LOLZ (NSFW)

[rule34]

Can you imagine the insane cost of setting up just one of those booths. Dig trenches for phone cables, install the booth, guarantee to fix any broken windows. And make a profit off 10 cents a phone call. And somehow figure out how to provide maintenance for each one based on phone calls. Hell, no wonder AT&T's accounting system is still screwed up 50 years later.

It may not have been as bad as all that. Underneath the streets and walkways of many public area is already a plethora of cable pathways for gas, electrical, and phone trunks. A truck is that huge bundle of cable containing hundreds of individual pairs of phone cables. You can often see a local grey trunk access post in front of or beside a building or in neighborhood that represents local access to part of the trunk. Those, the trunks and access posts, I'm sure will disappear as well when we finally get fiber installed everywhere. A small trunk of fiber cabling can handle the traffic of thousands of old phone lines, or even use wireless, and is much easier to maintain than those old massive trunks.

So likely when the phone company wanted to install a new phone booth, they'd locate a trunk pathway and pull a pair or two up through the sidewalk from it. Installed the booth platform, then the phone set and activated the phone line. Even in the 50's Ma Bell had various techniques to locate broken and non-working phone lines with almost GPS accuracy. And don't forget, Bell then and now is practically a government agency with all the subsidies they get from the fed and states. They also have a big hand in writing regulation and policy. A phone booth was likely more a convenience than a profit center.

Yeah, but they installed those from the N. tip at Nome Alaska to the Southern point at Cape West. NE tip of Maine to San Diego plus Hawaii. Not exactly a minor project. And that's just the US.

And the fact that they had to run a separate line just for those phone booths made it an even more daunting task.

[stonedmegman]

Same with the neighborhood corner mailbox that the local mailman might visit once or twice a day. Now if you need to mail the very occasional stamped envelope, you almost always have to go to an actual post office. And even those are starting to disappear. We don't even get mail pickup at our street-side home mail box anymore.

By the 70's around Houston, telephone booths had practically disappeared on streets. Damn near every drug store had a bank of two or three public phones in a very public bench with both a white and yellow pages phone books. And a huge copy machine.

Can you imagine the insane cost of setting up just one of those booths. Dig trenches for phone cables, install the booth, guarantee to fix any broken windows. And make a profit off 10 cents a phone call. And somehow figure out how to provide maintenance for each one based on phone calls. Hell, no wonder AT&T's accounting system is still screwed up 50 years later.

*50¢

[Reservoir Dog]

Can you imagine the insane cost of setting up just one of those booths. Dig trenches for phone cables, install the booth, guarantee to fix any broken windows. And make a profit off 10 cents a phone call. And somehow figure out how to provide maintenance for each one based on phone calls. Hell, no wonder AT&T's accounting system is still screwed up 50 years later.

It may not have been as bad as all that. Underneath the streets and walkways of many public area is already a plethora of cable pathways for gas, electrical, and phone trunks. A truck is that huge bundle of cable containing hundreds of individual pairs of phone cables. You can often see a local grey trunk access post in front of or beside a building or in neighborhood that represents local access to part of the trunk. Those, the trunks and access posts, I'm sure will disappear as well when we finally get fiber installed everywhere. A small trunk of fiber cabling can handle the traffic of thousands of old phone lines, or even use wireless, and is much easier to maintain than those old massive trunks.

So likely when the phone company wanted to install a new phone booth, they'd locate a trunk pathway and pull a pair or two up through the sidewalk from it. Installed the booth platform, then the phone set and activated the phone line. Even in the 50's Ma Bell had various techniques to locate broken and non-working phone lines with almost GPS accuracy. And don't forget, Bell then and now is practically a government agency with all the subsidies they get from the fed and states. They also have a big hand in writing regulation and policy. A phone booth was likely more a convenience than a profit center.

Yeah, but they installed those from the N. tip at Nome Alaska to the Southern point at Cape West. NE tip of Maine to San Diego plus Hawaii. Not exactly a minor project. And that's just the US.

