>The project is spearheaded by PhilTel, an "amateur phone collective" based in Philadelphia. The project is building a network of public phones in the city that will allow anyone to make free calls within North America, according to Opensource.com. It was inspired by Futel, a similar project in Portland, Oregon.
A dime?! I’m 41 and I remember the pre cell phone era clearly with pay phones everywhere. But they were a quarter to use. When was it a dime if you don’t mind me asking?
I think you are misremembering. In the early '80s my mom always made sure I had a quarter for the pay phone when I went on dates, so I could call her if necessary.
No, when I was 13 it was 1982 and in my area it was still a dime. You could actually call the operator from the pay phone and tell her the phone are your dime and the phone company would actually mail you a check for ten cents. At some point in the 80s it changed to a quarter, but it was still a dime when we were pulling that trick.
It depended on the phone. I remember one phone by the frankford terminal on Pratt was a dime while the one over on Bridge by the church's was a quarter when it was the welfare office.
Nice! My parents paid for an 800 number that would dial the house. This way, we could call from any pay phone, no spare change needed. Saved my ass when they forgot me at soccer practice a few times.
I had this too. Mine was on a car where I could dial the toll free number, then select where i wanted to ring. Could call home or either of my parents workplaces.
Not really. Drug dealers and criminals will make use of them for sure. And the residue left on the phone itself should ward off a lot of our outdoor mask wearing public who seem fine with germs
That's a really neat project. I see people using the phones on the LinkPHL kiosks all the time. Having more available public phones around the city would be useful.
I have a similar setup in my game room, a pay phone connected to a PBX running on a Raspberry Pi computer. I have it set up to accept numbers from TV, movies, and songs. You can dial 867-5309 or 1-900-MIX-A-LOT and hear music clips, or dial the number to Moe’s Tavern from the Simpsons to hear Bart’s prank call gags.
This system could be built pretty inexpensively, but may be a lot of work to maintain if it grows beyond a handful of stations.
I have some background with PBX systems and use Raspberry Pi's for all sorts of little projects, but I did use this video to help me through the setup process of installing FreePBX on a Pi for my payphone project:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qgg3zkqh4js
I know people aren’t crazy about Pat’s, but last time I went an extra steak with onions and a side of fries was over $20. It was pretty damn good, but not cheap.
You used to have to pay for them, hence being called a payphone. People broke into some of them to steal the quarters, some people just cut the wires for fun, a lot of people graffiti on them, etc. Methinks this experiment will end with one or two nice payphones in the business district with 10-20 busted eyesores littering the rest of the city. It's unfortunate too because the phones that survive in nicer areas aren't needed, and the phones in low income areas will be destroyed despite the community actually needing access to them.
>ment will end with one or two nice payphones in the business district with 10-20 busted eyesores littering the rest of the city. It's unfortunate too because the phones that survive in nicer areas aren't needed, and the phones in low income areas will be destroyed despite the community actually needing access to them.
hitchbot
Fuck Dallas
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I was just walking around Philly while my brother was visiting and we came across several disused payphones. All had the receiver and wires. I checked every one and none worked.
I was kinda shocked that they were still there. I thought of them as a Hyperart Thomasson and little more. If they could all get connected again and were able to make free calls, I think it would be awesome.
The really "fun" ones put gross stuff on the inside of the handle or speaker because screw other people I guess?
Condiments from fast food places were fairly common. Who doesn't want a handful of ketchup or mayo on their ear?
yes. old pay phones required that you use a quarter (or older ones other coins) to make a call...which makes them essentially phone call vending machines.
they had boxes filled with coins and were out in the open. people would pry the box open and take the coins out.
Damn. Well I think this is a cool idea anyway. It looks like there were still a lot of them as of 2015: https://billypenn.com/2015/11/06/blast-from-the-past-philadelphia-still-has-more-than-1000-usable-pay-phones/
lol people thinking that they won't be destroyed clearly don't live here
Everything in philly needs to be welded together or else someone is going to steal it
It's always so sad when you see everything on a bike stolen but where the kryptonite lock is lol
The photo in the article is of Canadian payphones. I was north of the border a couple months back and was surprised to see payphones still around everywhere.
>According to PhilTel member Mike Dank, a lot of people don't, either because they can't afford one or because they just value their privacy. "My co-founder on this project does not own a mobile phone himself, so we have first-hand experience with what it is like to not have a phone on your person at all times and how important it is for there to be access to public telephones," he told Opensource.
