telecom@eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Moderator) (08/14/89)
Sunday, August 13 marked the 100th anniversary of the invention of the pay phone. In 1889, William Gray obtained United States Patent # 408,709 for his invention, "A Coin Controlled Apparatus for Telephones". The first payphone was installed in January, 1890 at the Hartford Bank, in Hartford, CT. Today, a century later, there are an estimated two million payphones throughout the United States. So the story goes, Gray's inspiration came of necessity. He had asked someone to allow him to use their phone to make an urgent call to his sick wife, and they refused, even when he offered to pay for the call. He had a hard time convincing people that his invention would be useful or profitable. When Grand Central Terminal in New York City placed its first order in the early nineties, the management was only willing to purchase one instrument, and then only a consignment basis, after Gray offered to take it back with no obligation in two months if the new type phone did not prove itself. Now there are payphones everywhere. There are payphones in the White House, and payphones in the middle of Death Valley, CA. Until the middle 1950's one might still see a very old "Gray Electric Company" payphone in service somewhere. The price has changed as well: For the first 59 years, until 1948, a local call cost a nickle. In that year, most telcos raised their price for a call to a dime. Some, like New Orleans, LA, remained at the five cent rate for several more years. In the late sixties, most payphones were charging fifteen or twenty cents per call. The price has been twenty-five cents in most places now for several years. Happy Birthday! Patrick Townson
johnl@uunet.uu.net (John Levine) (08/15/89)
In article <telecom-v09i0295m03@vector.dallas.tx.us> our moderator writes: >In the late sixties, most payphones were charging fifteen or twenty cents >per call. The price has been twenty-five cents in most places now for >several years. Ten cent payphones are still the norm in most New England states, except for COCOTs, of course. I guess we're just thriftier than the rest of you. The last I heard, Taconic Tel, a small independent telco that serves the area around Chatham NY, near the Massachusetts border, still remains the last refuge of the five cent pay phone. It is my impression that they don't have enough of them to make it worth the effort to go before the PUC and change the rate. -- John R. Levine, Segue Software, POB 349, Cambridge MA 02238, +1 617 492 3869 {ima|lotus}!esegue!johnl, johnl@ima.isc.com, Levine@YALE.something Massachusetts has 64 licensed drivers who are over 100 years old. -The Globe
mclek@gatech.edu (Larry E. Kollar) (08/15/89)
In article <telecom-v09i0295m03@vector.dallas.tx.us> telecom@eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Moderator) writes: >The price [for a payphone call] has been twenty-five cents in most places now >for several years. Standard Telephone, in northeast Georgia, still has 10-cent payphones. But then again, most Dawsonville merchants will let you use their phone to make a local call (comes in handy when the wife sends you to the store & you forgot what she wanted :-). In 1980, I had a job as a "galley hand" (cook's go-fer) on the Gulf drilling platforms. The little telco that served Beaumont (? memory's fuzzy) TX had a FIVE-cent payphone in an office where we waited for the helicopter. -- Larry Kollar ...!gatech!dcatla!mclek : life BEGIN funds @ enough_to_retire < WHILE work REPEAT ;
johnw@gatech.edu (John Wheeler) (08/16/89)
In article <telecom-v09i0295m03@vector.dallas.tx.us> telecom@eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Moderator) writes: >The price has been twenty-five cents in most places now for several years. It's still a dime in Dawson County, GA...how many places can still say that? -- Turner John Wheeler E N T E R T A I N M E N T ...!gatech!nanovx!techwood!johnw Networks Techwood Library * home of Superstation TBS * TNT * TBS Sports
miket@brspyr1.brs.com (Mike Trout) (08/16/89)
In article <telecom-v09i0298m09@vector.dallas.tx.us>, esegue!johnl@uunet.uu. net (John Levine) writes: > The last I heard, Taconic Tel, a small independent telco that serves the > area around Chatham NY, near the Massachusetts border, still remains the > last refuge of the five cent pay phone. It is my impression that they don't > have enough of them to make it worth the effort to go before the PUC and > change the rate. This is still true. Taconic Telephone brags about their nickel pay phones quite a bit. I suspect that pay phones are a money losing product for Taconic, but that they pay off in the long run in good PR. At least once a year the _New_York_Times_ runs a feature article on "the nation's last nickel pay phones." This is good for Taconic, as most of their customers are transplanted New York Citians. Taconic actually serves a fairly large area, covering much of New York State east of the Hudson between Troy and Poughkeepsie. Semi-related trivia question: Name the famous movie in which the following line was uttered: "THERE'S a phone call that'll cost more than a nickel." -- NSA food: Iran sells Nicaraguan drugs to White House through CIA, SOD & NRO. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Michael Trout (miket@brspyr1)~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ BRS Information Technologies, 1200 Rt. 7, Latham, N.Y. 12110 (518) 783-1161 "God forbid we should ever be 20 years without...a rebellion." Thomas Jefferson
