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Payphones Still Make Millions of Dollars (vice.com)
From a report on Motherboard: Disruption-y tech companies like Uber and Twitter are a big part of "the discourse" and our daily lives, but neither of them make any profit. You know what once-groundbreaking technology doesn't have any problems making bank year after year? That's right, it's payphones. Most people now have a cell phone, so you may have wondered who still uses those rusted, quarter-eating boxes. As it turns out, a lot of people do. According to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission's 2017 monitoring report, payphones in Canada made $22 million CAD in 2016 (this figure may not account for the cost of upkeep, but the CRTC has stated in the past that payphones are "financially viable at current rates.") That's spread out among nearly 60,000 payphones in the country, which made roughly $300 per phone over the course of the year. That's at least a few calls per day, each. The US numbers are similar: The FCC reports that in 2015 payphones made $286 million, which is comparable for a population ten times the size of Canada's.
'nuff said.
#DeleteChrome
Not everyone has a phone and if you don't, you basically can't even get a job. Libraries have computers and wifi. Buses take you places if you don't have a card. Why don't we allow basic telephone services to people without access to one? So yeah, leave a couple around town.
Yeah, hold the whole world up for "one meeeeelion dollars!"
You can't even buy a ranch house in Hayward for "millions of dollars" anymore.
To avoid certain roaming charges [abroad]
And, for contact with my clients wanting a dime bag or two.
feel me?
My understanding is that there is some really questionable pricing/gouging for phone calls from prisons.
I'm really wondering if calls from prisons are included as part of their numbers here.
If you kidnap someone are arranging an exchange for a briefcase of cash, a payphone is a necessity. I've seen several documentaries about this.
$300 per phone per year is a horrible rate considering the amount of capital involved. That doesn't even account for all expenses. Compare that to vending machines. I wouldn't be surprised to see the profit from all vending machines over the US or Canada to be well over a billion dollars per year.
Redundancy, redundancy, redundancy.
Wireless is nice and all but nothing beats a hardline.
Oh and redundancy.
equals $25 per month.. which is far less than what telephone companies charges for the phone line to hook up a privately-owned pay phone. *that's* why pay phones have been pulled from most of the u.s.
My experience is the canadian quarters always jam vending machines. I assumed they didn't have any working ones in Canada.
What are the numbers for pagers/beepers like?
It's so cute that Canada still has payphones. I'm also imagining Canadian switchboard operators with permed hair.
You are welcome on my lawn.
How else are you supposed to get out of The Matrix?
What are the numbers for pagers/beepers like?
(###) ###-####, three digit area code followed by a seven digit phone number; just like payphones, land lines, and cellular. Why? ;)
At $300 revenue per pay phone per year, do the owners of the pay phone make any money? Ultimately its the profitability of the pay phone service that will determine if the pay phone stays in use or not.
I've always said English was my second language. Had Romeo and Juliet been written in C, I might have understood it.
also get collect call fees and calling card fees from the phone with out having to collect coins from the phones.
they take loonies!
I worked for 3 different US telecom companies over the last 15 years. 2 of them sold off their payphones when they could, and just uninstalled them, when they couldn't. The 3rd company held steady with them, as they were churning a small profit.
For the first 2 telecom firms, the cost of repairs, plus the cost (pay + gas + vehicle upkeep) of having an employee drive to each one and empty the box just wasn't worth it, and this usually resulted in a small net loss each quarter.
Wasn't there talk of replacing payphones with payphone/WiFi hotspot hybrid units? Whatever came of that?
Southeastern US here, and people are saying payphones are almost extinct.
It's not true though. Why, just the other day I heard a great whooping commotion in the back 40 late one night. Looked outside and there's a blue phone box. Wasn't there yesterday, so I suppose the phone company installed it. Strangely, as I looked, a good half dozen people came piling out of the thing. I have no idea how they all fit in there, unless they were maybe practicing for a world record or something. They all rushed off somewhere seeming to be in a huge hurry.
Well, last night again there were a lot of odd whooping sounds and the phone box is gone now. I suppose the phone company must have installed it in the wrong location by accident and gone to move it wherever it should have been to begin with. Go figure. Not the most competent of folks.
Point is: public phones are still around.
It can be done with a mere sewing needle.
Payphones must stay because insurance rates go up if there are fewer places for superheros to dress in high crime areas.
Nullius in verba
I have to wonder if all these are profitable because of the rates they charge. I remember growing up as a kid in the late 80/90's when you could make an as long as you wanted local call for a flat 25 cents. Now a days you dont see any payphones owned by the local phone providers which i am guessing might have been more regulated on the pricing they could charge. rather 3rd party owned phones where they seem to charge whatever they want to. Its probably been 5 years but the last time i used one of these pay phones i was like 25 cents a minute even for local calls.
also: pagers
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
Have gnu, will travel.
How's the Machine supposed to make emergency contact with Finch and Reese without payphones on the street?
Constitutionally Correct
Canadian here.
I spent 3 weeks in a Canadian hospital getting quadruple heart bypass surgery.
My out-of-pocket cost was $750, all for 30 long distance calls home that I made using a credit card.
That's an average of $25 per call, and no one had to collect coins.
The rates and prices were not disclosed. I only found out when I got home and received the bill.
Pay phones in hospitals in Canada are not regulated and Bell Canada sub-contracts the billing to a third party operating in another province, that in turn is a subsidiary of a company based in the USA.
Try taking that one to court.
I don't want a cell phone but I still want to make the odd call
Twinstiq, game news
Prisons and drug deal is big business.
$300 a year is less than a dollar a day which is less than two local calls a day as it's $0.50 for a local call on a payphone in Canada.
Don't forget that it's an average of $300 a year. Some phones are going to be used a lot more while some are hardly used (most likely installed because they have to be and only used when nobody has a cell phone).
The prison phone industry dwarfs this.
The public seems to put up with this under the belief that it hurts inmates. That is not exactly true. It's the people the inmates call that have to pay. These are often spouses and children struggling to make it without the inmate's income.
This causes friction between the inmates who are trying to maintain enough of a mental foothold in society to resist permanent institutionalization of their thoughts and the family members who are trying to survive. It is a system seemingly designed to destroy the inmates' family relationships and support. We don't want inmates to be able to maintain the support to regain a productive life after prison. We want them to reoffend as quickly as possible and return to prison.