The number of pay phones certainly has declined, but I am surprised as how many times I see them in use outside of convenience stores.
Wes Leatherock snipped-for-privacy@aol.com snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com
My local convenience had two of them but they have been removed.
I was at a major railroad station and a couple of people were using pay phones. The acoustics are horrible; the booths were removed years ago. The pay phones are mounted flush on a masonry wall, no dividers between them, in a noisy area. I had to use such a phone some years ago and I could barely hear; that influenced me to go cellular. Today, though, many pay phones have volume control which is a big help. (The other day I made a quick local call from a pay phone in a store since my cellphone battery was dead.)
Relating back to CLID, the instruction card on pay phones includes *67 to block the number. So if you want to hide your whereabouts when you call someone from a pay phone, they tell you how to do it.
I wonder what today's revenue numbers are from baby bell provided pay phones, both cash for local calls, and credit call and collect revenues.
***** Moderator's Note *****"Pubcom" revenues have been dropping for years, not only because of cellular competition, but also because of COCOT phones, which the owners of convenience stores find much more profitable than those provided by ILECs.
Speaking of the need for rules enforecement, I've seen a lot of COCOT phones that demanded payment for calls to information or 800 numbers, which is, AFAIK, forbidden in this state.
Bill Horne Temporary Moderator
" Just do the dance that you've been shown with everyone you've even known: in the end there is one dance you'll do alone." -- Jackson Browne
Verizon seems to have a lot of contracts with companies like 7-11, Circle K, Albertsons, Ralph's (Kroger)for payphone, even out of their own service area.
When my daughter was in high school; before wide celular use, she tried to call home from school using our PacificBell phone card, [but] it was a COCCT payhone on the school grounds: it would not let her, [so] she got some cash and made the call. I called the company and complained about it to both the school and the COCOT, [but that] did no good, [so I] went to the PUC: the next thing my daughter told me was the phone was gone, shotly after a PacificBell phone showed up. I don't know what the law was at the time.
I can verify this. I forget exactly where, but I have seen Verizon payphones in Austin, deep inside SBC/at&t territory. And I don't mean Georgetown, former GTE Texas, current Verizon territory, in the city of Austin.
John
Regarding 'toll-free' numbers, forbidden in -all- states -- an FCC rule.
If by 'information', you mean what is now called 'directory assistance', with the exception of 800-555-1212, it is to be expected that there would be a payment demand for -that-. "Everybody" charges for Directory assist. calls these days. The third-party pay-phone operators (who place COCOTS that _they_ own on other peoples property) are notorious for having DA, like 'operator-assisted' calls handled by a contracted service of their choice -- with exorbitant rates passed through to the customer.
The other day I was surprised to see not only a public pay phone, but a telephone directory in the shelf underneath it.
In the old days most pay phones had phone books with them, some simply free standing on a shelf underneath, many in binders attached in various ways, from simple chains to pull out levers. Larger banks of pay phones had a shelf of several local telephone books. Very large banks had many telephone books available. Even as they switched from booths to kiosks they provided a shelf for the directory.
I haven't checked lately, but I think the cost of directory assistance these days is $1.00; even more from a cell phone ($1.50?). I don't know if 1+NPA+555-1212 works anymore or what the charge is for that, but local 411 often has national listings. In some places they're providing, for a fee, other information too such as yellow pages listing, such as restaurants in an area.
I could understand charging when a listing is in the book, but often times someone has a new number that isn't available.
(Last night on the train I heard someone use their cell phone to call Information, I wonder what it cost.)
I have not tried it, but Google has a 411 service which is free:
One motel a family member stayed at in a small city in Saskatchewan a few years back had a VOIP telephone on the end of the front counter. Unlimited free long distance calling was the sigh. The sign also said keep it short if there's someone waiting in line. Given that this was a small office and there was absolutely no privacy I suspect folks wouldn't be on very long. Besides us Canadians are generally polite.
Given how cheap VOIP long distance, ie a few cents per minute, I thought this was an excellent idea.
And free wireless Internet in a $60 per night motel room in Valemount, British Columbia, a village with 1300 residents and ten motels/hotels. Yet in downtown Seattle Microsoft pays $10 per night for Internet access on my behalf whenever I'm there.
Which then leads to the exorbitant rates that hotels in city centres charge for local and long distance phone calls. I wonder just how much revenue they are really getting given that folks who are staying in such almost certainly all have cell phones.
Tony
I've heard of -- even tested out -- free, ad-sponsored DA numbers. Don't recall them exactly now, but they were all, IIRC, of the form:
string together, in appropriate order, one each of {800 888 877 866], [free goog], [411]. (Yeah, of the 16 possible combos, only very few will provide a free DA service -- sorry I don't remember which, if any.]
Or, by example:
800 free 411 (800 3733411) ; 800 411 free (800 3733411) ; 800 goog 411 (800 4664411) ; 800 411 goog (800 4114664) ; and [There are] 12 more, with 888, 877, or 866 in lieu of 800.Rather similar to the web URL for free DA another reader posted ;-) .
Disclaimer: I might be all wet on this ... .
Cheers, -- tlvp
Why would you stay in Seattle when Microsoft is located in Redmond; across the bay, that is unless you are working in downtown.
Follow-up: I tested 1 800 373 3411 and 1 800 466 4411 earlier today: the former is laden with adverts, but offers DA, time, and weather; the latter is without adverts, but offers DA only for "businesses" (I tried "Thai restaurants, Connecticut, New Haven" -- it worked well).
The other 14 may well be erroneous recollections on my part ... or not.
Cheers, -- tlvp
As it's Google, one always assumes they are adding to their massive database of personal profiles. Now they know your buying habits, as linked to a particular phone number. Also, they offer to place the call for you, which will undoubtably be recorded then run through voice recognition software.
Soon that pizza will be delivered to your door minutes before you start to get really hungry.
Depends on the event. If I'm there for a small meeting I stay in Redmond. But when it's an MVP Summit with 1500 folks then MS has to use downtown hotels due to sheer logistics of moving enough people around with coaches from a minimum of sites. Some days are held in the downtown conference centre so we usually just walk there. Others they move us to the MS campus in Redmond.
Tony
In order to do this Google needs a very high economy of scale, which tends to limit competition. Google's size has caused concern in some quarters; I don't know if that's legitimate or not. In issues like definitions of the total marketplace are key. Back in the 1950s the govt correctly claimed IBM had a near monopoly in the _punched card_ business, but IBM correctly claimed it was a small player in the _accounting machine_ business.
Sometimes in order to effect standardization and economies of scale, especially in the technology world, bigness is very helpful. The television broadcast industry common standards lagged far behind the technology level because the players couldn't agree and had to wait forever for the FCC to mandate to them--this goes back to 1941.
I have mixed feelings about that. On the one hand, I would like that convenience, and I do admire Google's ability to select ads of interest. On the other hand, there are serious privacy concerns. I'm not only worried about Google collecting information for itself, but others, like the govt, snoopy lawyers, or noisy employers, getting their paws in it.
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