CBC Radio's "All in a Day" follows up on the developing story of a potential 100% increase in the cost of payphone calls with a map of payphones in Ottawa. Each point on the map includes a photo of the phone booth or payphone. Pretty cool.
Canadians seem to take their payphones pretty seriously based on their online reactions to a proposal from Bell Canada and Bell Aliant to raise the cost of payphone calls by 100%. Watch this video from "The National", which aired on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
As if stepping through a time-portal I found myself inside this hall of New York City phone booths. It was March, 2012, but it felt like the 1960s. Let's take a look.
Watch as I dial toll-free directory assistance on an unbelievably ancient New York City rotary dial payphone. Video from March, 2012.
I thought sure this old wood booth would have been removed since I last saw it about 2 years ago.
It's a commercial for pants -- Dockers pants -- which contains some nice imagery of abandoned phone booths from around the world. I like it, even with the droll punchline at the end. Check it out.
Rare New York City phone booths spotted in Manhattan's Central Park. March, 2012. (212) 722-9781, (212) 722-9476, (212) 722-9431 & (212) 722-9991.
I submitted a 311 complaint about a payphone that has been out of service for years. Nothing happened. The phone still does not work. According to the Rules of the City of New York Verizon should be liable for a penalty of $2.7 million, or $2,500 a day going forward, for this consistently non-working payphone.
More news from the world of payphone scams. This time BBG Global is the villain, according to the New York Times and several other sources. U.S. troops accuse the company of gouging payphone users with exorbitant rates for very brief long-distance calls.
The images are grainier than the sound quality of a typical cell-phone connection, but they show the face and actions of a payphone thief in video released by the Philadelphia Police Department. This unidentified male is seen stealing a payphone by using tools to lift it off its pedestal. If you are in Philadelphia and recognize this individual call 911. The payphone is valued at $1565.00. That's grand larceny.
A sad day in New York City payphonery has passed. About 2 weeks ago this old rotary dial payphone was replaced with a standard touch-tone device, ending decades of service as the old phone finally made way for the new. The question now is: Was this the last of its kind in the city? Was it the last fully-functional rotary dial payphone in NYC?
213-387-5725 DPSS 2601 Wilshire Blvd. Los Angeles 213-387-7056 DPSS 2601 Wilshire Blvd. Los Angeles 213-387-7068 DPSS 2601 Wilshire Blvd. Los Angeles 213-387-7096 DPSS 2601 Wilshire Blvd. Los Angeles 213-480-8009 Court 600 Commonwealth Los Angeles 213-480-8042 DPSS 3435 Wilshire Blvd. Los Angeles 213-480-8210 Court 600 Commonwealth Los Angeles 213-480-8307 Court 600 Commonwealth Los Angeles 213-480-8308 Court…
It looks like no one is responsible for maintaining public telephones in Washington, D.C.'s Metro. The Washington Examiner Reports on how communication breakdowns among the District, Verizon, and an un-named independent payphone provider leave the Metro with non-working payphones that may never be repaired.
A couple of payphone-related items that allude to this site in name and/or spirit crossed my desk last week. The "Baseball Payphone Stadium Project" and the "Payphone Revival Project". Click to read more.
For each toll-free call made from a payphone the owner of the phone gets about 50¢ in FCC-mandated dial-around compensation. Some shady payphone owners exploited this income opportunity by programming their phones to dial dial dial every toll-free number that still allowed calls from payphones. After a while those robocalls add up, and get rich, real rich, until you get sent away.
All that remains of the Polivio Payphone that once stood at 31-08 Astoria Boulevard South is a set of 4 metal spikes and a photograph I left as a memento.
The South Wales Evening Post carries a jeremiad of sorts on the state of public phone boxes.
One species of public telephony which most of us would hope never enters our lives, but which we might take sour comfort in knowing exists, is the suicide hotline phone found on bridges and in some high places. There is said to be such a hotline phone on the RFK/Triborough Bridge. I looked for it. For 2 years I have looked for it. I can not find it.
"Using a payphone -- yes, they're still out there -- will cost $1 instead of 25 cents in Nova Scotia if a rate increase requested by Bell Aliant is approved by regulators. "'If it is approved, and when it is implemented, it will be the first time the cost of a pay telephone call has gone up in about 20 years,' spokesman Mark Duggan said Monday."
There are still payphones at the intersection of Broadway and 31st Street in Astoria. This payphone (seen in a photo from 2008) is no longer among them.
It's another payphone that once was, that is gone gone gone. This is a former payphone. This is a NON-PAYPHONE. This payphone is DECEASED.
These Verizon payphones seldom if ever worked, but this did not stop people from sidling up to one of the phones, lifting the receiver, depositing coin(s), dialing a phone number, and waiting for an answer. Well into the phantom ringing of the phone the caller might have realized that the phone did not work. Or maybe not. I do not know. This is a behavior I have seen many times, even with payphones like this one with wiry entrails dangling about.
The Sacramento Press has an elegiac photo essay of payphones in Sacramento. Some are abandoned, some are in use. Some are blighted and others are loose.
It looks like Nicolaos Kantartzis will be using a payphone for the next few months. A PRISON payphone. The Huffington Post and numerous other sources report on this Washington, D.C., payphone owner turned jailbird payphone scammer. Stories like this help explain why some owners of toll-free numbers block calls from payphones. Even without the risk of robbery by these type of robo-dialing bandits it simply might not make sense for business owners to compensate payphone owners 50¢ for serving as the middle-man for incoming calls.
Is it Jim Croce's "Operator"? Is it ELO's "Telephone Line"? Is it a song you might not have considered? What is the greatest payphone song of all time? I think I know.
"The National Consumers League and Consumer Action believe that payphones continue to play an important role in providing a needed communications link for millions of consumers and workers. It has come to our attention that the Commission is currently considering two petitions submitted by the American Public Communications Council (APCC) that would halt the imminent disappearance of the nation's payphone infrastructure and preserve the critical functionality that these telephones provide to consumers, particularly those with lower incomes."
This payphone seemed to draw the attentions of people who had no intention of using the phone. There is a bus stop next to this former payphone location. People waiting for a bus would sometimes pass the time by fiddling with this payphone. Fiddling means: picking up the phone, needlessly listening for a dial tone, dialing a non-existent phone number, and hanging up. Some folks idly picked up the phone to look busy or distracted, in the way people commonly use cell phones as a crutch, to make themselves seem important and distracted.