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…
By far the most impressive individual’s collection of payphone pictures I have seen in a long time, Loren Everly has travelled the world keeping an eye out for, among other things, phone booths and payphones. As the number of public phones decreases the cultural value of documenting their presence increases, making Loren’s photo collection both…
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…
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…
Welcome to the 21st century. Access to public telephones must now be litigated and passed through political channels: “We knew that, for a state like Maine, pay phones are not just a relic of small-town Maine, but a necessity of life, part of the landscape,” [Rep. Herb Adams, D-Portland] said. “They’re there for that emergency…
Look for a couple of quotes from me in this story by Coulter Jones, which also mentions the Freefone business model that I think represents a substantial part of the future of the public telephone. “In the past nine years, a million pay phones have been shut off in the United States — nearly a…
“[Howard Meister, president of Cleveland-based North Coast Payphones] said he believes that pay phones always will exist on the American landscape, even at reduced numbers. “‘Until the country gets to a point where there’s universal service or every person breathing has access to cell phones, there will be a need for this public service,’ Meister…
“The new VoIP pay phones, dubbed the WebPhone, has (sic) a handset, color monitor, full keyboard and looks similar to digital photo-printing kiosks. [Pie Networks] said the VoIP pay phone will be able to draw in mobile phone users by offering lower rates than some mobile plans.” Read more at VOIP News
“[Telstra] has told its pay-phone provisioning staff to begin taking out the extra phones later this month, despite being warned that the information used to determine the profitability of many phones in NSW and Queensland was unreliable.” Read more at AdelaideNow
“… as cell phones have given pay phones a run for their money, some in the industry are hoping for a comeback with new technologies, like Wi-Fi connections. “About 40 pay phones recently launched at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas now also operate as Wi-Fi spots. Wal-Mart may be next in line. So anyone looking…
“A full 7.1 percent of the nation’s households had no phone of any kind in November 2005, up from 4.7 percent three years earlier, according to the Federal Communications Commission. “For those people, and for the estimated 43 percent of U.S. residents with no cell phones (as of June 2004), pay phones are especially crucial,…
SeattlePI.com reports: “In the late 1970s and early ’80s, the phones became increasingly unpopular with community boards and local officials afraid of drug dealers. Eventually, Verizon changed all its phones to refuse incoming calls and removed phone booths, which had become grim repositories for trash and human waste.” Read more at SeattlePI.com
Abby Johnson describes how SBC/AT&T’s removal of unprofitable public phones in rural Nevada has created public safety concerns, stranding some with virtually no phone communications. “The availability of a pay phone in each outpost community along the Loneliest Road is a matter of public safety and courtesy. It is what Nevada owes the tourists and…
FoxNews.com reports: “A stroll along Ninth Avenue in Manhattan reveals an ugly picture of the state of the pay phone these days. The phones are sticky, beat up and scarred, and some don’t work at all. A child’s change purse is stuffed on one phone ledge, along with a large wad of wrapping plastic. On…
I get quoted at far greater length than I deserve in this nice story about the potential removal of a payphone in Farmington, New York. I did not know that this was going to be the front page, big-time boffo news story of the day at this paper; nor did I know I would be…
The pay-phone maintenance man is cited as an example of a job that will eventually disappear. The maintenance man quoted in this story offers this insight into the state of the payphone business: “‘There is a large section of society, the have-nots, who use pay phones,’ he said. And pay phones can be essential…
MacAllister Stone writes: “My personal experiences with payphones over the years tend toward the middle-of-the-night, damn-I’m-in-a-fix variety. You know the kind I mean, right? Your car broke down and you’ve just hiked along the shoulder of some lonely two-lane highway, in the dark. You find a roadhouse with a payphone in the back, through the…
NPR delivers a flailing, unfocused piece that nevertheless opens some interesting windows into the paranoia of Americans who for some reason assume that use of public networks comes with a right to anonymity. ‘”What I decided to do was go out and buy with cash a pre-paid phone card,” Hensley says. “Then through other means,…
“Rural payphones saved from having the plug pulled on them are being converted to take cards instead of coins. “Merely losing the ability to pay for a telephone call by using coins at these locations is better than BT having to remove the kiosk altogether, which would be the alternative,” said (BT Manager Rick) Thompson.”…
“British Telecom is to scrap three Wirral payphones and remove cash payment facilties from a fourth. ‘”We appreciate that some people will wonder why the phones are being removed, but often when you ask those same people when they last used a public payphone they have a lot of trouble remembering.”‘ Read more at the…