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Payphones - Thoughts?

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Renegade:
I'm sure more than a few people here remember payphones, but I can't recall the last time I saw one recently.

I had a quick little search, and lo and behold, they're even in the news still!

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/business/telstra-strikes-a-deal-on-payphones-20130201-2dqcl.html

THE sight of Telstra payphones on city footpaths and in country towns is secure for the next 20 years following a historical shift in the way payphones are funded in Australia.

For the first time, the federal government is paying Telstra directly to maintain its suite of payphones on a 20-year contract worth $40 million per year. But the future of private payphones is less secure.

Few Australians drop coins into payphones on a regular basis - the number of mobile phones exceeds our population - but everyone wants one nearby in an emergency.

Currently there are 35,000 payphones in Australia, according to the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy. Telstra owns 18,900 of these and the remaining 16,100 are placed by private businesses in hotels, shopping centres and busy districts.

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To be honest, I'd hate to see them go. If for no other reason than they offer the possibility of actually being somewhat anonymous in a world increasingly dominated by perpetual ubiquitous surveillance and tracking.

Anyone have any thoughts/memories about payphones?

40hz:
Tons of memories. The Bell System before AT&T...

(Ah the joys of...um...watching a friend...playing around with a phreaking box or two.) ;D

I can't recall however when was the last time I saw a payphone in the US. Must be at least seven or eight years since I've seen a working one.

Interestingly, many were decommissioned and left "abandoned in place" for a few years before they were finally removed. I do remember seeing many boxes with big "not in service" stickers on them. Most were repeatedly vandalized before they were finally taken away. Guess the cost of dismantling them exceeded their surplus/scrap value so they were only removed when a landlord or municipality finally forced the issue.

f0dder:
Anyone have any thoughts/memories about payphones?-Renegade (February 07, 2013, 07:12 AM)
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Apart from sometimes finding forgotten change in them, and making prank calls to the police during lunch breaks? Nope.

Oh, and back in the late 70es, some nutjob planted pipe bombs in the phoneboots in Copenhagen - this resulted in the doors being removed from the phone boxes (this is the fun part of the story - the doors weren't numbered, and for whatever reasons there were differences from booth to booth, so eventually all the phoneboots had to be replaced :D).

Dunno if there's any English resources (lazyquick googling didn't turn up anything), but there's a Danish wikipedia article: Bombemanden fra Gladsaxe.

PS: does the "wiki" bb-tag support linking to different languages?

tomos:
I dunno if there's any of these left but this is how I mostly remember them
(they did change the colour scheme and modernise them eventually)



Queueing even, and then when you're in there, not being able to relax because of the big queue outside (mind you that was often a handy excuse too)

Stoic Joker:
Anyone have any thoughts/memories about payphones?-Renegade (February 07, 2013, 07:12 AM)
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Apart from sometimes finding forgotten change in them, and making prank calls to the police during lunch breaks? Nope.-f0dder (February 07, 2013, 07:31 AM)
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Ah! Yes...the good Ol' days ... Back when innocent fun was still a misdemeanor. I remember them not so much well, as fondly.

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