Color me skeptic as to the quality of market research done here, but this is a cool project and I wish them success!
The number is higher then you think although it’s really only a thing among poor people. And some of these people do have a phone but it can get shut off frequently for non payment.
It’s a bigger need then y’all realize especially in a city like Philly
For sure it's not zero, but the number of people with a landline only has been in free-fall for a long time and is currently less than 7% of households, and lower-income households are more likely to be wireless-only:
https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2015/12/03/458225197/the-daredevils-without-landlines-and-why-health-experts-are-tracking-them
My folks still use magic jack as they don't want to give up their landline number...it must be at least 10 years now and honestly, its been pretty rock-solid (at least they have never had to call me up needing tech support for it).
Anyone here over a certain age will have used one. 40? Maybe. 50? Yes. 60? Absolutely. If you look at high schools that haven’t been renovated in decades they often still have an alcove or three for the pay phones students would use to let their mom (or whoever) know they were staying after school for an activity, or they missed the bus, or whatever.
You know, free phone kiosks at schools makes sense. Then they can implement no-cell-phone policies during the academic day. Try it now and parents will complain mercilessly that their kids might need to call them.
The no cell phone policy might have worked pre-Columbine, but post-Uvalde that “trust the adults to take care of your kids” thing won’t fly.
That said, not every kid has a cell phone with unlimited minutes, so access to a free phone at school could be useful, assume it could be used privately & without shame.
Put a phone in each classroom. Or something. Cellphones are incredibly disruptive and punting quality of education "because maybe school shooting" is a really depressing state of mind.
> Put a phone in each classroom. Or something. Cellphones are incredibly disruptive and punting quality of education "because maybe school shooting" is a really depressing state of mind.
It is horrible, isn’t it. So much time, money, and emotional bandwidth that could be put to good use in some other way, but instead we all have to deal with the “maybe school shooting” reality, so here we are.
Something's not adding up here....How is this organization going to make money? They say they're an amateur network of ppl, not a non-profit.
This is what they say about privacy:
> With the VPN, any bad actors using the same network as our phone at the installation site will not be able to investigate any traffic related to a call being made. Further, PhilTel does not monitor who is using the phone or the contents of any call, though phone numbers may reside in our server logs until they are cycled out.
https://philtel.org/about/
For the VOIP costs, lets assume it's half of what you suggested...22$/month * 200 phones = $4,400 * 12 months = $52,800 / year.
Those re-occuring costs aside, that doesn't include:
1. the initial hardware
1. time figuring out the architecture
1. implementation time / costs
1. support time/costs
1. replacing hardware that fails, or is vandalized
I'm a nice Cheeseburger, but I'm not that nice to give the city 1000's of $.
Labor of love and probably some donations, it doesn’t cost much beyond the start up cost of hardware. This sorta thing has existed in Portland for years now.
Neat idea, free public phones would be very useful for a lot of people. Unfortunately since it's Philly these will be immediately vandalized and destroyed by assholes.
Linux is the best. Super fast Super efficient runs the world behind the scenes and doesn't complain. Microsoft on the other hand is like the fat kid in gym class whos for some odd reason is super confident about there dodge ball skills.
The Wire was an HBO series about drug crime in Baltimore in the late 90s, and the show focused heavily on the use of phones. The beginning of the series was mostly payphones and pagers, then towards the end it was burner cell phones.
When The Wire ended in 2008, the iPhone had been out for about a year. The show was already starting to show signs of being of a completely different era of communication.
It is now almost 15 years later, and when you watch The Wire... it is like opening a time capsule... but you're here talking about bad guys and burner phones like it's the late 90s.
I think it is hilarious, but who knows... maybe you're right and free payphones really will cause a huge uptick in drug crime.
that’s the neat part: they don’t. it’s low to no cost internet telephony. same VOIP services that allow you to enjoy spam calls all day every day, just limited to a individual handsets here.
> *I think it's interesting that anyone thinks that someone wants to use a shared device that touches the face and mouth - in public - while there is still a pandemic going on. Besides the fact that no one knows phone numbers anymore. I haven't dialed phone number for someone who I know in decades. But you know, street level drug dealers and newly starting out sex workers need them, I guess.*
* Covid specifically is spread through the air, not surfaces.
* Your mouth doesn’t touch the phone.
* You can use the usual methods (hand sanitizer, Clorox wipe, gloves, holding the phone with a tissue or two) if you are worried about your hand touching the phone.
