Zone1 Should the government bring back payphones?

[Nate99]

I'd appreciate it if they would...then I might not have to deal with strangers asking me for permission to make a call on my phone.

 

[NewsVine_Mariyam]

I'd appreciate it if they would...then I might not have to deal with strangers asking me for permission to make a call on my phone.

What kind of people are these, where they feel comfortable asking you to use your phone?

As far as your question, I don't see the point in bringing back payphone but I REALLY would love it if I could have a landline installed

 

[Dr.Destructo]

I'd appreciate it if they would...then I might not have to deal with strangers asking me for permission to make a call on my phone.

Tell them to **** off.

Or charge them $50.00 per second...........payable up front.

I've NEVER had anybody ask to use my phone.

 

[AZrailwhale]

What kind of people are these, where they feel comfortable asking you to use your phone?

As far as your question, I don't see the point in bringing back payphone but I REALLY would love it if I could have a landline installed

Where do you live that you can’t get a land line installed? The dial tone part of the phone companies is still regulated. The have to install a residential land line no matter what it costs them. When I worked as a service tech, we spent five million dollars to provide residential service to less than a hundred ranches on the border of Ventura and Santa Barbara counties. Many of the ranches had a Pac Bell line AND a Verizon line from Santa Barbara County so they could make local calls. The County line was the Local Area Transit Area boundary. Calling your neighbor one lot across the boundary was a long distance call.

 

[Dr.Destructo]

Where do you live that you can’t get a land line installed? The dial tone part of the phone companies is still regulated. The have to install a residential land line no matter what it costs them. When I worked as a service tech, we spent five million dollars to provide residential service to less than a hundred ranches on the border of Ventura and Santa Barbara counties. Many of the ranches had a Pac Bell line AND a Verizon line from Santa Barbara County so they could make local calls. The County line was the Local Area Transit Area boundary. Calling your neighbor one lot across the boundary was a long distance call.

They still have landlines around here.
The cable companies are always pushing their "package deals" for cheap, if you get your cable, internet, and landline all in one deal.

 

[toobfreak]

I'd appreciate it if they would...then I might not have to deal with strangers asking me for permission to make a call on my phone.

The bigger question is why take them all away?

I can see removing some, but THEY WERE ALREADY THERE and not really costing much more just to keep them there. Seems that it should be a right to have reasonable access to a phone. A lot of people are buying cellphones because THEY HAVE NO CHOICE, then the phone company takes out payphones because they say no one needs them. Thing is, sometimes even if you have a cellphone, they die or break on you and you still need a phone, as proven by people asking for them.

 

[Dekster]

Where do you live that you can’t get a land line installed? The dial tone part of the phone companies is still regulated. The have to install a residential land line no matter what it costs them. When I worked as a service tech, we spent five million dollars to provide residential service to less than a hundred ranches on the border of Ventura and Santa Barbara counties. Many of the ranches had a Pac Bell line AND a Verizon line from Santa Barbara County so they could make local calls. The County line was the Local Area Transit Area boundary. Calling your neighbor one lot across the boundary was a long distance call.

Don't know if it is still this way but there were places in West Virginia that had these weird calling bands where you might be able to call someone across town with no extra charge but have to pay a few extra cents calling someone down the street. It just depended on what band you and they were in and there didn't seem to be a lot of rhyme or reason as to how these bands were mapped. Where my aunt lived in WV, I think she was on a party-line until in the 1990's.

 

[Dr.Destructo]

The bigger question is why take them all away?

I can see removing some, but THEY WERE ALREADY THERE and not really costing much more just to keep them there. Seems that it should be a right to have reasonable access to a phone. A lot of people are buying cellphones because THEY HAVE NO CHOICE, then the phone company takes out payphones because they say no one needs them. Thing is, sometimes even if you have a cellphone, they die or break on you and you still need a phone, as proven by people asking for them.

