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Internet Payphones launched
Stephen writes "BT has opened the first payphone with internet access. It's expensive, however, at 10p (16c) per minute. Read all about it at the BBC. " Here's my question: The phone books always get destroyed, the booths managled-how long is it going to take for for hoodlums to destroy these things?
And then there's the way we did it when I was an undergrad....
;-).
We built a huge bon-fire in the middle of an intersection on campus, using couches and stuff like that from nearby dorms. Anything available went in, including a satisfyingly high number of televisions. We got the flames so high the traffic lights had to be replaced
I was under the impression that BCTel was experimenting with these months ago in Vancouver.
Have you tried using pay phones in England? Do you know how expensive they are? 10p a minute's quite cheap, by comparison. when I was trying to call friends in London from Bath, I was putting in 10p every 30 seconds or so...
Get off my launchpad!
I've seen internet pay-terminals using
standard phone cards in Paris about one year
ago.
Funny thing with those dutch Internet kiosks was that some websites could crash the browser it used (www.digicrime.com had a section to kill various browsers).
:-(
With the browserapplication killed you got an all too familiar desktop... yep, the damn thing ran ms-windows and guess what? MSIE was also installed... funny. After crashing the browser wich checked your phonecard you could go on for free with MSIE or download another browser which didn't do anything with the phonecard at all.
The dutch telecom company was kind enough to put one of those thingies at the campsite of the Hacking In Progres conference.
The great idea was to make a "backup" of the harddisk onto one of the many computers on HIP (each with quite anonymous IP numbers) just to see what was on it and maybe even installing Linux on the kiosk.
We had it all planned...
Imagine the surprise of those dutch PTT engineers when they would have found out their kiosk suddenly ran an entirely different operating system!
Unfortunately someone else got a bit impatient and crashed the thing real good before we got a chance to implement our Evil Plans... It wouldn't boot anymore, so playtime was over.
Too bad, it didn't seem too complicated to have it run Linux and figure out a way to make the chipcardreader/writer work.
I'm not sure if I'll ever trust those public Internet Kiosks with passwords... A few years ago they were just a bit too public! Maybe security is tightened a bit, but then again, I guess I'm just paranoid...
But still, I like the idea of being able to read slashdot at any moment, even in the pouring rain on the street!
That statement is totally false.
Why is the web so popular? because its the most marketable part of the internet (along with email).
The people who want to make money from the internet are the ones who influence people to believe what you just said.
Hmm, Amsterdam has these things for years now.
And no, they are not useful, other than to spend a few cents to let it display _your_ homepage before walking away.
So, 10p/minute. It's nice to see BT provide another low-cost service, as usual.
OzEmail has had IP@T (Internet Public Access Terminals) in clubs, centres, and coach 'interchanges' for years. The price is pretty high though. Been at least a year since I used one, I don't know what the price is like nowadays.
did you bother to read the article?
easyeverything, the new internet cafe (with five hundred terminals - largest net cafe in the world, apparently) near victoria station in london is £1/hr - i heard, but can't confirm, that there were plans to give you a free hours connection when you bought a coffee.
...j
France has had public Minitel kiosks since ages. But Minitel and Internet are not the same thing. I've not yet seen a public Internet kiosk there.
It was in East Meadow and had a Cheesecake Factory restaurant in it (went there for dinner). It's near ABC housewares or something like that. HTH.
Well the WWW is the internet if you forget news, ICQ, IRC, FTP, Telnet, whois........
Admittedly all those have various web portals but with only a few rare exceptions they all suck bigtime.
Just my £0.02 + V.A.T
*--BigMan--- Time flies like an arrow.. but personally I prefer a nice glass of wine!
$5/hr is about what internet cafes tend to charge for computer usage. Of course, the ambience of a phone booth isn't quite the same, and you can't get a free half-hour with your double espresso.
Hoodlums?!?!! Why those dang whipersnappers! Take a switch to 'em I say! Hooligans! All of 'em! In my day, it would take a month of Sundays before some hooligan would come along and do something downright ornary like that.
"Hoodlums"? I suggest you invest in a thesaurus -- or maybe you have!
This is nothing new. I saw an "internet booth" in a truckstop in Spartanburg, SC, for 25 cents/min., in January of this year.
Hee hee. Firecrackers, internet porn, and a Wendy's in one convenient location.
Would you shut up already?
Well well well, this page was "Last modified: July 02, 1997":
http://www.ccc.lu/3c/prod01.htm
The machine was first deployed about 6 months before that.
Around this area the web cam would be stolen in a matter of hours, and probably the rest of the things.
Internet payphones have been in the new HongKong
.... Bluetooth ! ...
airport from day one. Judging from the frustration of the people trying to use them, they weren't popular. But I admit, the navigation was confusing. They tried to fit so much advertising on the screen it was hard to see the little navigation icons. I eventually got to the part where I was using the onscreen keyboard to type an email. I hit [Send] and bingo - "Sorry there is a network error". Yeah I'll try those again - NOT!
