|
Posted by Anthony Bellanga on February 18, 2008, 11:16 pm
If you were Registered and logged in, you could reply and use other advanced thread options
Resend, I forgot to include the [TELECOM] in the subject line when I
sent this the first time, Sunday night (2/17/08)
To: editor@telecom-digest.org
Date: 02/17/2008 09:47 PM
Subject: Payphones
In reply to Lisa Hancock's post about the existance of "emergency"
payphones in today's day-and-age, Robert Bonomi wrote:
> 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.
I don't know who the vendor/owner of the payphones at CTA stations
and public libraries were... even today, "government-based" locations
don't have to contract with the ILEC for public payphones, and have
frequently gone to private "COCOT" payphone JUNK...
but Chicago's ILEC is now sbc's at&t. It had been sbc, previously
Ameritech, previously Illinois Bell.
Not too long ago, sbc's at&t announced that the ILEC side of at&t was
completely exiting the payphone business!
This means that ILEC sbc/at&t payphones will disappear (where they
might have still existed) from the states of legacy Pacific Telesis
(Pac Bell in CA, Nevada Bell), Southwestern Bell (MO, KS, OK, TX, AR),
Ameritech (IL, WI, IN, MI, OH), and SNET (CT).
Legacy BellSouth (NC, SC, GA, FL, KY, TN, AL, MS, LA) is also now a
part of sbc's at&t since January 2007, but BellSouth had already exited
the payphone business, announced in 2001, and finally completed by 2004
or 2005.
I don't know if any government agency or level of government (local,
state, federal) is able to "force" an ILEC which has completely exited
the payphone business to "restore" payphones in "emergency" or "public
need" locations. Afterall, COCOT vendors still exist, so if a local or
state government agency really feels that a payphone is absolutely
necessary at a rest stop, transit station, public library, etc., there
are still numerous private COCOT payphone vendors out there.
I don't like the present situation, but that's the way things are these
days. Thankfully, I have two cellphones, and I try keep the battery
charged up. COCOTs are usually NOT properly maintained, or they are
deliberately (mis/dis)programmed to CHEAT the end-user, sometimes even
the called/billed party if a "collect" call. And yes, Lisa, I agree with
you that not everyone has a cellphone, people drop/break cellphones,
lose/misplace them, batteries do "die", there are bad signal areas,
"exact" location when calling '911' isn't really accurate despite the
current/future tech standards to ATTEMPT a better determination of the
calling party's exact location, etc. But we aren't the ones "in charge"
of these decisions, unfortunately.
- a.b.
|
 
| |
Posted by on February 19, 2008, 9:10 am
If you were Registered and logged in, you could reply and use other advanced thread options
On Feb 18, 11:16 pm, "Anthony Bellanga"
> Not too long ago, sbc's at&t announced that the ILEC side of at&t was
> completely exiting the payphone business!
Too bad, but not surprising.
> I don't know if any government agency or level of government (local,
> state, federal) is able to "force" an ILEC which has completely exited
> the payphone business to "restore" payphones in "emergency" or "public
> need" locations. Afterall, COCOT vendors still exist, so if a local or
> state government agency really feels that a payphone is absolutely
> necessary at a rest stop, transit station, public library, etc., there
> are still numerous private COCOT payphone vendors out there.
FWIW, my public library got rid of its pay phone. At first, kids were
asking to use the library phone, but eventually the kids got their own
cell phones.
Undoubtedly the removal of pay phones has encoraged people who would
be content with pay phones to get cellular phones. I suspect the
carriers make more money off of cellular than from pay phones (they do
from me, anyway).
As I understand it, pay phones are deregulated. Thus, I know of no
way a govt could force a carrier to provide pay phone service.
However, if the govt was willing to pay enough $$$, I'm sure something
could be worked out.
In NYC, pay phones are profitable, not from the telephone itself, but
from selling ad space on the kisok walls.
