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Payphone News
UK Payphones Face Axe In BT Plan
Payphones across west Wiltshire look set to vanish under BT's plans to scale back on its network across the country.
Shrinking Portals to the Past - New York Times
With its taped advertisements and garbage-laden ledges, the pay phone in New York, that familiar feature of the streetscape, is becoming a grimy museum relic.
Sprint, AT&T and payphones go to the Supremes
Sprint and AT&T next week will argue a case before the U.S. Supreme Court on revenue from payphones.
Pay phones cling to life in U.S.
For the residents living in the 7 million households without a phone, pay phones are still a necessity.
Last Call for D.C. Area Phone Booth
It was a Washington monument of sorts, one of the last known working phone booths in the region and one of only a handful left in the United States.
Now it's history.
Grand Prairie hotel's rotary pay phone has withstood change
Decades after first installed at historic hotel, rare rotary-dial device still a smooth operator
Cellular use closing doors on red phone booths in Britain - USATODAY.com
Those sturdy red telephone booths, a staple on Britain's streets since the 1920s, may one day be like the Empire — just part of history. The iconic domed boxes are slowly disappearing.
Pay phones may appear to be gathering dust, but some still use them
And so the public pay phone limps along, its place as the mainstay of away-from-home dialing usurped by the cellphone.
Quad City: Pay phones were everywhere
Pay phones are disappearing slowly and have been since the 1990s, when cell phones began gaining popularity. Now, telephone industry officials are blaming those ubiquitous portable gadgets for the pay phone’s demise.
BBC: Why I Don't Have A Mobile
A mobile phone may seem like an essential tool for modern life, but is it really? A recent Magazine feature on people who still use payphones sparked a flurry of comments from readers who don't own a mobile phone.
Ohio: Calling all phone booths
The phone booth near Price Park along West Maple Street stands as a memorial to a simpler communications era
Who uses phone boxes?
Making a phone call was something of a social event, uniting not just the caller and the person on the other end of the phone, but neighbours as well.
BBC: Who uses phone boxes?
Few features of British life are so loved, yet so neglected, as the phone box. Behind the iconic red door, a Pepsi cup and a discarded four-day-old receipt are the only evidence of conversations past.
Answers: Where have all the payphones gone?
"Have you ever witnessed a payphone being dismantled and hauled away? Where do they go?"
Kane County: Payphones not dead - yet
“It was like no one was ever using them at all.”
Came of Age Before Computers: Looking for Kindred Spirits on the Internet
COABC's are people who came of age before (or without) computers, and who straddle the "Digital Divide". This is a thought-provoking and nicely produced feature about disappearing payphones in British Columbia.
A payphone for your home?
Hey, why not! See how it's done at Instructables.com
Cellibacy?
Could you survive 60 days without a cell phone? Amy Borkowsky gives it a try by relying on payphones, landlines, and voicemail. Oh, and wrist watches! Lots of 'em!
A Place in Our Hearts for Pay Phones - The Lede - New York Times Blog
The NY Times revisits the Payphone Project in The Lede, a Times blog. The comment board has some interesting observations.
For The Once Popular Pay Phone, The Line's Almost Dead
Look around now, because in a few more years the coin-operated pay phone may be just a jangling memory in many places, a victim of the ubiquitous cell phone and deregulation of the communications industry.
Pay phone decline hits homeless -- baltimoresun.com
Homeless for more than two years, David Pirtle combated the isolation by taking quarters people threw into a fountain at the National Museum of African Art in Washington and dropping them into a pay phone to call family in Ohio.
Comedian makes New Year's vow to ditch her cell phone - & blog about it
It may seem extreme to those who can't imagine not using their cell phones for eight minutes, but Amy Borkowsky is determined to get back to face-to-face communication with friends, family and the rest of the human race.
Retro iPhone
It's the iPhone Payphone dialer.
