john@bovine.ati.com (John Higdon) (07/31/90)
On Jul 29 at 22:35, TELECOM Moderator writes: > [Moderator's Note: Telecom*USA only charges $2.75 for their 800 > numbers, which simply camp on whatever number you designate. And yes, > they *are still being marketed*, although they are rather low-key > about it. And when using a genuine Bell payphone, there is no access > charge to contend with either. PT] But, sad to say, there may come a time when the "genuine Bell payphone" may be but a memory. A major objection to COCOTs by those of us who cared was that we forsaw a time when they would displace the real thing. Instead of more public phones being made available with the advent of COCOTs, there are fewer -- and a larger and larger percentage of those that remain are one-armed bandits. At least weekly it seems that some familiar old Pac*Bell payphone bites the dust. Today it was the venerable phones outside of Orchard Supply Hardware (a local chain of stores). Virtually all of the supermarkets have fallen, as have gas stations, restaurants, shopping centers, and most street locations. One of Diane Feinstein's last official acts as Mayor of San Francisco was to sign a deal with "PayTel" to provide "enhanced service" coin phones for the MUNI bus stops throughout the city. Now, years later, most of those phones have yet to be installed, the bus stop structures sporting empty holes where the phones are supposed to go. This MUNI deal was particularly scary since it was the first known (at least by me) incursion of COCOTs into the world of public transportation. In the paid areas of the MUNI Metro subway stations and in the BART stations there are, to this day, Pac*Bell phones. This is as it should be. How would you like to be a fare-paying rider, trapped in the train station, and have the only telephone available a rotten COCOT? At least at the bus stops, the customer isn't trapped (if he doesn't mind missing the bus). When the day comes that I am running to board the "L" Metro and my gaze falls upon a "SlimeyTel" where a Pac*Bell phone used to be, I will consider the battle to be over and lost. I'm afraid that someday we WILL see the last of the utility payphone. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@bovine.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o !