Is your cell phone dead and you need to let the family know you will be late? No problem, just pull in and use the pay phone, right? Not so fast, my friend. Finding a pay phone these days is not that easy. Read more at Star Exponent.com in Culpeper, Virginia
From a Malkin & Ross press release: “The New York State Senate and Assembly reached agreement at the end of this year’s legislative session on legislation that would treat prison telephone service as a right, not as a revenue generator. “‘Words cannot describe what this victory means to me — unless they are written on…
BT is re-vamping the design of its public payphones. The new design, by ad firm JCDecaux, accommodates more advertising on the phones in a drive to compensate for dwindling revenues from payphone usage. “The new, cutting edge design, is the first new design of telephone kiosk in the UK for 20 years. The latest style…
“SaskTel is being urged to remove pay phones from an inner city neighbourhood in Regina amid accusations that they’re facilitating drug dealing and prostitution. “But other people argue that the phones, located near the General Hospital in the Core neighbourhood, provide a vital service for low-income people in the area who don’t have their own…
“There is a new take on phone booths at Eastern Connecticut State University, and it is designed to keep the library the way it is supposed to be – quiet.” I looked at these booths last year, and expressed skepticism at their usefulness. Depending where these booths are used, it would seem that the dramatic…
The Payphone Project gets a mention in this story from Victoria, Canada, which explores ambivalence to the expected rate increase for calls made from Telus payphones. “Plenty of people eschew, can’t afford, or just don’t need cellphones. The question is whether there are enough of those people to keep pay phones profitable. “Maybe not, to…
“Despite their bleak future, pay phones can still serve as a vital communications link during times of disaster. Service for cellphones and home phones could be disrupted or knocked out by an earthquake, for example. However, public phone service will be available. “‘During a disaster we will set up public phones at shelters. Using them…
The Globe and Mail reports: “Not surprisingly, your need for pay phones increases as your income decreases: 88 per cent of low-income Canadians use pay phones at least a few times a year, according to a 2003 national survey conducted by the Montreal-based Union des consommateurs. That includes 22 per cent who use pay phones…
The Nevada Appeal accompanies its fine story about declining payphones with a strangely erotic photo of a rotary dial payphone. “The pay phone, like a lot of old technologies, has become somewhat of an endangered species these days. Once found up and down Highway 50 at every gas station, liquor store and convenience shop, they’re…
“The Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld the right of companies to sue over alleged violations of federal communications law and reinforced the regulatory authority of the Federal Communications Commission. “In a 7-2 decision, the court said that pay-phone provider Metrophones Telecommunications Inc. may pursue a suit against Global Crossing Telecommunications Inc. “At issue are payments…
The Union-Tribune‘s Michael Stetz writes: “Mark Thomas, who started The Payphone Project, digs pay phones. Thomas used to call them out of the blue and play a tape of one of his piano performances over the line to whomever answered. He liked the odd connection between perfect strangers. Today, most pay phones won’t take incoming…
Scotland’s Pennan phone box, declared by a local tourism board as “the most famous phone booth in the world,” was the scene of record breaking achievement. 16 gymnasts filled the famous phone box, breaking the booth-stuffing record set in 2003 in Edinburgh, where 12 adults and 2 children succeeded on their second attempt to fill…
Because of its central role in the movie “Local Hero,” a phone booth in Pennan, Scotland has become one of Scotland’s leading tourist attractions. While many calls come in to this phone, however, few calls seem to go out, causing concerns that this phone would be purged along with other money-losing phone boxes throughout the…
By BT Scotland’s math, annual maintenance costs for a phone box are about £1,600. This story profiles a Scotland phone box that was only used for three calls in an entire year, making its cost-per-call ratio rather conspicuous. This story also mentions a “legendary” phone box: Ferness 261, featured in the 1983 film Local Hero,…
“There was drama in Nateete recently…” This all-too-short story reads like a screenplay-in-waiting. From this story, it sounds as if a man in Nateete, Uganda, used a community payphone to make a call. Africa is largely without any sort of landline telephone infrastructure, and a community payphone is essentially a pay-as-you-go mobile phone. Such a…
A long article from Penn State University’s “Daily Collegian” describes the inexorable decline in payphones from the university’s campus. Canadian company Freefone might be in line to replace college campus payphones with free (ad-supported) public phones, such as those seen around New York and other cities. This article also touches on the reality of behaviour…
“The Court of Appeals, in a 4-2 decision, reversed a lower court’s determination that the lawsuit should be dismissed for a lack of timeliness. That was incorrect, the high court ruled. While not making any judgment on whether inmates would eventually win the claim, the Court of Appeals ordered that the case go to trial.…
The Daily Herald warns against getting ripped off by unscrupulous payphone operators, and also includes a few interesting facts and figures about the state of the payphone business. “Some billion and a half calls were made on pay phones last year nationwide, many by low-income families with no other option. “Who uses pay phones? Many…
Here is an interesting story about one reporter’s involvement in the infamous Zodiac serial murderer case. In September, 1969, the Zodiac called police from a payphone, bragging about his most recent murder. Unable to track payphones to exact locations, police fanned out to try and find a payphone with its receiver off the hook. “This…
It is fair to assert that most New Yorkers are probably indifferent to the decline in payphones in the subway system. Despite the fact that cell phones generally do not work in the city’s subways, I would think that most cell-phone carrying straphangers are connected to the world constantly enough to a point where the…
For many years, one of the most frequently visited sections of The Payphone Project has been the pages explaining what it means when phone numbers such as (720) 587-9978 and (404) 461-9978 show up on your caller ID. Many people, seeing these strange and unknown numbers on their phone, type the numbers into an Internet…
The Miami Herald reports: “80,000 pay phones were taken out of service in the past seven years. 150 calls a month must be made for a phone to be profitable. “For a phone to remain profitable, it must be in an ideal location and be used for at least 150 calls a month. The best…
A lively story about the declining number of payphones in America. This story includes a multimedia feature containing sound effects of a ringing payphone and surrounding sounds. Evidently that multimedia feature was designed for a larger screen. Read and hear more at Ocala.com
The Concord Monitor reports: “Mainers in more than 40 locations who were stranded without a line to the outside world when telecommunication companies removed many of the pay phones in the state will soon regain access through a network of public interest pay phones.” Read more at the Concord Monitor
This story describes how the residents of Cliff Island, Maine, took advantage of Maine’s “Public Interest Payphone Program” to restore access to a public telephone in an area where cell phone coverage is spotty to non-existent. “… the new communications order has left some people in the lurch. Maybe they find themselves in one of…
The Mendocino Beacon refers to the Payphone Project, and to the “This Ain’t Livin’ blog cited in this story about the Headlands Payphone in Fort Bragg, CA, in a nicely done story about the removal of public phone in areas poorly served by cell phone coverage. There is only criteria for removing public telephones in…
From the maybe-you-had-to-be-there department: “In ‘Payphone Warriors,’ teams of four players spread out from Manhattan’s Washington Square park in a mad dash for dominance over the area’s many pay phones. The idea was that at each new bank of pay phones–and who knew there would be so many in such a small area?–a player would…
A friend writes to share this story of the Headlands payphone in Fort Bragg, California: “… the Headlands payphone is a staple of my life. When I moved back to town and didn’t have a phone yet, I gave out the Headlands number on employment applications, and when I got my first job in Fort…