Outside the Loop: The Payphone Experiment
OTL Radio makes random contact with someone at one of Chicago's Union Station payphones. The segment starts at about 17:00 into the program.
As pay phones disappear, so does a lifeline for homeless people
"Everyone who's in the middle class thinks, 'Oh, no one uses pay phones anymore.' But not everyone is in the middle class," said Tracey Timpanaro...
Kane County won't hang up Judicial Center's last pay phone
The pay phone stays. That's the last word of Kane County officials, who agreed last week to keep the last remaining pay phone at the Judicial Center in St. Charles -- even if it means paying a monthly fee to do it.
A Day Without a Cellphone
This may not seem like a big deal to the average Joe, but trust me when I say that I felt totally paralyzed for the next 16 hours.
Are public pay phones going the way of T-Rex?
Now the independent operators that will shape the pay phone industry's future are concentrating on profitable pay phones typically located on sidewalks, at convenience stores and at big-box retailers like Wal-Mart Stores Inc.
Ohio: Busy? Not so much … but pay phone is far from dead
Oberlin College graduate Mark Thomas was building Web sites before most people even knew what a personal computer was. In 1995 — the Internet’s infant years — Thomas built his first Web site, www.payphone-project.com.
AT&T to Disconnect Pay-Phone Business After 129 Years
Who knew AT&T was still *in* the payphone business?
Nebraska Payphones Becoming Dinosaurs
A payphone in Strang, Nebraska (population 42) was last used July 4, 2007
NY Legislature Stops Unjust Prison Phone Contract
From a Malkin & Ross press release: "The New York State Senate and Assembly reached agreement at the end of this year's legislative session on legislation that would treat prison telephone service as a right, not as a revenue generator....
UK: BT Takes the Phone Out of the Box
BT is re-vamping the design of its public payphones. The new design, by ad firm JCDecaux, accommodates more advertising on the phones in a drive to compensate for dwindling revenues from payphone usage. "The new, cutting edge design, is the...
Canada: Remove pay phones to fight crime?
"SaskTel is being urged to remove pay phones from an inner city neighbourhood in Regina amid accusations that they're facilitating drug dealing and prostitution. "But other people argue that the phones, located near the General Hospital in the Core neighbourhood,...
Cell Phone Booths Find a Home at Libraries
"There is a new take on phone booths at Eastern Connecticut State University, and it is designed to keep the library the way it is supposed to be - quiet." I looked at these booths last year, and expressed skepticism...
Canada Payphones: Use Them Or Lose Them
"According to Statistics Canada, the number of pay phones across Canada dropped by almost 40,000 -- or more than 20% -- from 178,116 in 1997 to 140,431 by the end of last year. The pace of removal is quickening, with...
For every cell phone sold, 10 more pay phones turn to mold
There are still holdouts. Luddites, you might say, who oppose new technologies. To a limited extent I am one such holdout, as is Mark Rutledge, at Reflector.com: "I've been sucked so far into this cell-phone culture, I completely forgot that...
Canada: Not everyone's willing to hang up on pay phones
The Payphone Project gets a mention in this story from Victoria, Canada, which explores ambivalence to the expected rate increase for calls made from Telus payphones. "Plenty of people eschew, can't afford, or just don't need cellphones. The question is...
Japan: Payphones vanishing fast
Despite their bleak future, pay phones can still serve as a vital communications link during times of disaster. Service for cellphones and home phones could be disrupted or knocked out by an earthquake, for example. However, public phone service will be available.
MCI's Prison Payphone rates exploit poor families
"This is a state-sponsored scam," said state Sen. Andrew McDonald, D-Stamford. "It's an outrageous intrusion on the rights of families with people in prison. And that's who bears this cost - the families." McDonald said the money generated from the calls should instead be spent on inmate re-entry programs, and he plans to work with state officials to implement such a reform.
