Requiem for the Disappearing Pay Phone 559
StarEmperor writes "This Washington Post article describes the steady disappearance of pay phones as cell phones become more commonplace. Many pay phones, which used to generate hundreds of dollars per month in revenue, are now used so infrequently that they cost money to operate. I wonder what kind of environmental hazard is posed by junking thousands of pay phones?"
Re:What will happen to 2600 mag? (Score:5, Insightful)
pay phones might get more use if (Score:5, Insightful)
The environmental hazard of removing payphones is: (Score:5, Insightful)
-RickTheWizKid
..."Just hang up and DRIVE!"
Recycling impact? (Score:3, Insightful)
Ummmm. How about approximately 0? How many pay phones per person? Like 1/100 at best. Now think about all of the diapers and soda bottles and old tires and other crap that people throw out without thinking. There are things worth worrying about and then there is the noise.
As for getting rid of pay phones, I'm fine with it. I mean, when was the last time you saw a working pay phone?
Payphone Disposal (Score:5, Insightful)
How is junking old phones any different then any other waste? Are there uranium pay phones out there? Admit it the u.s. wastes tons pay phone is a tiny tiny part of a very larger picture
Environment (Score:5, Insightful)
Probably not worse than the millions of home phones that break down or are replaced by newer models. And DEFINITELY not worse than the millions of cell phones - and proprietary batteries - that are starting to be thrown out (what was the statistic I read? Kids in Japan who keep up with "fashion" replace their cell phone every 3 months, and in North America every 18 months? I know, I know, no link, no proof, etc... whatever.)
Environmental hazard? (Score:2, Insightful)
-Milinar
I wonder (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Recycling impact? (Score:1, Insightful)
You make the claim that the environmental hazard is 0 by saying that there are other things that contribute to environmental hazards. How is that answering the question? Just because there are things that are worse doesn't mean you shouldn't take this into consideration too.
Bill: Hey Bob, why did you just spray all those cans of hair spray out into the air?
Bob: Who cares? Think about all the diapers and soda bottles and old tires and other crap that people throw out without thinking. There are things worth worrying about and then there is the noise.
Bill: You sure got me there.
Right. Real insightful.
This is what _really_ drives mass adoption... (Score:5, Insightful)
The same thing happened to rail transit in most American cities about 40-50 years ago as road systems improved and more people bought automobiles.
So what about emergency calls and the poor? (Score:3, Insightful)
Pay phones were never profitable (Score:3, Insightful)
In general, pay phones were mandated by public safety regulations, not profit motive. Problems ranging from smashed handsets to stolen phone books to smashed window glass plagued public phones constantly.
If pay phones were profitable, why did the Baby Bells allow anyone to start running them? It would have been a very strange business decision given their history of profiteering in the post Ma Bell era.
Pay phones are nowhere near as annoying (Score:5, Insightful)
I could go on and on... it will be sad to see the payphone go. I swear I could strangle the jackass who actually took a call in the theater during the Two Towers last week.
Re:land: own or right? (Score:3, Insightful)
So no they dont own the land, it's leased. At least here in CA that seems to be the case.
Re:You wonder about the wrong thing... (Score:2, Insightful)
Tim
I Wonder Why Pay Phones Don't Make Any Money. (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, do I have a rant for y'all.
===
Gather 'round the pixels, folks, and let a still green traveller relate a story from the olden days...
End of September, actually. Toorcon -- I flew out to San Diego to join Hikari's bad ass hackfest. Was so excited that I'd actually gotten my degree three days previous (not -- but that's another story entirely) that I didn't even think to check *where* in San Diego I was going.
Lesson #1: For f*ck's sake, know where you're going after the airport.
Figured I'd just check the net when I got there. *laughs*
Lesson #2: For f*ck's sake, KNOW you'll never get a net connection when you really, really need one. (Reference: "The Inverse Square Law vs. The Presence of Microsoft Powerpoint: May The Enemy Never Discover The Network Cloaking Power of Talking To People When Powerpoint Is On")
So. Rumor has it San Diego's Airport got a new water fountain once...it's talked about in hushed whispers, the emergency budget excess of 1983 brought a quenched thirst upon every traveler since. According to legend, other plumbing amenities relating to the invention of running water shall someday visit themselves upon this fine structure.
No friendly arrows, no Internet Cafe's -- and though the Starbucks served coffee, it came in Disass only. There wasn't even a poorly secured baggage handling network waiting to provide me with my next stop (not that I'd ever poke around an airport network; for God sakes lad, they have guns! And Latex Gloves! I plead Joey's Soverignty!)
So what could I do? Went to call my apartment.
On a Pay Phone.
