Over 100 independent payphone service providers did business in New York during the 1980s and 1990s.  Thus it should come as no surprise to find evidence of one whose name does not seem to exist anywhere on the public Internet. I did not make a huge project of this but searches of public or non-public resources that I know of turned up nothing on a company called TELVAST. That name surfaced on this Queens Boulevard payphone when the TITAN signage on top of it came loose. This hot mess of a payphone disappeared soon after I got this photo.

Unclear to me is the connection between TELVAST and the display advertising panel beneath. I assume its placement atop the enclosure connects the TELVAST brand to the otherwise ambiguous ad, which has a very early- to mid-2000s vibe. I had never seen an advertiser use that space, historically reserved for the brand of the payphone’s owner.

Offline resources, including payphone industry trade journals of the 1980s and 2000s, turned up nothing. These journals included directories of companies involved in payphones back then. I found no mention of Telvast there, nor did I find it listed in a couple of New York City phone books I have from the 1990s. I also tried New York State business directories and the like but came up empty. The telvast.com domain name,  registered years ago, looks like it has only ever been parked.

My scattershot resources for this little project do not make for a comprehensive search. So with this I put the question up for grabs for anyone who might happen to know. It’s no big deal or anything, but worth a shot just for fun.

TITAN, now part of the CityBridge consortium, would have acquired this payphone from Verizon around 2010. Eventually this Queens Boulevard should be replaced another LinkNYC kiosk.

TELVAST reminds me that I never got to the bottom of “TRACEKIT™“, another little payphone mystery I discovered on a long-abandoned payphone some years ago. According to wording posted on certain phones there allegedly existed a technique or product called “TRACEKIT™“. This would have enabled payphone owners to mark up their devices so law enforcement could determine true ownership. Theft of payphones had always plagued the business. The word includes a ™ symbol but I found no trace of a trademark by that name that would have anything to do with payphones.