Re: NYC Pennsylvania Station Pay Phone Usage

Of course, in NYC Verizon pay phones are 25c for a brief local period
> and also offer coin long distance at 25c a minute. Non Verizon pay > phones are 50c but for a longer initial period. I found a convenient > Verizon 25c payphone on a corner for my needs (avoiding the 50c ones). > (Using my cell phone would be costly with (1) day rate and (2) > roaming).

Here in Seattle pay phones have been 50 cents untimed for several years now. Prior to that they were 35 cents for about a month! Prior to that they were 25 cents. The telcos in their infite wisdom decided that the competition from cellphones was a good reason to double the rate for pay phones.

As far as using or not using your cellphone, well at least for me my cellphone is for *my* convenience. Why have a cellphone if you don't use it? It's rather likely that even if you did have any overage from what was allowed to you in your monthly plan it would likely be less than forking out coins for a pay phone. I have a $30/month plan for my cellphone and in the four years that I've had the plan I've never gone over my allotment and I use it as my only phone.

In one building a pay phone "closet" actually had a phone book with > it. I haven't seen a phone book near a pay phone in years, it used > to be standard dangling on a light chain or on a pedestal on or the > shelf underneath.

Here in Qwest territory in Washington state it's pretty common to have directories (white and yellow) with pay phones. I think it's required at least when the phone is put in that directories be available. There is no free directory assistance from payphones in the Qwest Washington state area.

For some reason, otherwise it's hard to find a pay phone that allows > coin long distance calls. My local train station once allowed that but > discontinued it. If you try dialing 1+ at a pay phone you just get the > fast busy reorder signal.

AT&T was the only carrier that would place coin sent paid calls inter-LATA. AT&T stopped handling sent paid inte-LATA calls several years ago from CO controlled pay phones. Intra-LATA calls (at least in Qwest territory) can still be made sent coin paid. On the "Millennium" smart pay phones you can make sent paid inter-LATA calls. AT&T evidently doesn't want to handle inter-LATA calls if operators are involved at all.