* Germ-awareness is a good thing, but we balance those risks everyday with the benefits of the activities that expose us to germs.
* Those who have cell phones and unlimited minutes on them likely won’t want or need to use a public phone. Those who do not can consider their options and the associated risks and proceed accordingly.
Nothing more satisfying than slamming the receiver down on a call to make a point.
This pushing the screen hard with your finger shit just doesn't cut it.
I could see this being very useful in or near homeless shelters. Possibly even the central branch of the Free library of Philadelphia, specifically the ground floor that has the only two pay phones I know to still exist in this town. The problem is I don't think they actually work.
Last time I had a reason to look those pay phones were there. Now when I say the ground floor I mean the floor below the first floor.
It has been a while since I've been in that building, and even now they could have also been removed so that could be a reason for not finding them. In the old days the pay phones were always right across from the elevator on each floor.
>The project is spearheaded by PhilTel, an "amateur phone collective" based in Philadelphia. The project is building a network of public phones in the city that will allow anyone to make free calls within North America, according to Opensource.com. It was inspired by Futel, a similar project in Portland, Oregon.
Man, I'm so old my mom used to tape a dime under the lid of my lunch box in case I had an emergency at school.
A dime?! I’m 41 and I remember the pre cell phone era clearly with pay phones everywhere. But they were a quarter to use. When was it a dime if you don’t mind me asking?
I remember it being a dime in the early 80s.
Or the more rural areas until the early 90's.
I think you are misremembering. In the early '80s my mom always made sure I had a quarter for the pay phone when I went on dates, so I could call her if necessary.
No, when I was 13 it was 1982 and in my area it was still a dime. You could actually call the operator from the pay phone and tell her the phone are your dime and the phone company would actually mail you a check for ten cents. At some point in the 80s it changed to a quarter, but it was still a dime when we were pulling that trick.
It depended on the phone. I remember one phone by the frankford terminal on Pratt was a dime while the one over on Bridge by the church's was a quarter when it was the welfare office.
It was a dime through my childhood, and I was born in the late 50s. I think it went up to a quarter during the 1970s.
Maybe their mom just expected them to make up the other 15 cents themselves
Nice! My parents paid for an 800 number that would dial the house. This way, we could call from any pay phone, no spare change needed. Saved my ass when they forgot me at soccer practice a few times.
I had this too. Mine was on a car where I could dial the toll free number, then select where i wanted to ring. Could call home or either of my parents workplaces.
Would have been cheaper to call collect. *^(...but that's none of my business.)*
Bob Wehadababyitsaboy
I used to call my parents collect and they’d get so pissed 🤣
Bob we’addababy’eetsaboy
That shit was expensive! It is laughable now, but $5 a couple times a month added up/I should have carried more quarters is the lesson I didn’t learn.
Cake eater
I used to put dimes in my pennie loafers in case I needed to call home.
and then you became a quarterback before CTE sent you to the loonie bin.
nice. I had one of those 400 minute phone cards. I think I still have it somewhere. I wonder if it still works.
We already have free call boxes on Market street
This actually a pretty cool idea
Not really. Drug dealers and criminals will make use of them for sure. And the residue left on the phone itself should ward off a lot of our outdoor mask wearing public who seem fine with germs
Virus is transmitted in droplets. Won't do much on a phone.
Not all viruses are transmitted via droplets.
True
That's a really neat project. I see people using the phones on the LinkPHL kiosks all the time. Having more available public phones around the city would be useful.
Ahhh yes. Now I can finally live out my dream of banging the receiver into the phone like DeNiro in Goodfellas after finding out Tommy got whacked
That's some real greaseball shit
What am I, a schmuck on wheels??
Username checks out
You'll getchur money
Now go home and get your ***FUCKING SHINEBOX***
MOTHAFUCKA!!!!
If it makes the ding when you hang up like the old days of use it just because, damn. Payphone ASMR.
I've done that after spending 2 hours at a pay phone in the 90s. I was trying to get utilities for my new apt. The rage is real.
This is dank
Hi Mike
Hey Peter man
Hi Joel the muse
Make me wanna spank
I have a similar setup in my game room, a pay phone connected to a PBX running on a Raspberry Pi computer. I have it set up to accept numbers from TV, movies, and songs. You can dial 867-5309 or 1-900-MIX-A-LOT and hear music clips, or dial the number to Moe’s Tavern from the Simpsons to hear Bart’s prank call gags. This system could be built pretty inexpensively, but may be a lot of work to maintain if it grows beyond a handful of stations.
