A payphone (alternative spelling: pay phone) is a public telephone, often located in a telephone booth or a privacy hood, with pre-payment by inserting money (usually coins), a credit or debit card, or a telephone card.

Payphones are often found in public places, transportation hubs such as airports or train stations, convenience stores, malls, casinos, and on street corners. By agreement with the landlord, either the phone company pays rent for the location and keeps the revenue, or the landlord pays rent for the phone and shares the revenue. Some payphones, particularly at gas stations, are mounted in drive-up structures that can be used without leaving the vehicle.

Payphone revenues have sharply declined in many places, largely due to the increased usage of mobile phones. Payphone providers have sometimes tried to reverse the decline in usage by offering additional services such as SMS and Internet access, thus making their phone booths into Internet kiosks. The abandonment of payphones by telephone companies has angered some people who consider them a communication staple for low-income and low-credit consumers. In particular, payphones are useful for foreign or generally non-local travellers who need to place local calls, as well as those who simply don't like or cannot afford mobile phones.

Contents 1 History 2 United States 3 Canada 4 United Kingdom 5 Japan 6 Timeline 7 Devices 8 Gallery of payphones 9 In popular culture 10 See also 11 References 12 External links

History

United States

Payphones were preceded by pay stations, manned by telephone company attendants who would collect payment for calls placed. The Connecticut Telephone Co. reportedly had a payphone in their New Haven office beginning June 1, 1880; the fee was handed to an attendant. In 1889, a public telephone with a coin-pay mechanism was installed at the Hartford Bank in Hartford, Connecticut by the Southern New England Telephone Co. It was a "post-pay" machine; coins were inserted at the end of a conversation. The coin mechanism was invented by William Gray; he was issued a series of patents for his devices, beginning with US#454470 issued Jun 23, 1891 for a 'Signal Device for Telephone Pay-Stations' which rang a bell for each coin inserted. He subsequently founded the Telephone Pay Station Co. in 1891.^[1] The "pre-pay" phone debuted in Chicago in 1898.^[2]

By 1902 there were 81,000 payphones in the United States. By 1905, the first outdoor payphones with booths were installed. By the end of 1925, 25,000 of these booths existed in New York City alone. In 1960, the Bell System installed its one millionth telephone booth. After the divestiture of Pacific Bell (California) and AT&T in 1984, it wasn't long before independent stores selling telephones opened up. After that privately owned payphones hit the market. In 2000, there were over 2 million payphones in the United States, although today that number is less than 500,000^[3] and the major carriers, AT&T and Verizon, have both exited the business, leaving the market to be served by independent payphone companies.^[4]

United Kingdom

United States

In recent years, deregulation in the United States has allowed payphone service provided by a variety of companies. Such telephones are called customer-owned coin-operated telephones (COCOT), and are mostly kept in as good condition as compared with a payphone owned and operated by the local telephone company. COCOT contracts are usually more generous to the landlord than telco ones, hence telco payphones on private premises have been more often replaced than street phones. One common implementation is operated by vending machine companies and contains a hard-wired list of non-toll telephone exchanges to which it will complete calls.

In the United States, the coin rate for a local direct-dialed station-to-station call from a payphone has been 50¢ in most areas since mid-2001, for an unlimited number of minutes. During the 1960s and 1970s, the same call in the United States and Canada typically cost 10¢. In inflation adjusted terms, in 2006 USD, this was 68¢ in 1960, and 28¢ in 1979. While some areas only cost 5¢, smaller companies occasionally charged as high as 15¢ to 20¢. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, this price gradually changed to 20¢, and again rose to 25¢ in some areas between 1985 and 1990 (47¢-39¢, inflation adjusted terms as above). In the late 1990s, the price rose to 35¢ in many areas. However, in most areas in California, for instance, the price is very often 50 cents a call (note that pay telephones rarely, if ever, accept 50 cent pieces (half-dollars)). New York City is a notable exception, where Verizon's and other companies' phones still cost 25 cents for 4 minutes, except in hotels and airports. Verizon tried raising the price to 50 cents, but lowered it to 25 cents after customers started using their competitors' phones.^[5]

In the United States, a payphone operator collects an FCC-mandated fee of 49.4¢ from the owner of a toll-free number for each call successfully placed to that number from the payphone. This results in many toll-free numbers rejecting calls from payphones in an attempt to avoid this surcharge; calling cards which require the caller to dial through a toll-free number will often pass this surcharge back to the caller, either as a separate itemized charge, a 50¢ to 90¢ increase in the price of the call, or (in the case of many pre-paid calling cards) the deduction of an extra number of minutes from the balance of the pre-paid card.

