sundance-communications.com Forums Member Forums Phone Booth Public Payphones R.I.P.

This is probably the wrong category to post this under, but I just wanted to talk briefly about what may eventually be the sad withdrawal of public payphones due to cellphones.

The prices in Montreal went up about two years ago from a quarter to 50 cents, and I've heard it discussed several times on the radio that payphones may be on their way out.

With everyone from a seven year old on up carrying a cellphone, craming our airspace with an alarming number of radio waves, payphones have become....quaint

I still find payphones, even modern ones to be very impressive pieces of technology. Such sturdy machines. Of course they're made that way to stand the hypothetical beating they'll recieve living out on the streets so to speak.

Anyway, I just think it's sad they're slowly disappearing. They are another part of our heritage that is being lost.

what makes me laugh, when northern telecom released the milennium payphones in the early 90s (i saw my first in 1992) they had a HUGE security flaw on the coinbox. they had to reinforce all of em around 4-5 years ago with an external sheet metal cover

BellSouth (now at&t) did away with pay phones completely about ten years ago in the Southeast/South Central US region. I agree that it won't be long before other telcos follow suit. They are very expensive to maintain, and in most cases are being operated at a net loss to the telco. They will soon become collectors items for sure, but for now there are plenty of them available on e-bay.

Moving this thread to the Phone Booth for more appropriate exposure.

I don't think pay phones are going away any time soon in this part of the country. At least the ones located just outside of the local convenience store/taquerias anyway.

"Pay phones" haven't exactly gone away, but the game has changed quite a bit. In modern times, a desperate teenager will choose Home Depot, Wal-Mart or other outlet offering pre-paid cellular phones over the disappointing pecularities of most public payphones.

Old school: Payphones are equated with broken handsets and public urinals. COCOTs are easily confused with (or properly identified as) scammers and/or money-gouging CLECs.

New school: Pay $30 or less for a brand new, throw-away cellular telephone with 600 built-in minutes or more. Phones are [reportedly] untraceable, and usable minutes may be "re-charged" at a rate loosely corresponding to the street price of crack.

Don't know about other payphone providers in North America, but I have heard that here in Manitoba, Manitoba Telecom stays in the payphone business because they make money selling advertising on them.

Most pay phones have a 7 x 10 AD card on top, but I have seen ones that have the ad painted on the body of Millennium sets, and some of the shopping malls have sets with a video screen where the ad card would be.

Funny this comes up, we just sold 4 payphones to a Drug Rehab facility (so that people can be monitored when they make calls).

I read somewhere a few years ago that 50% of all payphones in the U.S. are located in New York City.

I remember that until my senior year we had a green rotary payphone at my high school! They took it out and put in a Toshiba digital 'courtesy phone'