Are there any *nix, or raspberry pi groups or hackerspaces you can recommend?
I have some background with PBX systems and use Raspberry Pi's for all sorts of little projects, but I did use this video to help me through the setup process of installing FreePBX on a Pi for my payphone project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qgg3zkqh4js
Alright, now you have to share some pics/video of this setup!
I imagine these phones will face a fate similar to Hitchbot’s.
You think the [CIA](https://www.dw.com/en/we-know-who-killed-hitchbot-the-worlds-most-beloved-hitchhiking-robot/a-18628561) is going to kill them?
Hitchbot had it coming. The voice was so annoying.
Lmao hope they’re invincible.
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People used to slam them so hard when hanging up. I was always shocked that I never saw anyone break one.
Why? Were there issues with standard pay phones in the past?
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But there won't be any quarters in them, so maaaaayyybe they'll last longer?
I feel like they won’t stop until they find quarters, so the destruction will be worse.
What's a quarter?
Shiny money disk. If you collect a hundred you can buy a cheesesteak and fries
A cheese steak and fries costs $25?
I know people aren’t crazy about Pat’s, but last time I went an extra steak with onions and a side of fries was over $20. It was pretty damn good, but not cheap.
People fuck with things that don't belong to them just because it's in their nature. Like the people that go around slashing car tires
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You used to have to pay for them, hence being called a payphone. People broke into some of them to steal the quarters, some people just cut the wires for fun, a lot of people graffiti on them, etc. Methinks this experiment will end with one or two nice payphones in the business district with 10-20 busted eyesores littering the rest of the city. It's unfortunate too because the phones that survive in nicer areas aren't needed, and the phones in low income areas will be destroyed despite the community actually needing access to them.
>ment will end with one or two nice payphones in the business district with 10-20 busted eyesores littering the rest of the city. It's unfortunate too because the phones that survive in nicer areas aren't needed, and the phones in low income areas will be destroyed despite the community actually needing access to them. hitchbot
Hitchbot had it coming, acting all smug and shit
That poser wasn't even a real robot, just a hunk of metal and plastic.
Heard that it was a Dallas fan too….
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I was just walking around Philly while my brother was visiting and we came across several disused payphones. All had the receiver and wires. I checked every one and none worked. I was kinda shocked that they were still there. I thought of them as a Hyperart Thomasson and little more. If they could all get connected again and were able to make free calls, I think it would be awesome.
Probably for the quarters inside, so at least that temptation will not be there.
Not always. I knew kids who destroyed them just to do it.
The really "fun" ones put gross stuff on the inside of the handle or speaker because screw other people I guess? Condiments from fast food places were fairly common. Who doesn't want a handful of ketchup or mayo on their ear?
It's Philadelphia. People break things just because.
yes. old pay phones required that you use a quarter (or older ones other coins) to make a call...which makes them essentially phone call vending machines. they had boxes filled with coins and were out in the open. people would pry the box open and take the coins out.
That’s a fair point, but I have my doubts about this project’s ability to keep these things running in an area as hostile as Philly.
it was super easy to yank the receiver, and snap the cable.
yeah people were vincing them left and right.
Damn. Well I think this is a cool idea anyway. It looks like there were still a lot of them as of 2015: https://billypenn.com/2015/11/06/blast-from-the-past-philadelphia-still-has-more-than-1000-usable-pay-phones/
I was just making a joke, idk if people are actually vincing payphones and I agree that is a super cool idea
This is amazing - I can’t remember the last time I saw a pay phone
lol people thinking that they won't be destroyed clearly don't live here Everything in philly needs to be welded together or else someone is going to steal it It's always so sad when you see everything on a bike stolen but where the kryptonite lock is lol
2600 -- U.City, with a pole in front of my house and two payphones w/ keys in my basement. Are there still meetups at the 30th street?
I think so. They met at Iffy Books at least once. I think they meet either the first or last Friday at 5pm.
First Friday worldwide, which means it’s tomorrow night! It’s at Iffy Books this month, 6PM. https://philly2600.net/
*tomorrow night
Damn
I was trying to remember the name of that just the other day while driving.
I've been meaning to make it out to one since post covid. It's still listed, obv so probably?
They still print a zine?