Canada: Pay phones provide a lifeline
"Not surprisingly, your need for pay phones increases as your income decreases: 88 per cent of low-income Canadians use pay phones at least a few times a year, according to a 2003 national survey conducted by the Montreal-based Union des consommateurs. That includes 22 per cent who use pay phones daily."
Nevada Payphone: A thing of the past?
The Nevada Appeal accompanies its fine story about declining payphones with a strangely erotic photo of a rotary dial payphone.
Supreme court rules in favor of payphone industry
At issue are payments for coinless calls on Metrophones' payphones over Global Crossing's network. The calls involve special access codes such as 1-800 or 10-10-220.
San Diego: Sun sets on beach pay phones
The Union-Tribune's Michael Stetz writes:
"Mark Thomas, who started The Payphone Project, digs pay phones. Thomas used to call them out of the blue and play a tape of one of his piano performances over the line to whomever answered. He liked the odd connection between perfect strangers. Today, most pay phones won't take incoming calls, though."
World's most famous phone booth claims world record
Scotland's Pennan phone box, declared by a local tourism board as "the most famous phone booth in the world," was the scene of record breaking achievement. 16 gymnasts filled the famous phone box, breaking the booth-stuffing record set in...
Scotland claims "the most famous phone booth in the world"?
Because of its central role in the movie "Local Hero," a phone booth in Pennan, Scotland has become one of Scotland's leading tourist attractions. While many calls come in to this phone, however, few calls seem to go out, causing...
Two calls from a Texas payphone: $122.90!
This story is from Texas, but could happen in any U.S. state. A man makes two phone calls from a payphone and gets socked with a bill for $122.90. This is a story to keep in mind the next time...
Scotland: £560 for a call from a phone box?
By BT Scotland's math, annual maintenance costs for a phone box are about £1,600. This story profiles a Scotland phone box that was only used for three calls in an entire year, making its cost-per-call ratio rather conspicuous.
Uganda: Phone Operator Disconnects Client
"There was drama in Nateete recently..." This all-too-short story reads like a screenplay-in-waiting. From this story, it sounds as if a man in Nateete, Uganda, used a community payphone to make a call. Africa is largely without any sort of...
Penn State student asks: 'How do you make a collect call?"
A long article from Penn State University's "Daily Collegian" describes the inexorable decline in payphones from the university's campus. Canadian company Freefone might be in line to replace college campus payphones with free (ad-supported) public phones, such as those seen...
New York: Prisoners' lawsuit over payphone fees revived
"The Court of Appeals, in a 4-2 decision, reversed a lower court's determination that the lawsuit should be dismissed for a lack of timeliness. That was incorrect, the high court ruled. While not making any judgment on whether inmates would...
Payphones? Of course!
The Daily Herald warns against getting ripped off by unscrupulous payphone operators, and also includes a few interesting facts and figures about the state of the payphone business. "Some billion and a half calls were made on pay phones last...
When a serial murderer calls... from a payphone
Here is an interesting story about one reporter's involvement in the infamous Zodiac serial murderer case. In September, 1969, the Zodiac called police from a payphone, bragging about his most recent murder. Unable to track payphones to exact locations, police fanned out to try and find a payphone with its receiver off the hook.
New York: Subway Pay Phones Harder to Find
It is fair to assert that most New Yorkers are probably indifferent to the decline in payphones in the subway system. Despite the fact that cell phones generally do not work in the city's subways, I would think that most cell-phone carrying straphangers are connected to the world constantly enough to a point where the brief time spent out of touch is a welcome respite, at least for a little while.
Calling cards dropping their anonymous shield?
For many years, one of the most frequently visited sections of The Payphone Project has been the pages explaining what it means when phone numbers such as (720) 587-9978 and (404) 461-9978 show up on your caller ID.
Loren Everly: International Payphones
By far the most impressive individual's collection of payphone pictures I have seen in a long time, Loren Everly has travelled the world keeping an eye out for, among other things, phone booths and payphones. As the number of...
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