Our next contestant is
Come on down Bluetooth
The time is right.
I said it was our only chance -- I did not say it was a good one - Avon Kerr - Blakes 7
Video e-mail - users can take a photo of themselves at the terminal and attach it to an e-mail.
Oh, good. I was just thinking today that checking my e-mail wasn't slow enough already...
-ElJefe
Never used one, but they looked pretty industrialized. You could also check your Email.
I've found that Win95 based infokiosks are pretty easy to fuck up, though. We had a few of those outside our school, and we just tapped the screen at different locations simultaneously until it gave us an error message and allowed us to start the windows painting program and leave a little message...
Of course, installing all the accessories with win95 on a kiosk isn't very smart...
/El Niño
So you're saying that if your girlfriend sent an email to you with her picture on it from England that you would be angry?
Depends on who else was in the picture, I'd bet!
It's just a novelty concept, really. Nobody but wacky tourists who wanna say "Hey, ma, I'm at the airport! Here's a picture!" will think of plunking down exorbitant prices to say, well, essentially "Hey, ma, I'm at the airport!"
Those truly subversive enough will devise signs 'n things to place in the view of those webcams. Little penguins or whatnot to be displayed around the world. Have at it.
Hey, that's where I live... Which mall?
I've seen a lot of phone booths that were trashed, but very few that were actually disabled. Put the display behind armor glass or thick polycarbonate, make the keyboard the same as the button panels they use now, and I think they will survive.
I'm looking forward to being able to pull up an electronic directory instead of just looking in disgust at where the paper one used to be.
I was at the Mall of America last weekend, and those aolish kiosks were missing keys, and charged an outragous amount of money to use (10 cents/minute). It did let you do telnet, so it was interesting. I couldnt justify the money to play with it.
Just think about what could happen with renigade phone booth crackers!
hobie
Sounds reminiscent of Dogs In Space (an Australian indie film from the 80s).
On occasion I've thought that it'd be cool to build a huge pyramid of TVs somewhere, all wired up to show videos (news, camera footage, porn, cartoons, anything), and then set fire to it, all in the name of Art.
Because you can do anything in the name of Art amd get away with it.
I have seen a new system called 'NetPal' in australia. In Perth i have used them, there are some at the airport, and also at a hotel i stayed at, and they pop up everywhere else you look around. They are charged at 20c per minute ($1 for 5 minutes) and they are connected to a 56k Wantree connection (they dial when you put money in.) They are running Slackware Linux (I think) with a very cut down version of X (everything is locked out) and a few keys are disabled etc etc.
This is still ok, mabie Telstra will get their act into gear one day, and produce all the payphones as standard with little touch screens. I suppose they have already thought of that, but how are they going to keep the vandals away?
=)
Blake
ICQ# 3339300
Email: blake@geo.net.au
Hasn't the concept of flat rate access hit there yet? It hit here (US) years ago...
- =^o.o^=
This either gets (1) ignored because there's nothing truly useful about them or (2) swamped because they're too useful.
Or (3) barraged with porn. Replace the stickers on the phone booths with multimedia "call-in" ads for personal services instead? The mind boggles.
(First?)
----
It is often easer to gain forgiveness than permission
----
It is often easer to gain forgiveness than permission
The article says, "no matter how hard you hit the screen with the phone receiver in frustration, it will not break". Of course, that's something that has to be tried, isn't it?
Well, in Holland they've had public Internet Kiosks for quite a while now. They use the same phonecard as the phone system does, and the rates seem quite reasonable. It seems to be a comptetition who can leave it showing the worst porn site.
Do they not qualify as an "internet phone booth"?
just my blog and pix
Seriously though, if they expect any serious person to use it for Internet access for any reasonable period of time, they'd better add reclining seats in front of them.
Random Link o' Humour: Slashdot Trading Cards
There are several companies that have been beta testing in the US with this kind of equipment. One of them in downtown Philadelphia. Makes me wonder what the going rate for bulletproofing is.
On the top level of the Mall of America there are a couple of pay internet kiosks. Never used them or for that matter seen them in use. They've been there over a year as far as I can recall.
The best use for these boots is to do things that that should not be too easy to traced back. The bucket stops at the public internet boot. The only thing to check is for the security cameras and not to behave stupidly.
But that goes for all things.
I saw one in the Dallas airport over a year ago. Last week I was on Long Island and saw one in a mall. It was $.08/min IIRC.
"Here's my question: The phone books always get destroyed, the booths managled-how long is it going to take for for hoodlums to destroy these things?"
A good idea, I think. It'll do spectacularly well in the first few months until the novelty of paying 16 cents a minute for email wears off. I don't see it catching on in any big way until they drop the price dramatically.
Personally, I wouldn't use it. The only time I'd actually use it would be when I didn't have access to a computer, and that only happens when I'm travelling (and I don't want access to a computer!). Any other time I could just pop into an Internet cafe and check email there -- much cheaper, and a better environment than a street corner.
