Pay phone nostalgia [telecom]

You would be very, very wrong. Payphones as a market pretty much destroyed themselves, cellphones just helped a bit.

As soon as COCOT "money trap" phones started to appear, they were no longer trustworthy as a whole, because sometimes the COCOT operators worked very hard to make their phones look like telco phones, to the point of sometimes using RBOC housings and signage.

• -- * PV Something like badgers, something like lizards, and something like corkscrews.

This morning I was in 2 state buildings, [both] in San Bernardino, Calif, and on each floor they had pay phones, [which] were marked Verizon, but I believe that Verizon sold that part of the business. So it appears they must get some use: a couple of them /were/ in use.

Ah yes, some of the COCOT folks bought WE pay stations, then spend a lot more to put the logic inside the enclosure because the LEC wouldn't provide them with all the end office equal access features. I think I recall that correctly.

I suspect some small venture capitalists lost their backside in COCOT ventures. Sort of like Tupperware multipled by a factor of 10, 50, or perhaps 100.

COCOT vendors used "fortress" phones because they were the least expensive equipment available when considering that they usually replaced Ma Bell's own phone, and thus that they had to use the same mounting, which the COCOT vendor would purchase from Ma Bell in situ. They usually purchased such phones from OEM companies with logic already installed, because it was more profitable to use "business" (e.g., 1MB) lines rather than "pubcom" service (I don't recall the USOC). One vendor even tried to claim that he should be getting Centrex rates, with Extensions-off-premise to all his COCOT phones!

The logic inside the COCOT instruments was usually under the control of the OEM, not the vendor, and the vendors had to pay their suppliers for every change to the software: every company along the supply chain wanted to dip their hand into the supposed river of gold on which they _thought_ Ma Bell had been sailing. They all found out the hard way that it has always been a low-margin business, but the COCOT vendors just didn't count on how ornery their customers could be, and how quickly they would "opt out" of being ripped off.

Bill Horne Moderator

You are correct that COCOTs (and alternative operator services gouging) were a mess. But that is a separate issue from the 50c local call charge. I submit that if payphones remained as baby bell property and toll calls from them had reasonable charges, then the market loss would've been from cell phones.

I've got a good mind to stick my 1D2 on the side of the building and charge 10 cents a call. Hook it up to a VoIP provider and a basic controller and I'm golden.

10 cents for a call accross the country or even to 60 countries in the case of Vonage? Someone would monopolize the phone sooner or later.

Hey just keep pumping the dimes in. Of course I'd put a timer on the thing, 2 or 3 minutes per call and then trip the coin relay and cut the call off.