And the fact that they had to run a separate line just for those phone booths made it an even more daunting task.

[stonedmegman]

Can you imagine the insane cost of setting up just one of those booths. Dig trenches for phone cables, install the booth, guarantee to fix any broken windows. And make a profit off 10 cents a phone call. And somehow figure out how to provide maintenance for each one based on phone calls. Hell, no wonder AT&T's accounting system is still screwed up 50 years later.

It may not have been as bad as all that. Underneath the streets and walkways of many public area is already a plethora of cable pathways for gas, electrical, and phone trunks. A truck is that huge bundle of cable containing hundreds of individual pairs of phone cables. You can often see a local grey trunk access post in front of or beside a building or in neighborhood that represents local access to part of the trunk. Those, the trunks and access posts, I'm sure will disappear as well when we finally get fiber installed everywhere. A small trunk of fiber cabling can handle the traffic of thousands of old phone lines, or even use wireless, and is much easier to maintain than those old massive trunks.

So likely when the phone company wanted to install a new phone booth, they'd locate a trunk pathway and pull a pair or two up through the sidewalk from it. Installed the booth platform, then the phone set and activated the phone line. Even in the 50's Ma Bell had various techniques to locate broken and non-working phone lines with almost GPS accuracy. And don't forget, Bell then and now is practically a government agency with all the subsidies they get from the fed and states. They also have a big hand in writing regulation and policy. A phone booth was likely more a convenience than a profit center.

Yeah, but they installed those from the N. tip at Nome Alaska to the Southern point at Cape West. NE tip of Maine to San Diego plus Hawaii. Not exactly a minor project. And that's just the US.

And the fact that they had to run a separate line just for those phone booths made it an even more daunting task.

Imagine having to run a line for every well head. Must be daunting.

[stonedmegman]

[stonedmegman]

[Animal]

Same with the neighborhood corner mailbox that the local mailman might visit once or twice a day. Now if you need to mail the very occasional stamped envelope, you almost always have to go to an actual post office. And even those are starting to disappear. We don't even get mail pickup at our street-side home mail box anymore.

By the 70's around Houston, telephone booths had practically disappeared on streets. Damn near every drug store had a bank of two or three public phones in a very public bench with both a white and yellow pages phone books. And a huge copy machine.

Can you imagine the insane cost of setting up just one of those booths. Dig trenches for phone cables, install the booth, guarantee to fix any broken windows. And make a profit off 10 cents a phone call. And somehow figure out how to provide maintenance for each one based on phone calls. Hell, no wonder AT&T's accounting system is still screwed up 50 years later.

All of these years later, I feel its now safe to admit that I might have contributed to the downfall of the telephone company and their major profit center in those pay phones. We found, through years of careful research, that if you lifted the receiver of a pay phone and dialed the "0" you would get an operator. And then that operator had no way to detect (at the time) that you were on a pay phone. You could then nicely ask that operator if she could connect you to a working phone number and she would do that. Then she would get off the line and the phone would start ringing at where ever you gave her the number and they would answer and you would be talking for free. Free. There was no dime required!!

[Homebrew]

[stonedmegman]

[CentralTexasCrude]

Same with the neighborhood corner mailbox that the local mailman might visit once or twice a day. Now if you need to mail the very occasional stamped envelope, you almost always have to go to an actual post office. And even those are starting to disappear. We don't even get mail pickup at our street-side home mail box anymore.

By the 70's around Houston, telephone booths had practically disappeared on streets. Damn near every drug store had a bank of two or three public phones in a very public bench with both a white and yellow pages phone books. And a huge copy machine.

Can you imagine the insane cost of setting up just one of those booths. Dig trenches for phone cables, install the booth, guarantee to fix any broken windows. And make a profit off 10 cents a phone call. And somehow figure out how to provide maintenance for each one based on phone calls. Hell, no wonder AT&T's accounting system is still screwed up 50 years later.

