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Where have all the payphones gone?
The public payphone, once as ubiquitous as air, has vanished. It’s as if the telephone companies pressed a button, and every payphone disappeared. Have you ever witnessed a payphone being dismantled and hauled away? Where do they go? (The Brady’s got one of them but what about the others?)
Good Answers (39)
Wanda M
Field Associate, Change Management & Organizational Development
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My husband and I owned a small private payphone business for a while, my sister still owns and operates a quite lucrative private payphone business. In Texas most private payphone owners are members of the TPA, Texas Payphone Association. As a private provider I would purchase other routes and obtain new locations by entering into a contract agreement with the site owner whereby the owner would receive any or all of: Signing bonus, monthly or quarterly commissions based upon the revenue, and later commission based upon received dial-around (payphone cards). Payphones provided by the phone companies didn't pay location owners commission, as a general rule; they sold the installation as a benefit to locations to bring in business and would flood one local with too many phones to be lucrative. Additionally, as privates, we always installed "smart" phones whereby we had immediate input of a number dialed, how much coin was depositied, how long the phone call lasted, trouble reports, etc. All private payphone owners battled with the LECs and phone card manufacturers for the payphone owners portion of the cost of the phone card. While a card was automatically debited a fee for it's use, say 50 cents, which the was to have gone to the payphone owner, for the longest neither the LEC's nor the phone card provider was paying the payphone owner; the LEC's often times claimed they didn't have a way to capture what was due to whom; while as a payphone owner we could capture everything to pay our customers???? TPA Board developed an overall government affairs program that included hiring an outside lobby fir to represent the association before the Texas Legislature & notifies its membership of legislation affecting the industry and after many and continuing court cases pay phone owners are seeing some of the revenue that consumers have been paying since phone cards have been in use. Like any other business, many factors go into successful locals.
Wanda Matthews
Alice D
Human Rights Instructor, Substitute Teacher and CASA in training
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Somewhere over the rainbow to a land far more friendly, with a relaxed pace of life...............
Cheers, Alice
Mark E
Florida Certified General Contractor; Developer; Entrepreneur
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I have not seen them being dismantled, but I have seen the booth left with no phone. They do still exist by the way. A family member working in S. Florida recently broke her cell phone but was afraid to go out at night to use the pay phone across the street.
And by the way, where have all the horsedrawn carts gone?
Pay phones have morphed into cell phones. And we pay and pay and pay for them! I say we change the name of cell phones to "pay too much for phones"
I don't know where they went but last summer I was meeting a friend In front of wrigley field in Chicago and something was interferring with my cell phone signal and I couldn't even find a payphone anywhere, I went in mcdonalds and looked all over I could not find a payphone anywhere, and I think thats insane.
Luan V
Informix, Unix, C/C++ Developer
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The major telecom such as AT&T (BellSouth) has officially dropped the payphone service as of last year. They said it was no longer viable in their line of business and have chosen to decommission all payphones in the U.S.
Links:
Bryan M
Research and Sourcing Specialist
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With the advent of cellular and wireless technology the way of the pay phone is the way of the dinosaur. They have all gone to that desert limbo of obsolete land. And yes, I have seen them being dismantled. Cleveland no longer has them on strategic street corners. Verizon bought them, and then, like any good super powerful company, they eliminated the usage and the need for such ancient technology. So there you go, like the lever, the Archimedes Screw, and Steam Engines, add to that list The Payphone.
Randy R
Senior IT Analyst
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I've still seen a few payphones in rural areas; they're run by small independent telephone companies and you might typically see them at a gas station or convenience store. But, they're disappearing quickly.
I resisted getting a cell phone for a long time and what convinced me was being out one day and needing to make a call; I only found one pay phone and it was out of order.
I'm also wondering what's happening to the actual telephones. Are they being auctioned off in some way and finding their way to ebay or flea markets? Are they being sold to small countries that still don't have cell service? Stripped for parts and sold for scrap metal?
Recently it was reported that AT&T is selling all their pay-phones by the end of 2008. Usage has been down as a whole and if they sell them now they could greatly reduce any losses. I have also read that there are presently some 1 million pay-phones still out there, which is down from the 2.6 million that were out there a year ago.
Where are they going? There are websites that sell them as gifts or novelty items. There are several on eBay right now. It is my understanding that their life expectancy (at the height of their popularity/usefulness) is just three years, so finding a used one in mint condition might be a difficult task. There have been a number of newspaper articles that say they still have a place in society (not everyone has a cell phone—especially the homeless). I would expect that either small telecommunications companies or any number of entrepreneurs might find a niche market for them.
