This story begins in 1984, around the time of Bell Telephone’s
breakup. That year was when the FCC deregulated interstate payphone service,
although some states like Illinois and New York maintained strict regulations
and taxes for local calls. During this decade and the 1990’s, a multitude of
business owners, including shops and restaurant owners, installed payphones as
a profit-generating mechanism (NY Times). The most enduring payphone of this
deregulated era is the Protel 7000, last revised in 2002, and which can be
found as “new unused stock” on two specialty websites. It turned out to be a
reliable and easy-to-repair design. The model incorporated integrated circuits,
and originally sold for $1,600 or so per unit; today the price is $300 per
unit.
According to Pew Research, cell phone adaption in the US has
increased from 60% to 95% from 2004 to present times. A decline in the number
of payphones was first recorded in 2002, and over the past 3 years, the FCC has
also noted that payphone revenue has decreased from 300 million to 250 million.
The declining cost of long-distance calling meant that organizations such as
hospitals and airports have set up no-cost phones. Without a coin mechanism,
these are easier to maintain and replace.
Payphones continue to have a use where cell phones are
prohibited, expensive or useless. Prisons, rural areas, courthouses, immigrant
communities (who use low-rate phone cards to dial their home countries) are
among current users. The last installation I have been able to find was in a
North Carolina courthouse in 2014, where a new cell phone prohibition was put
into place. Other devices have been labelled as “public interest payphones”,
such as in New Jersey, where the state’s transit authority subsidizes payphones
at transit centers.
Payphones may survive indefinitely in public buildings, at
least while spare parts are still available. Under the PBX system, where a
large number of office or hotel room phones route to a few outgoing lines (“Please
dial your party’s extension”…”All lines are busy, please try again later”),
there is no monthly cost to maintain a payphone. On the street, a payphone
requires and individual line, which ups the margin of sustainability to three
calls per day.
As of 2018, New York City possessed one-fifth of the United
States’ 100,000 payphones. By a single action of the metropolis’ City Council,
there are perhaps only 85,000 payphones left in the US. New York City has converted
most payphones to free Wi-Fi, information kiosk, and telephone service under
the name “City Link”. The most frequent call is made to the state’s EBT benefits
hotline. This single-franchise system is subsidized by advertising revenue from
CBS Outdoors, which had supported the city’s payphone network long after it had
been dismantled in other cities. (NY Times). New York City’s independent payphone operators,
who emerged after major provider Verizon left the payphone business in 2011, were
put out of work: “I guess I can become a taxi driver, later”, John Porter
quipped. In other locales, the rules are more laissez-faire, and providers are
free to enter and leave the trade. A private initiative, “Futel”, aimed at
preserving payphones in the name of personal privacy and anonymity, has begun
in Portland Oregon.
In theory, the payphone is an essential public service
during a prolonged blackout. This was proven to be a benefit after Hurricane
Sandy hit New York City in 2012. In practice, an average citizen without
electricity could charge their cellphone using a car’s power port. With
declining availability and reliability of the payphone network, citizens
switched to using cell phones, a phenomenon recorded as early as 2003.
I was last a regular payphone user in 2007, when my parents
gave me my first cell phone. I last used a payphone in 2016, when my Apple
iPhone had failed, leaving me stranded at an exurban trailer park after Sunday
mass (I used Uber to get there, and needed a taxi to get back to the ship).
What prompted my newfound interest in the old technology? I had a payphone in
basement storage, which I had to move by June 1. I had purchased it on a whim two
years earlier, fearing that it was the last chance to buy such a device. Weighing
50 pounds, I refused to store it on the second floor, so mounting it outside
was the only sensible option. Intrinsically, it is an electronic device operating
outside. Parts break, like the solenoid that I had to replace after two years
in storage. There is a real possibility that I will lose the time and focus to
service the device.
As a marine engineer, working with digital devices was a
weak spot in my education and work. I had always deferred that work to shipboard
electronics technicians, who were often retired from the US Navy. As a payphone
owner, I had to run through troubleshooting procedures myself. 1990’s style
programming, still used onboard many ships, was demystified enough for me.
When talking to the landline phone company, I was offered
the “lowest business rate”, as required under state law; a savings of
approximately $20 per month for a landline. The phone company (“incumbent local
carrier”) also provided free use of the payphone booth, and additional
assistance in repairing the line at no cost. As a selling point, I was offered
a monthly contract, so I could pull this experiment at any time.
I got my hands wet in regulatory compliance. Reading the Code
of Virginia and visiting the State Corporation Commission website, I paid my $4
payphone tax, and insert a “booth card” with the statutory language. More or
less, I also gained experience in talking with the curious public.
While servicing my payphone, I had my first encounter with a
Karen, or a neighbor who regularly calls
law enforcement over quality-of-life issues. A concerned citizen had called the
police about “someone messing with the payphone”. I had the proper keys, no big
deal. The police officer, slightly younger than me, was impressed that somebody
was practicing “a lost art”, an archaic trade that I recently learned.
References
Video Documentaries:
Dead Ringer, 2016.
The Pay Phone Repairmen of New York
City, Mashable, 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LH-FqLdqWLo
Hang Up, Hugo Massa, 2014.
Articles:
A Payphone Can Be Yours and the
Toll is Negotiable, NY Times, 1/18/1986
There are still 100,000 Pay Phones
in America, CNN Business, 3/19/2018
https://money.cnn.com/2018/03/19/news/companies/pay-phones/index.html
What are those tall kiosks that
have replaced payphones in New York?, NY Times, 1/11/2018
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