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Posted by Robert Bonomi on February 17, 2008, 9:12 pm
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>In the 1960s the Bell System began to offer a service of public
>emergency telephones that connected to a central emergency
>switchboard. The Bell System provided and maintained the network.
>This had the advantage of the older telegraph call boxes in which the
>caller could give specific information as to the location and nature
>of the emergency.
>
>Today, many college campuses have "blue light" boxes with intercoms to
>campus security. Some cities (like NYC) have street corner intercom
>posts for that purpose as well.
>
>Some places, such as passenger railway authorities, use public
>payphones to double as emergency call boxes. Callers may use such
>phones as a normal pay phone (and people still do to this day), or
>they could use the phone to call 911 coin free.
>
>The phone company then and now would only install a payphone if the
>expected revenues would meet their costs. If not, the property owner
>would have to make up the difference. Presumably in the case of
>transit agencies, they are paying that difference in many locations.
Not in Chicago!
_ALL_ the pay phones were pulled from CTA stations several months ago.
<wry grin>
They're disappearing from a _lot_ of other places as well. E.g. libraries,
and grocery stores.
>Would anyone know what the cost is for a public phone (baby Bell
>company-provided) standard payphone is these days?
IIRC, circa 1998 price for the armored phone was around $850.
I suspect you meant to ask what the required monthly revenue level was. :)
On that, I have -no- information.
| ![Cost of payphone--public emergency telephones [telecom]](/images/header.jpg)
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