Silicon Valley public transit losing all public AT&T pay phones [telecom]

The San Jose (CA) Mercury News' "Road Show" column:

had this item today (5-May-2010):

His attitude doesn't serve him well.

I can understand AT&T reclassifying those seldom used pay stations as semi-public, thus relieving the rate base of their burden.

I doubt John would grasp the concept, though.

John was the person who wrote to the Mercury News column that Thad Floryan mentioned.

Bill Horne Moderator

Well, there was an "answer" in the San Jose Mercury News that was snipped out in the reply, which explained the real situation!

SBC's at&t is not "reclassifying" telco-owned payphones as "semi-public" but rather SBC's at&t is COMPLETELY EXITING THE PAYPHONE BUSINESS in any/all states/RBOCs that it operates in! Pacific*Telesis, Southwestern Bell (SBC), Ameritech, SNET (CT). BellSouth had exited the payphone business by 2004, three years before SBC's at&t bought them out and renamed them "the new at&t" as well. Anyone who wants to have a payphone on their premises in SBC/at&t territory including old BellSouth states, needs to contract with a "COCOT" provider (private payphone).

Here is the "answer" that was in Thad's original posting:

I guess that COCOT-owners must charge a rather steep initial contract fee, and probably have very low subsequent monthly commission paybacks to the location owners?

I understand that Qwest had subcontracted out their payphone division a few years ago, although the payphones are still branded "Qwest". I don't know if this is still the case, and if it is, what will happen if CenturyTel/CenturyLink does indeed takeover Qwest (US-West). (Are they going to call it CenturyQwest or CenturyBell, maybe? :-)

CenturyTel still had some GTE-AE-made telco-owned c.o.switch-controlled traditional payphones here in south-central/south-west Louisiana about three years ago, but most of the few that I saw three years ago seem to be gone. The "egg-shaped" housings on a post (which seems to have been a common "GTE-thing") are still there, but empty of any payphone. And these are at central office building locations. CenturyTel in this part of Louisiana (south-central/south-western) was GT&E in the 1960s-era, until GTE pulled out of Louisiana circa 1972, selling its Louisiana operations to Century Telephone.

Embarq (ex-Sprint-United/Centel) had some Nortel-Millennium "super" payphones at many (though not all) Greyhound Bus Stations in the 2000s. They were branded "Sprint" until 2006, and were re-branded/re-colored as Embarq during 2006/07. I noticed this in many Greyhound stations in BellSouth states in the 2000s. However, if the local municipal government or similar quasi-government agency owned the bus station, the payphones were not necessarily provided by Sprint-later-Embarq. In either case, Sprint-later-Embarq branded payphones or some other payphone, it was _NOT_ at&t or BellSouth providing the payphone, but Sprint-later-Embarq or some other entity acting as a COCOT-provider. (Although in Sprint-later-Embarq ILEC territory, it was likely Sprint-later-Embarq acting as the ILEC payphone entity, i.e., Tallahassee FL, Ft.Meyers FL, Ocala FL, some exchanges _near_ Disney World and Orlando FL, Johnson City TN, Rocky Mount and Fayetteville NC, some exchanges in South Carolina, etc).

I have not visited any Greyhound stations lately, not since Embarq has been consolidated into CenturyTel to form CenturyLink. Embarq and CenturyTel announced the merger in October 2009, and it was officially effective in Summer 2009. The new CenturyLink name and logo has replaced "CenturyTel", but I don't know how this might have been applied to Embarq-branded/logo'd "super" COCOT (Nortel-Millennium) payphones, whether actual COCOTs (such as Greyhound Bus Stations) or in Embarq ILEC territory.

Also, in MORE AND MORE CASES, even where the payphones are supplied by the ILEC, it is likely that the payphone's interface with the telco network is just like a COCOT, rather than the traditional fully c.o.switch-controlled "dumb" payphone. Telco still "owns" the payphone, and supplies it as a product of the ILEC-side, but the phone operates no different than any non-telco-owned COCOT (private payphone).

I have also heard that VeriZon is also considering exiting the telco (ILEC) payphone business, or at least reducing their presence as an ILEC in the payphone business. This includes legacy Bell Atlantic and NYNEX, as well as legacy GTE and Contel, although they did sell-off legacy BOC New England Tel & Tel to FairPoint for Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and VeriZon is trying to sell-off MOST legacy GTE and Contel (but to continue to retain what GTE/Contel that they have still retained in Texas since 2000, legacy GTE in Tampa/etc.FL, and also retain what the legacy GTE/Contel that they have retained in California although the exchange areas that directly border Oregon, Nevada, Arizona are to be sold), sold to Frontier (Citizens), pending FCC approval. And legacy BOC C&P-West Virginia (including the Crows-Hematite VA exchange which gets dial-tone from White Sulphur Springs WV) is also to be sold to Frontier (pending approval by the WV-PSC, the VA-SCC, and the FCC). (Legacy GTE/Contel in Virginia and Pennsylvania is mostly integrated into the day-to-day operations of legacy Bell Atlantic, i.e., legacy BOCs C&P-Virginia and Bell-of-Pennsylvania).

I do _NOT_ have any idea as to how involved VeriZon is (or recently was) involved in ILEC payphone operations in any BOC or GTE/Contel areas they still operate in, have sold off over the past ten years, or intend to sell off (to Frontier, pending regulatory approval). I do know that in many areas, VeriZon has converted or installed payphones that interface with the network as if it were a "COCOT", as opposed to traditional telco-owned c.o.switch-controlled "dumb" payphones, but in other areas VeriZon still has operated such traditional telco central-office-controlled "dumb" payphones. However, prior to exiting the payphone business by 2004 (three years before merging into SBC/at&t), BellSouth had already converted most-if-not-all of its payphones into "COCOT-like" payphones. I think that the same has applied to SBC/at&t in the past 10+ years prior to their 2007 announcement that they too intend to completely exit the ILEC telco payphone business.

BTW, VeriZon and Qwest (and Sprint-later-Embarq in most Greyhound Bus Stations, at least in BellSouth states) have installed "COCOT" payphones in areas outside of their tariffed exchange areas, at least in the later 1990s and early 2000s. Since I rarely ever even attempt to use a (COCOT) payphone in more recent years (I always use my at&t-mobility/cingular-wireless phones), I really don't know if there are still any VeriZon or Qwest-branded COCOTs here in Louisiana anymore, just like I don't know if Embarq-now-CenturyLink still has any Nortel-Millennium "super" COcOTs at any Greyhound Bus Stations since 2006/07.

Mark J. Cuccia markjcuccia at yahoo dot com Lafayette LA, formerly of New Orleans LA pre-Katrina

Thanks for the clarification. That makes a lot more sense. The burden of maintaining any type of C.O.-based payphone is more than the rate base should bear in this day and age.

I live in AT&T (Pacific Bell) territory and haven't paid much attention to pay stations for years, although I know there are still a few around town, which are used mostly to call Mexico for $1.00 for 4 minutes.

I had noticed over the years that first GTE now Verizon had pay phones at 7-11 stores plus at major grocery and drug stores, but over the last year or so they have been removed or now have the name of other companies on them. This in both AT&T and Verizon areas in California.

I just don't understand why no one ever thought of creating a voip payphone.

It's been a long time since I has contact with the "PubCom" end of the business, but I'd bet it's because the costs of maintaining the instrument, collecting coin boxes, and paying pedestal rents overshadow any gains to be had from changing the connection to VoIP.

Come to think of it, VoIP might be _more_ expensive than POTS or PubCom service: it requires an Internet connection.

Bill Horne Moderator