[I gotta grab a photo of that real phone booth before it disappears.
Does this website have any way to post telecom pictures?]
***** Moderator's Note *****
If the image is of general interest, I might be persuaded to put it on
the telecom-digest website.
You can also post in the appropriate alt.binaries.pictures.* group.
Or, you could put it on your personal webspace and include a URL in
your post here: most ISP's give each user some webspace as part of
your monthly service fee.
Bill Horne
Temporary Moderator
(Please put [Telecom] at the end of your subject line of your post, or
I may never see it. Thanks!)
|
|
Posted by Ron Kritzman on February 19, 2008, 12:07 pm
If you were Registered and logged in, you could reply and use other advanced thread options
>> Afterall, COCOT vendors still exist, so if a local or
>> state government agency really feels that a payphone is absolutely
>> necessary at a rest stop, transit station, public library, etc., there
>> are still numerous private COCOT payphone vendors out there.
I asked a former COCOT vendor why he got out of the business. The simple
answer was that it was no longer profitable. In the more affluent areas,
six year olds have cell phones. In what we'll euphemistically call the
less affluent ones, the cost of repairing the vandalism exceeded his
take from the phones.
--
remove the letters in caps to reply
|
|
Posted by Sam Spade on February 20, 2008, 3:23 pm
If you were Registered and logged in, you could reply and use other advanced thread options > Or, you could put it on your personal webspace and include a URL in
> your post here: most ISP's give each user some webspace as part of
> your monthly service fee.
>
> Bill Horne
> Temporary Moderator
>
> (Please put [Telecom] at the end of your subject line of your post, or
> I may never see it. Thanks!)
>
Or, one of the free photo posting sites, such as www.photobucket.com
|
|
Posted by Curtis R Anderson on February 20, 2008, 3:29 pm
If you were Registered and logged in, you could reply and use other advanced thread options
> Or, you could put it on your personal webspace and include a URL in
> your post here: most ISP's give each user some webspace as part of
> your monthly service fee.
These two phone booths complete with working Fortress payphones in them
are available for use at the Erie County Fairgrounds in the Buffalo
suburb of Hamburg, NY.
The first one here, complete with Verizon logo, is at the north end of
the grounds near the craft area and Fries Park:
http://www.gleepy.net/gallery/images/p0019593.jpg
The second one is right outside the Firemen's Building:
http://www.gleepy.net/gallery/images/p0020058.jpg
Plenty more payphones may be found along the fairgrounds, but those are
the only two in booths I have found. Come to think of it, I have found
very few booths in the whole Buffalo area.
--
Curtis R. Anderson, Co-creator of "Gleepy the Hen", still
Email not munged, SpamAssassin [tm] in effect.
http://www.gleepy.net/ mailto:gleepy@intelligencia.com
mailto:gleepy@gleepy.net (and others) Yahoo!: gleepythehen
|
| Similar Threads | Posted | | Re; Payphones [Telecom] | February 19, 2008, 12:10 pm |
| [telecom] Re: Payphones | February 21, 2008, 4:30 pm |
| Re: Payphones [telecom] | February 22, 2008, 9:09 am |
| BT Payphones | July 30, 2005, 9:33 am |
| Color 3 Slot Payphones? | July 24, 2006, 11:59 am |
| Re: Color 3 Slot Payphones? | July 25, 2006, 8:46 pm |
| Re: Color 3 Slot Payphones? | July 24, 2006, 9:43 pm |
| Re: Color 3 Slot Payphones? | September 9, 2006, 2:00 am |
| Re: Color 3 Slot Payphones? | September 10, 2006, 9:00 pm |
| Re: Color 3 Slot Payphones? | September 11, 2006, 11:05 am |
|
|
![[TELECOM] Payphones](/images/header.jpg)
NewsGroups 
Yahoo! 
Google 
Windows Live 
del.icio.us 
digg 
Netscape 
XML site map