These icky things'll probably only be placed where 'high-class', rich, 'IT'-snobs, bisuness creeps circulate. Maybe like airports et cetera. You know those people with suits and cellphones, laptops with Windows 98 on.
/ i got real good bongo drums
How secure are these things? Is it possible for someone to crack into one and have fun with you (like adding an extra $0.02/minute to your charge and directing it to an account in Switzerland? ;) ). Just curious....
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Why am here?
Where is the chocolate?
What is your Slash Rating?
Whoopi, now people can hack from a payphone.
Without computer security, there would be no hackers.
Internet capable phones where all over the place when I was in Amsterdam.
They used a large LCD tilted landscape style and cost a fortune to use.. Looked like some kind of customm OS deal to me, but I didn't actually use one.
I'm all for this kind of stuff.. I'll never use it, but when I do, it will be a life saver.
And the anonymous aspect is nice too.
Only professional sites proofread. ;>
There are weatherproofed internet kiosks scattered around the Netherlands, often alongside phone booths and near the VVV (tourist info) offices. They run a generic web browser on an x86 processor, and eat prepaid telephone cards; I found them a great help when I was on a trip to Overijssel in March.
The manufacturer has a picture of a kiosk here.
They were set to install these things in Australia, with all the housing setup around the streets. Then they realised that computers don't work too well in the rain - not to mention the vandals. So now there are lots of empty PC housings around our streets. Although there are some indoors...
Actually...In Dallas, TX and Houston, TX in some of the more swanky type hotels their have been payphones with internet access...I believe it was $5 to conncet to the interet for 3 minutes...I also remember testing it out and it taking 3 minutes for the first part of a page to load...DOH!
"wow look at the big fire"
Blar.
First? I think not. http://www.qnx.com/hotnews/pr/teligent.html
I saw, and used, an internet payphone in the mall at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii back in '96.
These things would be good only for checking slashdot.org while away from home without a laptop...
Brought to you by Frobozz Magic Penguin Fodder.
If a Web Payphone used an OpenSource(TM) operating system (i.e. Linux, or anything else GNUish,) would there be a big phonebook type thing hanging from a wire down beneath it with the source code listing printed in it (see page 1389 for the tcpip.c file...)? Or maybe a big mile-long roll of tyvek with the source printed on it?
In the UK this is actually the cheapest public access Internet connection I've seen.
The one in our public library in Oxford is the same rate as BT: 1 pound per 10 minutes. (Well it was when I used it last year, and of course all the students in Oxford get free access through the University instead).
Isn't that why Kinko's has internet access? :)
And why would you want to hack something anonymously? When I hack things, I usually show off my good work...
- funkwaterCracking is a different story.
Seems pretty convenient, though from what I saw of the one I tried at the airport last year it's a bit slow (probably just a normal modem connection to the 'net or something). This is in Sydney by the way, I don't know what it's like in other areas of Australia but from the looks of it it's just a small pilot for now.
In Holland we've had these for some time now and I haven't seen one destroyed but I know of them getting hacked and not being usable after that anymore;)
In Holland, we have had similar internet pay phones for over two years now. We, the dutch, we're the first to have those things littering the streets. They don't get molested, like phone-books etc., but that doesn't matter because nobody uses these things anyway.
This seems to be against the main trend these days, which is toward 'intimist' technology - mobile, wearable, personal... wireless.
The phonecos understand that they stand to gain a great deal by pushing that trend; for them the traditional business of fixed phones meant incurring a responsibility to ensure that all phones worked properly, and all locations had access to phone service.
With mobiles it's almost the reverse - it's expected that the user, not the phoneco, will do whatever is necessary to improve a bad connection; e.g. move out of a building. And users are generally willing to pay a higher per-minute fee if the operator gives better coverage. IOW, good phone service is no longer something you can take for granted - you want it, you'll have to pay for it.
This side of the Channel, France Telecom recently announced a surcharge on prepaid calling cards to "cover phone booth maintenance costs". I'd bet good money that this is only the first step in a process which will eventually result in the disappearance of phone booths altogether.
A PR stunt is all this is, IMHO.
BT says they are the first. They're obviously one of the last to introduced the "phonebooth-internet"-service. Does this say something about their competence and awareness to competition?
Its good to see that BT are still as arrogant as ever, claiming a world first ! These things have existed in france for a while...but the price per minute is still stupidly expensive
Ha!
Funny.
"No, the internet is just the WWW now."
Ah. So what's this I keep hearing about email?
How about telnet or ftp? Tonnes of people still use these. They are way less top heavy and annoying than the web for some things (chatting, file transfer). They will continue to be used, I'm sure.
Plus, new transfer protocols and services will continue to be developed and used outside of the web (which frankly, on the whole, I'm not too impressed with)
why does this comment get scored -1??? /. gets dissed doesn't mean its not worth reading
it seems to be a valid criticism.
Just because