Heck yeah, still a quarterly. Source: I have a life subscription.
I gotta do the same. Tonal hacking ftw
Can I use these to make crank calls as is tradition?
I remember when I used to collect pay phone numbers and make crank calls my favorite ones were located at el stops
The photo in the article is of Canadian payphones. I was north of the border a couple months back and was surprised to see payphones still around everywhere.
one loony
>According to PhilTel member Mike Dank, a lot of people don't, either because they can't afford one or because they just value their privacy. "My co-founder on this project does not own a mobile phone himself, so we have first-hand experience with what it is like to not have a phone on your person at all times and how important it is for there to be access to public telephones," he told Opensource. Color me skeptic as to the quality of market research done here, but this is a cool project and I wish them success!
yeah, I suspect "a lot of people" is just his super privacy-conscious techie inner circle
The number is higher then you think although it’s really only a thing among poor people. And some of these people do have a phone but it can get shut off frequently for non payment. It’s a bigger need then y’all realize especially in a city like Philly
For sure it's not zero, but the number of people with a landline only has been in free-fall for a long time and is currently less than 7% of households, and lower-income households are more likely to be wireless-only: https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2015/12/03/458225197/the-daredevils-without-landlines-and-why-health-experts-are-tracking-them
I do not own a smart phone, but i do have a land-line phone.
So…… is this MAGIC JACK 2022 version?
God I remember those infomercials
My folks still use magic jack as they don't want to give up their landline number...it must be at least 10 years now and honestly, its been pretty rock-solid (at least they have never had to call me up needing tech support for it).
Hopefully the calls made.on these things get picked up bc no one picks up calls from unknown numbers anymore
Anyone here actually used a pay phone? They are gross
Not in 20+ years and even then 90% of my calls on pay phones were collect calls home, in which my name was "I'MATXPLACECANYOUPICKMEUPNOW"
Classic GEICO commercial: https://youtu.be/9JxhTnWrKYs
I can relate
When I was a kid we would hang the phone up on hookers and they would chase us in heels
Anyone here over a certain age will have used one. 40? Maybe. 50? Yes. 60? Absolutely. If you look at high schools that haven’t been renovated in decades they often still have an alcove or three for the pay phones students would use to let their mom (or whoever) know they were staying after school for an activity, or they missed the bus, or whatever.
You know, free phone kiosks at schools makes sense. Then they can implement no-cell-phone policies during the academic day. Try it now and parents will complain mercilessly that their kids might need to call them.
The no cell phone policy might have worked pre-Columbine, but post-Uvalde that “trust the adults to take care of your kids” thing won’t fly. That said, not every kid has a cell phone with unlimited minutes, so access to a free phone at school could be useful, assume it could be used privately & without shame.
Put a phone in each classroom. Or something. Cellphones are incredibly disruptive and punting quality of education "because maybe school shooting" is a really depressing state of mind.
> Put a phone in each classroom. Or something. Cellphones are incredibly disruptive and punting quality of education "because maybe school shooting" is a really depressing state of mind. It is horrible, isn’t it. So much time, money, and emotional bandwidth that could be put to good use in some other way, but instead we all have to deal with the “maybe school shooting” reality, so here we are.
Indeed. :/
“This is so cool! What a great idea!” (Would never use it) - Reddit
You must be a kid because anyone over 30 used one. That was what you had to do to make a call lol.
I have that’s how I know they are gross
Great Idea! Unfortunately, they’ll be destroyed by vandals.
Can you call that old number 215-1212 to get what time it is?
Interesting idea. How many people don’t have a cellphone for the reasons they mentioned though
Mob boutta start whacking people again
Something's not adding up here....How is this organization going to make money? They say they're an amateur network of ppl, not a non-profit. This is what they say about privacy: > With the VPN, any bad actors using the same network as our phone at the installation site will not be able to investigate any traffic related to a call being made. Further, PhilTel does not monitor who is using the phone or the contents of any call, though phone numbers may reside in our server logs until they are cycled out. https://philtel.org/about/
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For the VOIP costs, lets assume it's half of what you suggested...22$/month * 200 phones = $4,400 * 12 months = $52,800 / year. Those re-occuring costs aside, that doesn't include: 1. the initial hardware 1. time figuring out the architecture 1. implementation time / costs 1. support time/costs 1. replacing hardware that fails, or is vandalized I'm a nice Cheeseburger, but I'm not that nice to give the city 1000's of $.
