters would bring in. Same with pay phones. How many laundromats in major metropolitan areas have pay phones that are occupied by hookers or drug dealers, 24/7? How many screaming mad arguments over money, or drugs, or "relationship issues," happen over pay phones that then end up getting smashed a few times in frustration? Those things have to be built like tanks, and they're just not paying for themselves anymore.
Breakfast served all day!
I remember pay phones at their best between 1990 and 1997. There was a deal in my area where you could call anyone in the state for $1.00 on the local telco phone. This was when a quarter would give you a call.
However the end was neigh shortly after 1995 when your regular payphone started being replaced by 3rd parties. No longer could dial 0 to report that your landline was not working, the operator was somewhere else and had no idea how to assist you.
And not to speak of the variable rate to make a call. I remember I tried to make a call cross the US/Canada border in 2001 or so. In the past I expected such a call to cost dollars. The phone demanded $52.xx IIRC and even worse the operator phoned back asking me to deposit $52.xx. Not like I had enough quarters on me. But it wasn't 'SO' bad there were calling cards, some which even accept recharge via credit card. $5.00 to make a given call.
But now the payphones are fewer and far between. And while it sucks a pay-as-you-go phone is the more attractive option... unless you are out of range.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
AT&T plans to help find alternative payphone operators for people who need them. The AT&T decision only applies to 13 states serviced by AT&T (SBC) payphones. AT&T only operates about 65,000 of the 1 million payphones in the US, while Verizon operates about 225,000. AT&T plans to sell as many of the phones and lines to independent operators as they can. They expect the majority of the phones to be bought by someone. They even expect to continue selling wholesale payphone service to payphone owners.
It sounds to me they just decided to let someone else field the equipment. There's a lot of exaggeration around this story, but the facts are all over the web. Death of the payphone, indeed. This reaction is kind of like saying IBM getting out of the consumer laptop and desktop PC market was the end of the Windows computer.
don't be polluting the conversation with your facts and references!
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The feeling of being out in a completely isolated, absolutely silent, gorgeous desert valley, yet receiving communications from all over the world, was indescribable. The 25+-mile, largely open-wire line even made strange pinging and popping sounds while one talked on it, which I later learned were distant lightning strikes being picked up on what amounted to a giant VLF antenna! I would imagine that someone would have heard similar sounds by hooking a speaker to an early transcontinental telegraph line.
Leave it to the government to destroy a very positive and innocent phenomenon that served to bring people together. I imagine the copper thieves would have pilfered the wire eventually anyway, but the Park Service's action was premature, selfish and uncalled for.
The death (murder?) of the MPB is a sad story, and was just the beginning of the end of the pay phone in general.
It isn't just profit--it's also about final reduction of anonymity. It's easy enough to throw a fistful of quarters into a phone and place a completely anonymous phone call. 80% of the prepaid phones I've had the misfortune of working with, require full identification in order to activate. The few you can get setup and activated in store with just cash get you on in store and on video, and you'd have to throw the thing out immediately after using it or risk being geolocated by any ass with a subpoena.
I'm sure that wasn't the primary motivation, but it certainly is a convenient side effect that there's now one less way to report crimes or deliver anonymous tips.
Libterror? I used to use that library ALL the time.
Not well, apparently.
No, I'm not.
I stated in my original post (emphasis added): "At least, back when I had one, they were a lot more expensive than pay phones for the kind of very occasional use described [...] They might have friendlier plans now." As I stated in response to your initial misguided response, and contrary to your characterization abivem "I made no assumption. I stated my factual experience, and mentioned that it was outdated and that things may have changed."
Nothing you stated would rebut any claim that I actually made. If you had read what I wrote (and were not, as you say, "completely incapable of comprehending written English") you would realize that.
The current information you provided was useful and welcome. The misrepresentation of what I wrote and unwarranted attacks were neither.
You were the first one to be insulting. And the premise of your insults was your own mistake, not the actual content of my post. So perhaps you should practice what you preach.
The pay as you go phones are for people who are either A) poor (obviously because they can't manage finances since they bought this) There are other reasons to be poor. If one has just graduated, has just been laid off, or is stuck earning a first year of work experience in a part-time job, is he necessarily unable to manage finances?
Anyone know a place better than eBay to buy used payphones? I've got an art project in the works that could use two or three of them. Working is important, but they don't need to accept coins. Thanks.