With the vast expansion of the cell phone industry and internet communications, the need for payphones is now a thing of the past. Out of the 300 million people in the United States, over 250 million of them have cell phones!
It seems that these payphones are becomeing novalties to have in the home. I included a URL below of a pretty funny story in USA Today
Links:
Marco M
RIVERSIDE TALENT Marketing & Management, MX4 Marketing, Senior Lecturer (Exec.MBA), Personal Advisor (Music Marketing)
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for one person one night hotel/bed box, all pay phones are being modified and shifted to Tokyo
stack em high, sell em' cheap i say
urgent bathroom visit requirements includes a surcharge for a 'top of the pile' location, fast crane response, the others wait till morning
who says the customer is not king, oxygen available at highly competitive rates/minute, rural included, spring at a premium, city at discount
BYOO (bring your own oxygen), BYOT (bring your own toilet), LYOPB (lease your own pay bed), a collection of business models just waiting to pop up
why, you could own a bed in every mayor city of the world! any interest anyone?
Bruno R
E-payment specialist - Head of Technical Operations
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Hi Jonah,
As a former employee at Schlumberger payphones, I can't resist answering (my way) :
* people making them went away somewhere else in various industries, sometimes at cellular manufacturers, sometimes at the Telcos that were their clients, sometimes at Gemalto (smart cards)
* maintening the installed base is a duty that has been transfered to some obscure SME in Czechoslovakia
* the CEO of the SME to which the Schlumberger payphone division was sold to, is hidding somewhere in the U.S.A. after he diligently killed his company and took the money
* As far as France is concerned, these devices are still in place, probably costing a fortune to Orange Telecom
* Ascom multimedia and Pay systems is still in activity with 2100 people and it seems they still maintain their offer on their website
* Landis & Gyr, the 3rd of the 3 main manufacturers has ceased this activity a long time ago (late 90's) as they couldn't remain profitable
* In the U.K., B.T. has replaced some of these by some multimedia / Internet payphones
* And finally, as to having seen anybody dismantling installed devices, now that you mention it ... well ... That's truly a mystery to me. Must be some secret midnight squads doing the dirty job ;-)
My 2 cents.
Bruno.
Scott G
Software Development, IP Telephony, PBX Systems, Embedded Systems
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They're being removed, and sold on ebay.
Links:
Kristen F
Senior Recruiter, Author
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Great question!
There are still plenty in my neck of the woods. You'll still find them in malls, libraries and other public venues.
I found some interesting links, posted below.
Links:
Tony L
Program Analyst at Blackhawk Management
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Just wait; one day, especially with the 4G phones coming out, you'll soon be asking where all of the PCs went.
Steve G
Project Manager/Recruiter - Toplinked.com
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Hi Jonah,
The realities of cost have caught up with the pay phone. AT&T has officially dropped out of the pay phone business. They have attributed cellular phones to the decrease in pay phone usage.
Most phones are dismantled in off-peak hours here in NYC. This is because of congestion. Additionally, there aren't many booths left in NYC.
Best,
Steve Guine
Rod B
Project manager and author
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It's kind of interesting to view the payphone disappearance as an example of "value" being destroyed through disruptive technology. It would be a good Econ 101 example, to consider the rather high value of a typical pay phone, looked at from the point of view of its cost to manufacture and maintain. Remember how incredibly sturdy they had to be, given the amount of vandalism they had to withstand, especially after about 1970? So, those units were worth a lot of money; they cost a lot to build, install, and maintain. But fairly suddenly, there was a much cheaper way to deliver what people paid for when they put quarters into a payphone, and the exchange value of the payphone evaporated. For an econ example, it seems like there are enough variables to analyze and make it interesting/instructive, while being familiar enough that most students could realistically think it through.
Clarification added 3 months ago:
I just want to add that those variables would include the impact on user/customer populations. By definition, most customers "win" if the end product/service is cheaper/better, but, as in this case, it may leave some former customers out in the cold. Some of those former payphone users were homeless, say, and could only get to any phone by payphone, where at least they had emergency service options. What are their options now?
