Payphone
The company that operates the payphone generally pays either rent or a revenue share to the owner of the property where the phone is installed.
Invented in the late 19th century, payphones became ubiquitous worldwide in the 20th, enough to contribute to the notion of universal access to basic communication services.
In the last 20 years, customer-owned coin-operated telephones (COCOT) have also appeared in the market, but their numbers are smaller due to the emergence of mobile phones.
[4] In September 2015, the CRTC remarked that "32 percent of Canadians used a payphone at least once in the past year," and that they are used "as a last resort in times of inconvenience and emergency.
It has a remote maintenance – the independent reports of a background system by means of an integrated modem error (for example, defects in components, lack of listeners), operating states (for example, full coin box), or departures (for example standing open the cartridge mounting door, missing coin).
From 26 May 2023, following an AGCOM decision, TIM-Telecom Italia is no longer obliged to keep public telephones in service (but still has the option to do so).
In hospitals, prisons, barracks and mountain refuges, the provision of public telephone services is in any case mandatory.
[6] The majority of payphones on the street and in buildings in Japan are installed and maintained by Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT).
There were also long-distance call payphones costing 15 kopeks, and also provided services of paid media such as listening to an anecdote, obtaining legal advice, or finding the address of the subscriber by phone number.
[citation needed] Spain also had locutorios ("speaking places"), where a person could make and pay an attendant for phone calls.
Locutorios diminished in the 21st century, as the country moved to direct distance dialing and mobile phones.
The great majority of them are still operated by British Telecom (BT) but other companies provide services, mostly in urban areas.
[citation needed] The use of payphones declined greatly in Britain, as everywhere, with the explosive growth of mobile telephones.
[12] In addition, in the early 2000s BT installed a large number of 'Multiphones' that provided internet access, on top of voice, SMS, and e-mail functionality.
[13][14][15] These payphones provided these services through the use of a 2-channel ISDN2 connection, a QNX-based operating system, and a touchscreen interface to allow the user to browse websites and receive e-mail messages on a pay-per-minute basis.
[16][17][18] However, these devices have since been removed due to quickly becoming obsolete, often with the ordinary payphone previously installed in that location taking its place once again.
[14] "Dead-heads"--non-subscriber users who make a call at a place of business and do not pay for it--may have influenced the development of the payphone.
The Wisconsin Telephone Company in 1893, for example, attempted to put an end to this practice by implementing ten-cent coin slots so that users had to pay for the call.
[28] Payphones were preceded by pay stations, staffed by telephone company attendants who would collect rapid payment for calls placed.
The Connecticut Telephone Co. reportedly had a payphone in their New Haven office beginning 1 June 1880; the fee was handed to an attendant.
[32] The Bell System payphone took nickels (5¢), dimes (10¢), and quarters (25¢); a strip of metal along the top had holes the size of each coin.
The US slang term "drop a dime" means to inform the authorities about another person, originally by placing a call from a pay phone.
[42] The major carriers, AT&T and Verizon, exited the business, leaving the market to independent payphone companies.