I laud your entreprenuerialship, but I'd think you would be entering an already oversaturated market. Free WiFi is rather abundant in urban areas (even just looking only at the legitimately open-access points) where street payphones are found. Wireless providers are starting to come into their own with the pricing of their high speed data services, with WiMax offerings on the drawing board to coexist with their networks in a couple of cases.
If you're thinking that you can serve the wireless VoIP "crowd" that wants an alternative to the wireless providers, I'm afraid that you will find yourself fighting a pretty steep uphill battle to offer service at a cost that's comparable with the alternatives, or at least signing up enough subscribers to "keep the lights on".
Another technical hurdle that would exist is that payphones usually are not located in a manner that would allow for seamless or optimal coverage. While some phones are right out on the street corner, many more are tucked away in the back corners, such as the corridor to the rest rooms. Yet another issue (that I don't have a definitive answer to) is whether or not you could find a way (or negotiate with the ADSL provider) to power an access point from the ADSL line itself. If not, you'd also have to find/maintain electrical service to power the access point. Solar might be a solution for outdoors. Indoors, you might be able to negotiate a deal with the property holder to have access to an outlet at something more reasonable than having a spearate service from the electric company.
As much as I think it would be cool to replace evicted payphones with some sort of access point, I'm hard pressed to see how anyone could make it into, at best, a financially self-sustaining venture.
As I understand it, in Australia, the national telco (Telstra) is required to maintain a network of public telephones. This has prompted them to not only maintain them, but promote them as a cheap alternative to mobile phones - you can use them to send text messages, for example.
There is a clear social benefit to having pay phones. This is (yet) another example of a way in which "maximising profit" does not equal "maximising social benefit".
Read Pynchon.
my understanding is in the US you pay for incoming on cellphone plans. In europe you don't generally pay for incoming but calls from landlines to mobiles and from some mobile plans to mobiles on other networks are considerablly more expensive than calls to landlines.
Here in the uk calling a payphone costs no more than any other landline and you don't have to pay for incoming on them. Is the situation the same in the USA?
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
I just hope that they keep them at airports.
I have been stuck at the airport for so long my cell died. I had to call into my office using the public phone to let them know what was up with the flight.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Otherwise, you pay by credit card and get hit with so may fees that your head almost explodes when you see the charges a month later.
I tried to call the "operator" to ask how much the call was going to cost before I dialed. The response was basically:
- we can't tell you how much a call will cost before you call
- we can't tell you how much a call did cost after you call (because of all of the other fees heaped on the per minute charges)
- have a nice day
/ cell phone battery died
Darwin also knocks off the aberrants who are unable to fit into the herd.
Belkin Skype phone? Doesn't have any way to log on so it'd have to be a public hot spot. Sound like an alternative? Or would something like an Asus 3e make more sense?
Remember, not all of us over 40-50 are dead yet and the need to be connected is one of the greatest generational gaps. (We often don't feel it and, so, would be annoyed paying for it.)
Right after the 9/11 attacks in manhattan, cell phones did not work, land lines did not work, but pay phones did. I waited in a line of 20 people to make a call next to washington square park. Glad that pay phone was there, or it would've been a while before my family knew I was ok.
I use TracFone. I hardly ever use it, and usually just get the 1-year card that comes with some number of minutes(300? 400? I'm not sure because I usually end up getting a special offer that gives a bit more). Works out to $100 a year or about $8.33/mo. Tough to beat that. :)
"This thing does science so hard, you say, 'I've never seen that much science.'" -Sam
Typically no, but the cost of payphones is much higher than a landline is on a per minute basis. Generally $.50 for the first couple of minutes. Versus a landline being $20 a month or so for unlimited local calling. And this is a part of the country where it's particularly expensive. In some parts of the country its more like half that. One can often times cut that down significantly by having a limited plan.
Anybody that has to call for 30 or 40 minutes a month is going to be paying a premium, over a home phone. That's assuming that one can find a payphone when one wants to. Many of the payphones now are far more expensive than that, and there isn't a whole lot of regulation of what the rates can be.
In the US, typical plans these days will be unlimited between phones on the same network, and calls between phones that aren't on the same network will use minutes. Typical plans will have either unlimited minutes on nights or weekends, or just a real large number of minutes.
In a typical month, I'll only end up using around 10 minutes or so, because all of my calls are in network.
