Pay phone nostalgia [telecom]

In Pennsylvania Station NYC there are some pay phones and people using them.

The Trenton NJ railroad station had a whole wall of payphones as you describe. When the station was rennovated these were removed, but a few payphones were installed at major entrances, and I've seen them in occasional use.

A number of Verizon payphones in the NYC metro area, including at train stations, take coins for station long distance calls at a rate of 25c per minute, $1 minimum. This is a very useful feature. There are still people who don't own cellphones, and plenty of people who forgot theirs or the battery is dead. People lose lots of cellphones.

At many railroad stations there is a payphone on the platform which mainly serves as a 911 emergency phone. The carrier pays the phoneco the cost of the phone--this is cheaper than a dedicated line help phone, and of course lets passengers call anyone they want if they wish. I see them in use occassionally.

I was at an old shopping mall and noticed that where there was once a battery of pay phones near a main entrance there was now only one, and the rest of the wall covered with plywood.

Your post reminded me how ubiquitous payphones used to be. Almost every public place had at least one payphone, often more, at each entrance. There would also be payphones scattered throughout the facility, such as in the hallway near restrooms or elevators on every floor. Shopping malls had them in fancy kiosks, some malls built in the 1970s had Touch Tone payphones (a novelty at the time).

Many small businesses, such as luncheonettes and gas stations, had "semi-public" pay phones. Sometimes these had an answer-only blank- dial extension in a back room; in those cases the payphone would have a plastic flip top over the coin slots to warn users to listen first.

The village where I live used to have outdoor payphones at numerous locations; the last ones (at the convenience store) were recently pulled out. One remains at the train station as described above.

New York City still has many pay phone kiosks on street corners. The reason is that the kiosk enclosure holds advertising cards which couldn't be out there otherwise; and the ad revenue pays for the phone. According to the NYT, there are one or two remaining real phone booths on the street.

In thinking about it, it appears the old Bell System usually was rather liberal about installing pay phones. I remember lots of locations where I was surprised there were multiple phones that never seemed to be used. I knew of many isolated locations in buildings (e.g., at the end of a little used corridor) that had a pay phone. If someone wanted a payphone in a marginal location the property owner would have to ensure a minimum revenue and make up the difference, a policy that continues to this day (see above for railroad stations). In the past, I wonder if some businesses paid to have extra payphones installed so as to avoid employees and guests using company phones for personal calls.

Many years ago in large places like major railroad stations there would be a payphone center with an attendant with a switchboard. The attendant would place the calls for patrons and direct them to a booth when the connection was made. In the late 1970s Pennsylvania Station in NYC still had an attended payphone center, but I don't know if the attendant still connected the calls given dialed direct (TSP/TSPS) for everything was common by that point. The attendant may have assisted with overseas calls.

Many years ago Western Union would have a desk at the largest train stations and airports and these would handle a lot of traffic in the

1950s.

I don't know which did in public pay stations quicker:

1. Wireless phones

1. Private pay phones that quickly became notorious, making a one-arm bandit in Las Vegas look like a gift machine by comparison.

***** Moderator's Note *****

People are funny: a shopkeeper who finds out he can make 25¢ or 50¢ per call will often do the magical mental dance that allows him to think Ma Bell was making just as much and keeping it for herself.

Of course, Ma Bell had an army of statisticians where could predict the affect any price increase would have, but, well, it's human nature to assume that a pay phone that used to be used 30 times per day will _always_ be used 30 times per day. Those who (briefly) benefitted from the COCOT craze soon found out that people resent being ripped off more than they resent paying extra for cell phones: as I said, people are funny.

Bill Horne Moderator

On Wed, 17 Feb 2010 15:31:50 -0800, Sam Spade wrote: ..........

How many hotel chains are now regreting the decades ripping-off guests with exorbitant outgoing call costs which basically kick-started the business mobile phone industry as an alternative?

Talk about "biting the hand that feeds you", I wonder how much revenue hotels get now from guests using their own phones now that virtually everyone has a mobile?

There's a similar issue now going on with WiFI internet access. Just about all hotels phased it in in the past five years. (Which is pretty fast and amazing...).

When it started being possible, many initially charge an extra five dollars or so in order to give you the password. Now, though, with the vast majority providing the service for "free" (that is, no additional charge), the ones that still try a surcharge are losing customers.

I personally have told hotels that I refused to do business (or further business) with them.

(There will be some that will manage to pull it off due to their unique circumstances - if, for example, they're the only one for 50 miles... or if their market niche is sufficiently esoteric).

So it's pretty rare, at least in the US, for WiFi to carry a surcharge anymore.