Arne H
Entrepreneur and concepter. LION (linkedin @ digitaldreamers.info) - TopLinked.com
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I have seen some being removed and I assume they will have been dismantled and recycled. Or they have just been stacked to use at better times. ;)
Btw. I have thought of a great use for them, but that is another story altogether.
Thomas C
Business Development, Operations and Finance Officer at Dermatology Development Corporation
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It depends on who owns the payphone. I've seen Verizon take them away before. They take the physical unit out, then the stanchion/post holding the unit, and plug the hole in the ground with a metal cover. The phones are then moved to a repository where they are used to replace payphones in other locations that are to be kept in place, or are disassembled for parts and/or destroyed. . .
Kurt W
Quality Assurance Manager at MGA US LLC,
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there are still a select few left in areas where customers do not have cell phones, (low end factory jobs), In most cases, they are completely gone as not a viable market any more.
The Orthodox Jewish High School I went to does NOT allow students to have cell phones, even though the school is a residential high school with a student population form across the country (don’t even ask about internet connections). They STILL have pay phones...with the same phone numbers as when I was a student. You have to put a LOT of coins in to make a long distance call on a pay phone. I wanted to ask a student there is they still use services like 1-800 Collect, etc.
Jamie W
Vice President, Strategy & Client Services, MangoMOBILE
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right next to the 8 track tape player...
Links:
James S
Minimising future risk. Creating advantage through understanding what the future looks like - and what we will be doing
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I'm sure our local vandals have stolen than and I've seen them for sale on ebay.
Jose Maria R
VP Consultancy and Co-Founder at Solaiemes
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Telefonica still keeps them and have recently renewed those hosted in more protected environments.
They have got lately some nice capabilities (not sure about whether they are actually used very often ...): sending SMS, donations to NGOs, selling WiFi access, topping-up mobile prepaid, ...
Links:
Where I from, there are still plenty around, especially the library and airport. For people like me who refuse to get a cell phone.
Richard G
President, CG Publishing Inc., Founder Local Impressions Digital Advertising
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They have all gone to silicon heaven along with the calculators ;>)
Go hang out in the ghetto. There's usually one, solitary phone that is parked underneath a stark streetlight.
Phonebooths themselves are so hard to find, that I had to recreate the bottom of one for a shot for an ad.
Rowan H
Information Technology/Services Consultant and Contractor
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The public street pay phone has died for several reasons.The main reason is they are high fraud and vandal targets. Coupled with the prevalence of cellular they are seeing much less usage. High cost and low revenue == no pay phone.
Public pay phones still exist in areas with high traffic or transient population. Areas such as malls, bus, train, air and occasionally entertainment districts which are also low crime.
The pay phones in malls are sometimes owned by either the mall directly, or a service company, rather than the phone company itself. These are referred to as Customer Owned Customer Operated Telephones (COCOT). Additionally COCOTs are not covered under the local Public Service Commission or FCC regulations which is why you will see some truly outrageous charges listed to use them. As far as the phone company is concerned the phone line a COCOT is connected to is regular phone line like a home or business line, so those wont show up on pay phone statistics.
Gone are the days of the nickel (local call) pricing which I saw as recently as the early 90's.
Zulkifly J
Salesman
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in the dustbin .Sorry mate just cant help it to answer :-)
Kevin J
Principal, CSC Consulting
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Have you seen "4400". Well indeed aliens took the pay phones, and brought us back cellular technology, giving each carrier unique capabilities, but all with one common theme: you will drop calls!
Hmmm, let's see, big gorilla-proof box, sitting on lots of corners, particularly in "seedier" areas of town vs small hand-held box, that has 1000x the coverage.
If user wants to utilize the big gorilla-proof box, then (s)he must (a) have change, and amounts vary from place to place, (b) courage, because boxes tend to be in war zones, or tucked away in "blind spots", and (c) fight whatever weather elements are at that time, be that snow, sleet, hurricane, etc. Plusses: It will work everytime.
Alternative: Using the small handheld box, the user can make their call from the comfort of their car, home, office, closet, or seat at the game, only drawback being, (s)he may have to "roam" a bit to find a slightly better signal, and in some cases may not find a signal.
So yes, the answer is obvious. Having sold products into the manufacture of payphones, years ago, I can tell you that there is a lot of technology in them, to gorilla-proof them, and they are extremely expensive. The ROI was just no longer there, and hasn't been for decades now. So many are sent to 3rd world countries, and it is doubtful that there is a big manufacturing need anymore. I think they would be cool vintage 'home' phones!