Yes, incoming as well as outgoing calls count against our minutes here. They do the same with SMS. While most carriers have a plan under which it's cheap or free to call that network (and therefore more expensive to call another network), because of the way the phone numbers are set up, there's usually no difference in cost between calling a landline or mobile. Here in the uk calling a payphone costs no more than any other landline and you don't have to pay for incoming on them. Is the situation the same in the USA?
I can't speak for the entire US, but in my region (at the time, New Jersey) they started phasing out pay phones that accepted incoming calls in the 1990s. There were two reasons behind this. The first reason is misguided half-valid paranoia. After doctors, the next people to carry beepers/pagers were drug dealers. Bob pages Bill with a pay phone number, Bill calls Bob back, then bad drug things happen! The second (and probably real) reason, of course, is money. When I was a teenager it was fairly common to place a collect call from a pay phone, then have the person decline and call back. (Getting the number from the "You have a collect call from _________" recording or Caller ID.) As long as it was a local call it didn't cost anything, which obviously the phone companies found unamusing.
So now Bob and Bill are still dealing drugs, but on mobile phones, and the phone companies get paid twice each time they call each other. Progress indeed!
This is an interesting and probably a good move for the company that ate my cellphone provider. Regardless, I am envisioning a scenario during which American comm sats are destroyed by ground based weaponry such as that which has already demonstrated by the Chinese. Now I doubt the elimination of payphones will bring about the end of the world, but yanking up a bunch of this infrastructure and increasing dependence on cellular technology may have some interesting effects. I'm reminded of the battlestar galactica which depended on paper communication and old style telephones because the newer communications technology was so easily compromised by cylon intelligence.
I'm pretty sure they were still 10 cents in the early '90s here. There was quite the fuss when they went up to 25 cents. I don't think much of anybody noticed when they went up again to 50 cents.
Not free, and not 802.11b/g/? . Something more like Motorola's Canopy which has far better range and performance characteristics.
Deleted
Seriously, what is wrong with selling them to local/state governments and making them FREE to those with an ID (or have the operator confirm if you lost it). Add a id reader though for ease of use. We would want to use ID, only to prevent a person from chatting for hours on the same phone. Exceptions for 911 obviously.
Taking phones away will endanger many peoples lives!
Hear, hear. When I exit, say, a theatre the first thing I do is walk to the nearest pay phone to call my chauffeur. Having to carry items on my person is so fucking plebian; I'm not a pack mule. Besides, shoving geegaws and gizmoes in my pockets would ruin the lines of my clothing. If the pay phones disappear, I'll be at the mercy of whatever establishments I choose to patronize to have a telephone available, and in most cases that'll require interacting with some nitwit who barely understands English yet insists she must be the one operating the phone. It's beyond embarrassing.
Rather a few years back, there was a big press release about Verizon making their pay phones in NYC WiFi access points. I found out about this 2-3 years after it was announced, and excitedly tried to get internet access on the corner of my block, where a WiFi-enabled payphone was reportedly located (by an old section of their own website).
Not only could I not locate a signal, I felt pretty stupid standing on the sidewalk with my laptop. I don't think they kept up this plan and quietly cancelled it when it proved fruitless.
WiFi doesn't reach very far, and it's kinda useless most places where payphones are located, unless there's ample public space infrastructure on the sidewalks for people to sit & use the service.
You can buy the minutes directly from tracfone's website, cutting out the tax you'd pay at walmart. Also you can buy a double minutes for life card for $50, which does what you'd think and would bring down my cost to 10 cents ( I get the 200 minute cards for 39.95).
Actually, he uses a TARDIS. And you call yourself a pedant.
Ok, so how many "idiots, greed" taggers are also "new and improved" business model spokesmen as well?
After disabling the coin requirement, I need to hook one up in the kitchen on the original POTS jack. It would be a great conversation piece.
What my payphone users won't realize is that their call stops traveling on a phone line once the bits hit my packet8 device.
Technology is wonderful. =)
There are only 10 types of people in the world: Those who understand binary, and those who don't.
Stories like this cause a tinge of nostalgia, perhaps, but to me they mean something more.
I am excited to think that someday while I am still alive, kids will see pay phones in old movies as we see hand-cranked automobiles or slide rules.
I am excited to guess what I will experience in thirty or forty years (technology-wise).