Lesson #3: For f*ck's sake, buy a cell phone. Seven Eleven has them. They're FREE(after many rebates you'll never recieve). There's a REASON they're so profitable -- because PAY PHONES NOW SUCK.
Proof:
You want proof? My previous ranting is insufficient to show that I indeed know large scale suckitude when I recognize it in my cold, not quite dead flesh?
Got some overpriced food. Requested change in quarters -- I was off to the telephone to get fully ripped off, but there's a LOT of hotels in SD and I didn't much prefer to check each one.
"Bzzzzzz. I'm sorry, this phone doesn't accept coins for long distance calls."
Lesson #4: Remember how you heard that pay phones weren't making money? They mispelled "taking".
After bitching and moaning, I remembered I could charge my card to my credit card. Yes! Maybe my legal tender, unconstitutional to refuse (but we'll ignore that) couldn't get me moving, but surely the mighty power of Visa -- it's everywhere I want to be, and I want to be in a nice bed, and in that bed...er, anyway.
"Thank you for calling 1-800-CALL-ATT. For a credit card call, press this number or we'll sic Carrot Top on you."
"Thank you for selecting a credit card call. If you have a Mastercard, press 1. If you have an American Express, press 2. If you have a Discover Card, press 3. If you have a Visa, get a very strange look on your face."
"Thank you for getting a very strange look on your face. An operator will be with you shortly to further refuse payment for services."
You have to understand. I just graduated, I've got a LONG trip ahead of me -- this is right before the Singapore trip -- of all the problems I imagined possible, not having enough to pay for a single phone call was rather disconcerting.
I briefly considered my options for having myself placed under arrest. I hear those guys get a phone call. But then I realized their call is on a pay phone too. Oops.
Ended up calling my mother's company on their 800 number, tail between my legs, begging for info off a single web page. You'd THINK it ends here...
'cept the person I reach, despite the net connection on her desk, doesn't particularly know what to do with it. So she calls her husband. To access the net. For me.
Ever browsed the web through a listener that doesn't know what she's hearing but has to translate it into something she's saying? You Will, and the company that will bring it to you...
Anyway, no reason to rant further -- it was one heck of a trip, an absolute blast -- but indeed, no matter what country I ended up in, the pay phones were as spastic as an epiliptic monkey with a broken pacemaker.
I did like the 90 second pay phones, that took 75 seconds to establish a call. talkfastdoesn'tevenbegintocoverit
Needless to say, I am now vastly more knowledgable about that which is GSM.
--Dan
So much BS, so little time. (Score:5, Insightful)
I could go on and on too. I swear I could strangle the jackasses who confuse the tools people use with the stupid things they do with the tools. I could also strangle the jackasses who have cellphone envy and try to mask it as some kind of superiority.
I work hard to make sure I have the resources to live the kind of life I want to live. I want the ability to stay in touch with people I go shopping with so we don't have to agree to meet at the food court. If my girlfriend is in a car accident again, I want her to be able to reach me as soon as possible. If there's an earthquake and I'm trapped in a building, I want to be able to call for help and tell them I'm alive but bleeding and running out of air. If I'm on an airplane and hostages take over with box cutters, I want to say goodbye to my girlfriend before the plane runs into a building.
I'm tired of anti-cellphone BS. There are no legitimate complaints against the phones themselves, and the complaints about the users have nothing to do with the phones.
Grow up, people.
Re:pay phones might get more use if (Score:4, Insightful)
Somehow, I don't see the cost as being the primary issue. If you need to make a call, $0.50 isn't that big of a deal. Hell, it's about half a candy-bar around here.
It sounds like it's becoming a social stigmata to use the urine soaked payphones. As in: "I don't want to look like I'm not good enough/rich enough to have a cell phone."
Re:You wonder about the wrong thing... (Score:4, Insightful)
Next you'll be telling me that poor people having telephones at all is a criminal mismanagement of funds. I can't imagine why poor people would waste their cash on something as frivolous as a mobile phone. Certainly not to check their messages during the day and try to get a more lucrative job. How absurd! And God forbid a mother should want her children to be able to reach her when they need her, even if she's on the bus.
Cell phones were once exclusively for the very rich. Now they're not. Deal with it.
If pay phones were run by the record industry... (Score:4, Insightful)
If pay phones were run by the record industry...
1. Cel phones would be illegal because they give you all the benefits of a pay phone but through a new, uncontrolled medium.
2. Every time you placed a call you would pay a tariff to support the money lost due to illegal use of cel phones.
3. Phone companies would be appealing to the government to subsidize lost revenues due to low demand for pay phones.
4. You could buy your own cel phone through approved channels but it would cost twice as much as a pay phone even though they cost a fraction as much to make.