Since 2007, the number of payphones in the United States in operation has declined by 48 percent.

Canada

Most payphones in Canada are owned and operated by large telecom providers such as Bell, Telus and Sasktel. In the last 20 years customer-owned coin-operated telephones (COCOT) have also appeared in the market, but their numbers are smaller due to emergence of cellular phones.

Pricing on most local payphone calls is now 50 cents CAD, having increased from 25 cents in the past few years. Pay phones in Alberta were 35 cents for a time, but in most jurisdictions the price simply doubled. Newer phones allow users to use calling cards and credit cards.

Dialing 0 for operator and 911 calls are still free.

United Kingdom

In the UK, as in the USA, payphones have been deregulated. The great majority of them are still operated by British Telecom but there are other providers, mostly in urban areas. Manchester, London, Cardiff and Glasgow at the turn of the 21st century have a greater concentration of non-BT payphones. BT has steadily been removing payphones throughout the UK since 2000 where BT deem the kiosks not to be profitable, and have few or no calls made in any given financial year.

Kiosk adoption

BT however is offering local communities the option of adopting ^[6] the iconic Red K6 Kiosks due to strong opposition from the communities that the kiosks reside in. This will mean the removal of the phone, leaving the empty kiosk in-situ. A bizarre feature of the adoption contract is section 5.5.4 which prohibits the re-installation of a telephone in the kiosk.^[7] BT has been asked to delete section 5.5.4 (because it is anti-competitive) but it has refused. Ofcom has been asked to refer the matter to the Competition Commission but Ofcom has refused to make the referral.

Sponsored kiosk

Another option BT has provided is the sponsored kiosk,^[8] that will retain the phone service, and retain the kiosk for an annual fee of around £300 +VAT, whether it is the Red K6 or the newer Aluminium and Glass Kiosks that cannot be adopted.

Pricing

From June 1, 2010, BT payphones have £0.60 minimum charge which buys the first 30 minutes of any direct dialled national geographic call. Previously the minimum charge was £0.40 for the first 20 minutes of any direct dialled national geographic call. Then before November 2006 the minimum charge was £0.30, before 2004 it was £0.20 and before 2000 it was £0.10. However, making a call using a credit/debit card incurs a minimum charge of £1.20, and includes 1 minute of call time, £0.20 per minute thereafter, as of September 2011.^[9]

A BT Chargecard^[10] is a considerably cheaper way to call from any UK landline, including Payphones. Other cards which can be used are the Post Office phonecard,^[11] Tesco international calling card^[12] and many other telephone cards which can be bought from newsagents.

The high cost of calls is a deterrent to use and has led to allegations of closure by stealth.

Japan

The majority of payphones on the street and in buildings in Japan are installed and maintained by Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT).

Timeline

• 1891: William Gray patents his coin-operated telephone
• 1920: General Post Office (United Kingdom) introduces K1 public telephone kiosk

Devices

• Intellicall AstraTel 2 Smart Payphone^[13] (2011–present)
• Intellicall UltraTel Smart Payphone (1980s–present)
• Intellicall Tidel 3 (1990s–present)
• GTE Automatic Electric 120-type^[14]

Gallery of payphones

• 

  Old time dime payphone

• 

  Japanese Public IC TEL

• 

  Bicycle payphone in Uganda

• 

  GTE Automatic Electric 120-type single-slot coin phone in Santa Monica

• 

  AT&T payphone signage

• 

  Toronto payphones covered with graffiti and bills.

• 

  Payphone in Ashgabat

• 

  A payphone in India.

In popular culture

In the Superman comic books and live action films, Clark Kent often uses a phonebooth to change into his Superman costume.

In the 1995 film Hackers, the characters Razor and Blade briefly explain how to manipulate payphones to make free calls.

In the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles live action movies 1 & 2, there is almost always a payphone in the Turtles' lair.

In the film trilogy The Matrix, telephones are used to exit from the Matrix.

During his trial, American hacker Kevin Mitnick was accused of having the ability to launch nuclear missiles by whistling into a payphone.^[15]

A pay phone booth was used as a time machine in the 1989 film Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure.

Matthew Broderick's character used a pay phone to call his girlfriend, Jennifer, for free in the 1983 film WarGames.

See also

• Red telephone box
• Telephone booth

References

External links

• PayPhoneBox Index of payphone numbers and photographs of payphones in unusual or famous places around the world.
• World Payphone Images
• 2600: Payphones of the World
• For North America:
  • McPayphone Directory: Project to collect America's 1.3 million payphone numbers and numbers abroad.
  • Payphone Project
  • Payphone Directory