I can't think of a more interesting century or two to be a part of than the ones I live in. I'm sure that the pace will only accelerate.
Forgive my geeky schmaltz.
-b
No offense, but I've stopped responding to AC's.
Sadly we are seeing fewer and fewer telephone boxes in the UK too. It's increasingly difficult to find one to pee in when on your way home from the pub.
or you did in Ohio as late as '83-'84.... the last 5-cent pay phone I saw was in Miamisburg (outside Dayton) about then....
And most homeless people don't bother with pay phones either. It turns out that with the prices for calls the way that they are, that it tends to be cheaper to just use a cell phone anyways. That and people can reliably return phone calls.
More likely they're using the prepaid variety. I would be as well if I weren't on a family plan with a couple of big talkers
I am in frequent contact with missions and other homeless shelters and the people that use their services, since I frequently do charitable events at these places. Most of the homeless either can't afford any kind of cellphone, or if they could, couldn't spend what little money they can scrape up from trash-diving for returnable bottles, etc on one. They need every dime for much more immediate needs. Cellphones are also easily (and are frequently) stolen and traded for drugs or sold for a few dollars. Many view homeless in possession of a cellphone as suspected drug dealers or users.
Pay phones were the main communication means for the homeless (other than to other homeless/street denizens). The homeless also have a high distrust for authorities, and avoid any contact with them whenever possible. I've heard them tell stories about themselves or another homeless person that witnessed a crime or encountered a stranger in extreme distress that, where in the past they would have simply picked up a nearby pay-phone and reported it anonymously, simply shrugged and walked away out of fear.
Let's hope the next terrorist in the process of initiating a major attack in some city is careless enough to let a non-homeless person witness their activities and report them. If a homeless person is the only witness, chances are good it'll go unreported, at least in any kind of timely manner.
Cheers!
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
I noticed! But maybe that's because I don't like carrying a cell phone around.
The details are trivial and useless; The reasons, as always, purely human ones.
What about the poor and homeless people that use pay phones on a regular basis? Several organizations have voice mail systems in place for homeless and poor people to receive and exchange messages. Many of these people can not afford a cell phone (even if it is prepaid). In many places this will be a very large impact for these people. Assuming we give them a free cell phone to make 911 calls it is going to be difficult, almost impossible, to keep the phone charged all the time.
Secondly, pay phones are used to report crimes or to get help.
On one hand I can understand ATT not wanting to support pay phones if they don't make money. They are business after all and need to make money. Is it their responsibility to fund/maintain social infrastructure? However, while it may not cause your or I problems there is a populations of people out there whose lives will be impacted.
It will be interested to see how it plays out.
WaPo just ran this article about the DC area's last phone booth.
"If it gets knocked over, somebody runs into it with their car, or it needs to go for whatever reason, we would not bring in a different phone booth in its place," said Margaretta Rothenberg, a manager in Verizon's pay phone division.
God I'll miss those germ-ridden boxes...
^^
I don't have a cell phone -- yup, I'm THAT guy. The only one without a cellphone.
I plan on traveling during the holidays and I usually call in to my family whenever I go from one rest stop to another. I talk for an average of 5 minutes which is about $0.50 on my calling card which includes the cost of the phone surcharge. I do this once or twice a year and make about 4 rest stop calls along the trip so I'm out a couple bucks each way.
According to your logic, I should be "happy" to spend $100 for a phone for the year when I can get by just fine with $4.
When are people going to wake up to the fact that we are slowly being squeezed into bankruptcy due to all of these "got to have-its" including DSL, Cell phones, home phones, etc which all include taxes that are larger than the original cost of the plans.
Anyhow, it just shouldn't be that expensive to live on-the-cheap.
I'm okay with it if they want to ditch built-in hardware in the booths, but bring back phone booths.
In the airport, in the theater lobby, in the waiting rooms, the hotel lobby, and so on.
Just little single-person boxes where people having a cell-phone conversation can go to have privacy and to avoid annoying those in their environment.
Seriously, just because you can talk anywhere doesn't mean we can't have special designated spaces just like we used to when phones had fixed locations.
Sure, some would still ignore them, or they'd be full... but it's a step in the right direction.
AND, it sets an important precedent for the future when we all have mobile toilets. No more need for public restrooms, but I don't want people pissing and shitting in public.
Thanks.
-HobophobE
Nothing laughs forever.