Since people have mobile phones, and cash is pretty much a thing of the past............nobody was really using them.

And the ones that ARE left, are in places nobody is going to go to.......like back alley dives, or dark corners somewhere on the outside of a building.

Most public phones got vandalized anyway, so it was more costly keeping them repaired, than just removing them.

 

[EvilCat Breath]

What kind of people are these, where they feel comfortable asking you to use your phone?

As far as your question, I don't see the point in bringing back payphone but I REALLY would love it if I could have a landline installed

Why don't you have one? All internet and cable providers will tack on a phone. Usually for free.

 

[toobfreak]

Since people have mobile phones, and cash is pretty much a thing of the past............

In part, one of the reasons why no one was using them is because cellphones were forced on people.

Not for the phones, but for the digital and internet tracking,

to collect data on where you go and what you do.

Same with the coins. Everything was moved to electronic because that way, they can collect data on how and where you spend your money,

better still, CONTROL your money, cut you off, take it if they want.

 

[AZrailwhale]

They still have landlines around here.
The cable companies are always pushing their "package deals" for cheap, if you get your cable, internet, and landline all in one deal.

Yep and you are foolish to depend on the cable company for dial tone. Cable nodes are dependent on commercial power. Within hours of an interruption they go down like cell phones. Land lines are powered from the TELCO central office which has a diesel generator and between one and two weeks worth of fuel for it,

 

[AZrailwhale]

Since people have mobile phones, and cash is pretty much a thing of the past............nobody was really using them.

And the ones that ARE left, are in places nobody is going to go to.......like back alley dives, or dark corners somewhere on the outside of a building.

Most public phones got vandalized anyway, so it was more costly keeping them repaired, than just removing them.

They were also used by drug dealers and other criminals to avoid taps.

 

[NewsVine_Mariyam]

Where do you live that you can’t get a land line installed? The dial tone part of the phone companies is still regulated. The have to install a residential land line no matter what it costs them. When I worked as a service tech, we spent five million dollars to provide residential service to less than a hundred ranches on the border of Ventura and Santa Barbara counties. Many of the ranches had a Pac Bell line AND a Verizon line from Santa Barbara County so they could make local calls. The County line was the Local Area Transit Area boundary. Calling your neighbor one lot across the boundary was a long distance call.

I hear what you're saying however from my perspective, if the phone stops working because it's battery backup runs down, that's not a real landline, which is the ONLY thing my ISP/cable company will offer, at least to me. Who knows what other people can get.

I've lived through several government declared emergencies due to earthquakes in southern California and even when the electricity went out, the telephones still always worked which is the reason for my wanting a landline.

Ironically, less than 30 days after I first "temporarily" relocated to the Seattle, we had a major earthquake. I was stunned because I thought I had left those behind

 

[Grumblenuts]

I'd appreciate it if they would...then I might not have to deal with strangers asking me for permission to make a call on my phone.

Great question. My mileage differs. For me, having a current cell or smart phone is more of a curse than having none. But that's just me. I enjoy not getting out much anymore. As toobfreak (not always crazy) indicated, basically mobile phones have been forced upon everyone, largely at our own expense.

More than any government, employers have increasingly demanded cheap, constant text and/or voice access to employees and location tracking. Being social animals, we've tended to willingly comply.. and foot the bill. We'll all be available for surveillance on YouTube pretty soon.

Ma Bell was a bargain. We also got all the major TV channels for free using rabbit ears to pick up the signals from OUR OWN airwaves. Cable was sold to us with the promise of NO COMMERCIALS and better signal transmission via their cables. No joke.

Thank goodness advances in Wi-Fi have effectively kicked the telecom and cable giants squarely in the balls. And.. and.. we can use modern rabbit ears to watch local, hi-def, "free" TV channels again. The world is a vampire. Adapt at your own risk.