dt5y@vax5.cit.cornell.edu (08/17/89)
In article <telecom-v09i0299m03@vector.dallas.tx.us> John Wheeler <techwood!johnw@gatech.edu> writes: >X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@vector.dallas.tx.us >X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 299, message 3 of 8 >In article <telecom-v09i0295m03@vector.dallas.tx.us> telecom@eecs.nwu.edu >(TELECOM Moderator) writes: >>The price has been twenty-five cents in most places now for several years. >It's still a dime in Dawson County, GA...how many places can still say that? > Turner John Wheeler > Networks It's still a dime in ConTel service areas near (and between) Cortland and Ithaca, NY, and I suspect also in other ConTel areas throughout other Upstate NY places no one has heard of (like Eagle Bay :-) ). N.B. The ConTel payphones around here were all tone 3 years before NY Tel started installing tone payphones hereabouts. NY Tel *still* has some dial payphones in this area! Pete, KB2CCL dt5y@cornella.cit.cornell.edu
r4@mvuxd.att.com (Richard R Grady, Jr) (08/18/89)
In article <telecom-v09i0295m03@vector.dallas.tx.us> telecom@eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Moderator) writes: > [...] In the late sixties, most payphones were >charging fifteen or twenty cents per call. The price has been twenty-five >cents in most places now for several years. Payphones still cost a dime in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Dick Grady r_r_grady@att.com ...!att!mvuxd!r4 The above opinions are mine, and not necessarily those of my employer.
amb@cs.columbia.edu (Andrew Boardman) (08/18/89)
In article <telecom-v09i0302m09@vector.dallas.tx.us> it was quoth: >N.B. The ConTel payphones around here were all tone 3 years before NY Tel >started installing tone payphones hereabouts. NY Tel *still* has some >dial payphones in this area! NYT has lots of them all over New York City today! It is my impression that they would rather just install a new payphone rather than convert an old one. Although I would be *extremely* suprised if there was anyplace else with a higher density of public phones, it's still hard to find one during peak hours. [Digression, for those that keep track of these things: repairs on my CO were just completed this morning after the chainsaw job someone did on it in the middle of last week.] Andrew Boardman amb@cs.columbia.edu ROLM is a four letter (and if you really have to, ab4@cunixc on bitnet) word.
davef@brspyr1.brs.com (Dave Fiske) (08/19/89)
In article <telecom-v09i0295m03@vector.dallas.tx.us>, telecom@eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Moderator) writes: > Sunday, August 13 marked the 100th anniversary of the invention of the pay > phone. In 1889, William Gray obtained United States Patent # 408,709 for Thanks, Patrick, for an interesting item. We have a local DJ who, every summer, has people call in with the numbers of pay phones in unusual spots which they noticed while on vacation. Then he calls the numbers, and, if anyone picks up, talks to them about the weather where they are, etc. It's kind of comical sometimes. I remember one time, the pay phone was out on a dock at Cape Cod. Anyway, what unusual spots have people seen pay phones in? Although, it wasn't a pay phone, the most unusual spot I've seen a working phone in was...a submarine! At Portsmouth, NH, they have a retired experimental submarine, the AGS Albacore, on display in a little lagoon near Route 1. We went on one of their little tours once, and at some point, the guide left our group alone for a few minutes. There was this phone in there, and it started ringing. We didn't know whether to answer or not, but finally one brave soul picked it up and said "Hello". No, it wasn't a call from CINCLANT, but someone who wanted to know if they were open that day. Apparently they had an extension strung out from the office to the sub. We couldn't help but speculate on how neat it would be to call somebody up and say "Hi, I'm calling from a submarine." -- "ANGRY WOMEN BEAT UP SHOE SALESMAN Dave Fiske (davef@brspyr1.BRS.COM) WHO POSED AS GYNECOLOGIST" Home: David_A_Fiske@cup.portal.com Headline from Weekly World News CIS: 75415,163 GEnie: davef
roy%phri@uunet.uu.net (Roy Smith) (08/19/89)
My recollection is that pay phones in Mexico City are free!
Partly, I guess, because they can't keep up with the constantly changing
coinage as inflation takes its toll (if this were RISKS instead of TELECOM,
I'm sure the moderator would find some pun to make of that).
--
Roy Smith, Public Health Research Institute
455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016
{att,philabs,cmcl2,rutgers,hombre}!phri!roy -or- roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu
"The connector is the network"