All of these years later, I feel its now safe to admit that I might have contributed to the downfall of the telephone company and their major profit center in those pay phones. We found, through years of careful research, that if you lifted the receiver of a pay phone and dialed the "0" you would get an operator. And then that operator had no way to detect (at the time) that you were on a pay phone. You could then nicely ask that operator if she could connect you to a working phone number and she would do that. Then she would get off the line and the phone would start ringing at where ever you gave her the number and they would answer and you would be talking for free. Free. There was no dime required!!

I bet there were all kinds of tricks for those phone booths. But AT&T and the Baby Bells had their own "tricks". Until their breakup in the early 80's, for decades before, if you wanted phone service at a new location, they handed you a phone or phones and you paid $5 a month (or something) on top of the regular monthly fee. Moved into a new place in college with a couple of roommates, one had an extra phone. One time AT&T pinged called wondering why we had an extra phone we weren't paying for. Seemed so George Orwell at the time.

[Animal]

or waiting until 1 minute after 10 pm to call your parents because the long distance rates went down.

[rule34]

or waiting until 1 minute after 10 pm to call your parents because the long distance rates went down.

And all day sunday.

[CentralTexasCrude]

or waiting until 1 minute after 10 pm to call your parents because the long distance rates went down.

And God Forbid, anyone called you "collect". JC those rates

[Animal]

or waiting until 1 minute after 10 pm to call your parents because the long distance rates went down.

And all day sunday.

lol. yeah, i was thinking that it might have been even cheaper after 10 on Sundays. I don't think I ever talked to my dad while I was in college because he was asleep way before the long distance rates went down.

[Antknot]

or waiting until 1 minute after 10 pm to call your parents because the long distance rates went down.

And all day sunday.

lol. yeah, i was thinking that it might have been even cheaper after 10 on Sundays. I don't think I ever talked to my dad while I was in college because he was asleep way before the long distance rates went down.

I’d call home, mom will be on one extension, dad would be on another, my brother be on the third and then all would be talking to one another and not to me and it was on my money.

[CentralTexasCrude]

or waiting until 1 minute after 10 pm to call your parents because the long distance rates went down.

And all day sunday.

lol. yeah, i was thinking that it might have been even cheaper after 10 on Sundays. I don't think I ever talked to my dad while I was in college because he was asleep way before the long distance rates went down.

I’d call home, mom will be on one extension, dad would be on another, my brother be on the third and then all would be talking to one another and not to me and it was on my money.

So, jut a microcosm of your future life?

[CHEEZY17]

I remember putzing around in the basement one day when I was about 10 or 11 and noticing some disconnected phone wires up in the ceiling. I remember thinking "I bet thats why that one phone jack upstairs doesnt work." I proceeded to reconnect all the wires and went upstairs and plugged in an old phone we had lying around. Fuck yeah! My mom was so excited that we had another phone to use and thought I was the shit for about a week, like I did something really complicated

[stonedmegman]

[Homebrew]

[jsdspif]

or waiting until 1 minute after 10 pm to call your parents because the long distance rates went down.

And God Forbid, anyone called you "collect". JC those rates

back around 94 or 95 my wife used to call me collect from the phillippines.

[CentralTexasCrude]

or waiting until 1 minute after 10 pm to call your parents because the long distance rates went down.

And God Forbid, anyone called you "collect". JC those rates

back around 94 or 95 my wife used to call me collect from the phillippines.

Ouch

[Biker]

[Ricrude]

or waiting until 1 minute after 10 pm to call your parents because the long distance rates went down.

And God Forbid, anyone called you "collect". JC those rates

I know!!!! Called mom and dad to get me out of jail for racing...the call was more than the fine...

[Biker]

[CentralTexasCrude]

or waiting until 1 minute after 10 pm to call your parents because the long distance rates went down.

And God Forbid, anyone called you "collect". JC those rates

I know!!!! Called mom and dad to get me out of jail for racing...the call was more than the fine...