5. There would eventually be thousands of approved cel phones on the market but they would all look the same, they'd work the same, and if you didn't want the same thing as everyone else you'd be called a thief for not buying it anyway...
Re:Environment (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:pay phones might get more use if (Score:1, Insightful)
There was a time when not just anyone could get a telephone. The bell monopolies would often charge very large deposits which were beyond the reach of lower income people. The phone company created a class of people who had to use pay phones. They used this captive audience to keep profits up. First, they set up the phones so they would not accept incoming calls. Then they the set the phone up so it was no longer a flat quarter, but was a quarter for a few minutes. It now cost a few dollars an hour to talk on a pay phone.
When the telephone monopoly faltered, so did the pay phone. Not only were people able to buy cell phones that were now competitive with pay phones, but lower income people only had come up with around $50 or so to get a phone. No longer did you need to give your life saving to get a land line. No longer did you have to pay a days salary to get the phone turned back on. There are now phone companies that will give you land line services when you can pay, with no penalties if you can't. Most cell phone companies will sell phone service by the minute at competitive rates, with extremely cheap starter phones. And since pay phones now charge about a dollar fee if you use a calling card, an immigrant might justify a land line solely on one call home a day.
Re:The environmental hazard of removing payphones (Score:2, Insightful)
Besides that the difference between using a headset and talking to someone beside you is same as that between listening to your favourite song using a headphone and listening to it on a stereo. Which of the two do you think has a easier chance of having you preoccupied ?
Re:The environmental hazard of removing payphones (Score:2, Insightful)
When talking to a passenger, the passenger is actually there with you. They know when you're not paying attention because you need to focus elsewhere. When you're on a cellphone the other person will keep talking at times when a passenger would know to stop. They'll ask "are you still there?" when you're trying to concentrate on something else and don't reply to them.
Handsfree phones don't solve this problem. After a while you learn to just ignore the phone when you need to focus elsewhere; some people never learn; some people have a few accidents in the process.
Re:The environmental hazard of removing payphones (Score:5, Insightful)
Concentrating on Talking while driving actually distracts people from driving well. Bad drivers can often be seen doing all the talking while driving. Basic natural instinct, you cannot devote concentration power to upcoming events (getting cut off and allowing the extra space) and hold a full blown 2 way all out conversation.
Drivers do their best thinking/working shit out because the mind is alive with activity while driving, just don't ask them to concentrate on a conversation with someone else.
Think about it the next time you're driving
Yo Grark
Canadian Bred with American Buttering.
Re:I wonder (Score:3, Insightful)
If you are under 18, you cannot get a subscription, so you'll have to use a prepaid phone, or convince your parents to get a subscription for you.
Re:You wonder about the wrong thing... (Score:4, Insightful)
Uhh.... who said anything about free calls? They're called pay phones for a reason, you know.
If you're OK with installing and maintaining phones that can call 911 for free, why not also let people put money in them to call other numbers while the phones would otherwise just be sitting around, doing nothing? They'd be hooked up to the phone network anyway, since a dedicated line to the 911 call center would be needlessly expensive.
Sure, maybe those pay calls would be in some sense "subsidized phone calls", but much less so that a car ride just about anywhere is a "subsidized car ride." Somehow I doubt that the cost of subsidizing pay phones would ever come close to that of the massive pork barrel that is the federal-aid highway system (or that we'd ever invade Kazakhstan to secure our chromium supply for those cool little keypad buttons).
That, of course, is the original poster's point -- that perhaps pay phones should be considered a part of the public infrastructure.
Re:pay phones might get more use if-Disposable Pho (Score:3, Insightful)
Environmental Hazards? (Score:3, Insightful)
The fact that large companies (like phone companies or even large corporations) are now being watched closely when disposing of potentially dangerous materials (including computers) means they will probably be stripped, recycled, or waste-reclaimed in China somewhere.
Not many of these phones would hit landfills as "phones" at any rate, unlike the thousands of Cell Phones that people tend to toss out like household garbage, complete with batteries, etc.
Maeryk
Re:You wonder about the wrong thing... (Score:3, Insightful)
The original poster intimated that other countries pay for the phones.
Setting that aside for a moment, even if the government only paid to maintain them, that is much more maintenance than an emergency phone.
If you're OK with installing and maintaining phones that can call 911 for free, why not also let people put money in them to call other numbers while the phones would otherwise just be sitting around, doing nothing? They'd be hooked up to the phone network anyway, since a dedicated line to the 911 call center would be needlessly expensive.
- Emergency phones don't require as much hardware. They can be a single button you press and talk into a microphone, like what appear on many campuses across America.
- Emergency phones don't need to be stopped by every day to gather the change.
- Emergency phones don't need to be repaired as much because they're not used as much.