I do not think hotel phone surcharges were responsible for the business mobile phone industry. Remember, cell phones were originally installed in cars, replacing the old limited capacity mobile system, and were very popular as such. Car phones originally were expensive to buy and use. As such, I don't think they impacted hotel phone usage that much.

Hotels always had plenty of payphones in the lobby, sometimes even on every floor.

I'm not sure if hotels charged a fee on toll calls made from a guestroom. However, Bell may (unconfirmed) given the hotel a commission on toll charges. Bell developed switchboard systems specifically for hotel/motel use. I recall a large resort complex that had a Teletype to receive time & charges from Bell since their call volume was so large.

Probably very little. But remember, in the old days the phone in the room, the PBX, and operators were cost items. Any large hotel had dedicated PBX operators 24/7 (in small hotels the desk clerk handled it.) Today the phone system is much cheaper in terms of both labor and equipment so there are less costs to recover.

The widespread usage of wireless phones, including to children, probably was the biggest factor. They were so much more convenient. Note that it was not a matter of price since it takes a lot of 50c local calls to add up to the monthly cost of a wireless phone.

One problem with toll calls from pay phones, both private and Bell, was that toll calls were considered operator-handled and higher rates applied. As time went on into the 1980s dialed-direct calls went down in cost while operator handled calls became ridiculously expensive, even though 1+ station coin calls became automated. Then the "AOS" alternative operator services got involved thanks to divesture and "competition" making calls ridiculously expensive ($25.00!)

Private pay phones were only a ripoff on toll calls; on local calls they usually charged the same or even slightly less than Bell. People who traveled extensively got calling cards and special access numbers to beat the onerous toll charges of all payphones.

Note that a great many businesses, and even many residences have 800 toll free numbers, so to the caller it doesn't matter.

I would add a third factor and that is the decreased cost of phone calls in general. In my area, the price of a local call from a business is one message unit and has been a flat 7c since the 1960s. In 1965 7c was worth much more and added up. Most businesses strictly frowned upon their phones being used for personal calls by either employees or guests for that reason. Most business PBXs could and were set up to restrict extensions from dialing out or from making toll calls. But today 7c is not a big deal and companies don't care about local calls; indeed, many office receptionists have a phone for guests to use to make local calls. Likewise with toll calls, which were strictly controlled. But today businesses pay a very low cost per minute, especially when compared to the inflation adjusted cost of a toll call in the 1960-1970s. So again, businesses don't mind employee or even guest toll calls as much as in the past. Thus, a business doesn't need payphones as it once did.

I doubt most reasonable folks minded paying a little bit extra for a local call. It was those COCOT routings to an alternative operator service that accepted only credit cards. The next billing cycle you find you were charged $20 for a 3 minute call to Cleveland, so such.

My experience has been the lower-end motels catering to the casual traveler offer free wifi. The upper-end hotels that cater to business travelers charge. I think it's because business travelers are more likely to need a connection for work and can put the cost on their expense statement.

- - John Mayson

***** Moderator's Note *****

I suspect hotels abandoned WiFi charges because many corporations negotiate special rates for their employees, and it may have been too complicated to keep track of which guests would and wouldn't be billed for Internet access.

At Kennedy Space Center Visitor Center, outside the main pedestrian entrance (after the ticket booths, before the "screener") is a wall-mounted pay phone. The unique aspect is that the enclosure is shaped as a Mercury program space capsule. It was there as late as last summer. I did not see another pay phone on the grounds.

I have pictures around here somewhere.

Jason (very long time lurker)

Considering that you can get a prepaid wireless account for $10 which will pay for an account for 90 days and can cost as little as

I think you're mixing up the timeline: when the phones went to 50 cents per call, cellphones were still very expensive and still cost a lot to run. The rates you cite may be low _now_, but one of the driving forces _behine_ them _becoming_ low was the large influx of dissatisfied payphone customers, many of whom wouldn't pay 50 cents per call even if it meant paying $90 per month for a cell phone instead.

As I said, people are funny.

Bill Horne

-- (Filter QRM for direct replies)

"I am Pabst Blue Ribbon, American, 'Southern Serves the South' I am tucked behind the 'J.C.' sign on the rural route." - Mary Chapin Carpenter

Back a couple years ago I was stuck at Dulles airport. They charge for use of WiFi.

What I find interesting though is that the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority has now rolled out WiFi on ALL of it's commuter rail cars. That's too sweet for words.

Bill Horne wrote: ..

Funny is just one of their (our) many, many attributes. I presume you mean funny as in 'peculiar', not as in 'ha ha'.