 

[AZrailwhale]

I hear what you're saying however from my perspective, if the phone stops working because it's battery backup runs down, that's not a real landline, which is the ONLY thing my ISP/cable company will offer, at least to me. Who knows what other people can get.

I've lived through several government declared emergencies due to earthquakes in southern California and even when the electricity went out, the telephones still always worked which is the reason for my wanting a landline.

Ironically, less than 30 days after I first "temporarily" relocated to the Seattle, we had a major earthquake. I was stunned because I thought I had left those behind

Generally TELCO land lines are pretty disaster proof. We had an issue in the Northridge CO during a quake where a switching unit swayed on it’s mount and a poorly secured power cable was pinched and grounded out for a couple of hours until it could be found and fixed. Even in the Northridge quake, both the Northridge and Reseda Central Offices stayed up and operational even though both offices had to be evacuated due to earthquake damage. The only times I know of COs going off line for long periods were both fires in unattended offices. One was in Baker CA in Death Valley that burned to the ground; the other was located in a NYC high rise where if I remember correctly, the power room burned out and local building codes prevented back-up generators being installed.
The most common post-disaster problem is everyone trying to use their phones at once and there not being enough equipment to provide dial tone to everyone. If that happens, blow into the mouthpiece and if you can hear it in your ear, stay on the line, you will eventually get a dial tone.

 

[toobfreak]

As toobfreak (not always crazy) indicated, basically mobile phones have been forced upon everyone, largely at our own expense.

Case in point. Despite a large background in telecommunications, I have not had or wanted a cellphone for years. Damn things are always breaking and/or poor signal. But when I went to the store to pick up food, I found the grocery could not be bothered installing even a $5 buzzer to let them know you were there and I got tired of trying to flag someone down. Then recently, I started having trouble even ordering food on their website, or opening an email account, unless I not only HAD a cellphone, but with TEXT!

So now I had to add text to my cellphone account because many places when you log in with your account name and password now, want a THIRD confirmation to prove it is REALLY you (for their safety) by texting you a 6 number passcode (which they used to offer the option of calling you by automated voice and telling you over a simple landline but then took that option out too to further save money at customer's expense). And you cannot receive nor send a text message via a landline.

So you are pretty much screwed now unless you have a cellphone with text. It has become a necessity of living.

 

[Nate99]

Tell them to **** off.

I wouldn't tell them something like that regardless of whether I let them use my phone or not. It does put me in a rather difficult position though...particularly after dark. Someone could use a request like that to mask malicious intent.

I wish I could just point them to a payphone like I could back in the 1990s.

 

[NewsVine_Mariyam]

Case in point. Despite a large background in telecommunications, I have not had or wanted a cellphone for years. Damn things are always breaking and/or poor signal. But when I went to the store to pick up food, I found the grocery could not be bothered installing even a $5 buzzer to let them know you were there and I got tired of trying to flag someone down. Then recently, I started having trouble even ordering food on their website, or opening an email account, unless I not only HAD a cellphone, but with TEXT!

So now I had to add text to my cellphone account because many places when you log in with your account name and password now, want a THIRD confirmation to prove it is REALLY you (for their safety) by texting you a 6 number passcode (which they used to offer the option of calling you by automated voice and telling you over a simple landline but then took that option out too to further save money at customer's expense). And you cannot receive nor send a text message via a landline.

So you are pretty much screwed now unless you have a cellphone with text. It has become a necessity of living.

I hated the multi-factor authentication when they implemented it at work specifically because it requires a worker to have a smartphone on which to receive the text verification, at the worker's own expense. Now I understand more how it enhances security but I really disliked it in the beginning. I didn't even like having my phone available to me when working but you have to adjust otherwise crap like Crowdstrike occurs :-(

 

[NewsVine_Mariyam]

Why don't you have one? All internet and cable providers will tack on a phone. Usually for free.

They're not real landlines though.

 

[fncceo]

Should the government bring back payphones?​

The government doesn't own the phone companies.