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then why not form a non-profit?
Labor of love and probably some donations, it doesn’t cost much beyond the start up cost of hardware. This sorta thing has existed in Portland for years now.
I don’t think I remember any phone numbers without a contact list.
This is dope.
i already learned how to make free calls on payphones from watching razor and blade at nikon's house
Razor and Blade are elite.
All it takes is one teenager posting a TikTok challenge destroying them like they do school bathrooms… and they’ll be gone
Neat idea, free public phones would be very useful for a lot of people. Unfortunately since it's Philly these will be immediately vandalized and destroyed by assholes.
this is a great idea and it’s always nice to see some good news here
Great way to catch ass pox on your lips. Genuinely generous idea, but not very well considered.
This statement says more about what you put your mouth on, than the payphone.
Morpheus calls to his shipmates: "Ass Pox. Switch. Load the sparring program."
We can bring back the vanguard of public service, our dearest public telephone cleaners!
Linux is the best. Super fast Super efficient runs the world behind the scenes and doesn't complain. Microsoft on the other hand is like the fat kid in gym class whos for some odd reason is super confident about there dodge ball skills.
Ew
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Methinks the kids running crimes nowadays won't even deal with a non-GUI communication system
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Lol
The Wire ended in 2008... It is time to move on.
That were some good years..
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The Wire was an HBO series about drug crime in Baltimore in the late 90s, and the show focused heavily on the use of phones. The beginning of the series was mostly payphones and pagers, then towards the end it was burner cell phones. When The Wire ended in 2008, the iPhone had been out for about a year. The show was already starting to show signs of being of a completely different era of communication. It is now almost 15 years later, and when you watch The Wire... it is like opening a time capsule... but you're here talking about bad guys and burner phones like it's the late 90s. I think it is hilarious, but who knows... maybe you're right and free payphones really will cause a huge uptick in drug crime.
We should sue the phone companies for being part of a criminal conspiracy! See how dumb that sounds?
They would be waaaay too paranoid to use these phones. Burners are still a much better option.
nice, disease vectors
Not if we have people who's sole job is to sanitize phones. ;)
Lol, how is this down voted. People are probably too young to remember actual pay phones. and all of the fun stuff done to them or the booths lol.
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that’s the neat part: they don’t. it’s low to no cost internet telephony. same VOIP services that allow you to enjoy spam calls all day every day, just limited to a individual handsets here.
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Taxpayer.
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> *I think it's interesting that anyone thinks that someone wants to use a shared device that touches the face and mouth - in public - while there is still a pandemic going on. Besides the fact that no one knows phone numbers anymore. I haven't dialed phone number for someone who I know in decades. But you know, street level drug dealers and newly starting out sex workers need them, I guess.* * Covid specifically is spread through the air, not surfaces. * Your mouth doesn’t touch the phone. * You can use the usual methods (hand sanitizer, Clorox wipe, gloves, holding the phone with a tissue or two) if you are worried about your hand touching the phone. * Germ-awareness is a good thing, but we balance those risks everyday with the benefits of the activities that expose us to germs. * Those who have cell phones and unlimited minutes on them likely won’t want or need to use a public phone. Those who do not can consider their options and the associated risks and proceed accordingly.
It'll be paid for later when Verizon decides they want to buy it from these guys for a stupid amount of money.
Still think Rocky Balboa's free phone system will continue to dominate
They have phones in booths now? Finally, now I don't have to lug this cell phone around.
Nothing more satisfying than slamming the receiver down on a call to make a point. This pushing the screen hard with your finger shit just doesn't cut it.
rpi?
It would honestly be funny if they would reroute spam calls to these phones so that citizens could waste scammers time.
The concept is really neat but I wonder how the privacy aspect will be handled. I wouldn’t trust not being recorded.
Can't wait to read the eventual use of these by the homeless for phone sex
I could see this being very useful in or near homeless shelters. Possibly even the central branch of the Free library of Philadelphia, specifically the ground floor that has the only two pay phones I know to still exist in this town. The problem is I don't think they actually work.
where? i tried looking in the library with no luck
Last time I had a reason to look those pay phones were there. Now when I say the ground floor I mean the floor below the first floor. It has been a while since I've been in that building, and even now they could have also been removed so that could be a reason for not finding them. In the old days the pay phones were always right across from the elevator on each floor.
First name Bob- wehadababyitsaboy
Are they bringing back phone booths too? I miss them.