One of my friends has refused to use pay stations for many years predicated primarily on the fact they are repositories of all kinds of diseases, and in particular around many parts of Southern California, they could be really bad third-world afflictions, such as treatment resistant tuberculosis. His point is not without merit.

As to the use of the telephone when I was a child, our town near Los Agneles was afflicted with a backwater independant. We didn't get automatic dail equipment until 1950. (LA already had some 5XBAR by that time.)

It went without saying that long distance was a last resort. But, my mother did not like using the phone for local calls because she felt she should save her burden on the "hapless" local operators for very good reasons. She would usually drive to town (2 miles) to inquire of merchants rather than bothering the operators.

And, there was the one candlestick phone in a recess in the hall that the builder had placed there for that purpose.

***** Moderator's Note *****

The town where I grew up - Dedham, Massachusetts - didn't get dial service until the late 1950's: I can still recall answering the phone and hearing a woman telling me "this phone is now dial" before my mother came and grabbed the handset, so I must have been pretty young.

Bill Horne Moderator

Wish I could find such. I have a T-mobile prepaid; it's $10/every ninety days, which buys me in theory 30 minutes of use. Ergo, that

3 minute call you mention will cost me $1 or usually $1.33.

I can get cheaper /minute rates but basically only if I pay more per month, or buy a far bigger chunk of time. Neither appeals to me.

Irony ^2. Another [Massachusetts] state agency, MassPort, fought free WiFi at Logan airport [in Boston] for *years*, attacking Continental Airlines for providing it. They claimed everything from free WiFi was interfering with TSA, going to cause crashes & to it was causing teen-age acne & pregnancy....wait, they forgot that one. Somehow, they never said "It's costing us customers on our WiFi $y$tem..."

MassPort was shot down in flames by the FCC in late 2006.

Now, suddenly they seem to have gotten religion and embraced free WiFi. I hope Planned Parenthood is busy with a rear-guard action.

I believe two suburbs of Philadelphia, Upper Darby and Willow Grove, didn't get dial until circa 1962.

Santa Catalina Island, California, was the last Bell System location to get dial. They shipped then trucked a modular small-sized ESS (No.

2?) to the site, apparently due to the terrain it was difficult. I don't know what the last sizable Independent served town to go dial was. Due to the high labor cost of providing an operator 24/7 regardless of traffic, many small isolated areas went dial earlier than larger areas.

I don't think people minded paying the 50c for a local call. Rather, I think people very much liked the convenience of a cell phone--which at first was just in automobiles--and enabled the user to make and _receive_ calls anywhere at any time. The receiving of calls was a major advtg--the caller didn't need to know where his party was, just dial the number. Can't do that with pay phones without cumbersome games and coordination. Even though pay phones used to be everywhere, a cell phone was still more convenient, especially on the road. I knew a real estate salesperson who got an early car cellphone (corded to the car) and she said it was well worth it.

I believe by the time moderately sized hand units (like the Motorola "flip phone" (550?) cell phone rates had come down enough to make them attractive. A big advtg of cellphones that users quickly discovered was cheap or even free regional calling--something that was getting rather costly at pay phones.

I happened to notice the other night in a 2010 TV movie one of the characters (a teen) needed to make a call and there happened to be a pay phone booth on the beach which she utilized. I was rather surprised at this since (1) almost every teenager has their own cellphone, (2) it wasn't only a pay phone, but a full booth, and (3) and it was on the beach. I didn't pay close attention to get the entire context of the scene, but it seemed strange to me in a 2010 movie.

Speaking of movies, North by Northwest will be on TCM Sunday evening. Great movie. Lots of telephone scenes, including a dramatic one in a battery of phone booths in a Chicago railroad terminal.

I thought the FCC's end result was correct. A landlord should not be able to prohibit the use of part 15 devices. My condo CC&Rs prohibit transmitters except for garage door openers. Lots of neighbors have wifi. I'm sure they have cordless phones an cellphones. The rules seem to recognize the OTARD requirements of the FCC, though they apply the size limit to TV antennae, while it does not apply to them (

).

The FCC's application of the OTARD rule to the MassPort vs Continental situation seems to be a stretch. I always thought the OTARD rule's intent was to allow wireless methods of delivering television signals to a customer's premises in competition with cable television. I think the rule was established when cable television rates were deregulated, so the rule was put in place to insure there was competition to cable television. In the MassPort case, the internet service was delivered to the premises over a T-1. The Wi-Fi was used for local distribution to Continental's customers and not for delivery of internet to Continental's leased premises. So, the application of OTARD seems like a stretch.

The decision documents are:

Harold