Back when payphones existed did you regularly use them?

[cayennews]

Yes, I used them often to call for rides home from the mall or the movies.

 

[kdonnel]

Here is a map of the ones in just seven counties near where I live
https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/4758099a49c84ad4bfe0bbde163643b0/

Looks like they are going the way of the pay phone as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_box

Decline in usage​

In California, freeway callboxes were used about 98,000 times in 2001. That number dropped by 80 percent to 19,600 times in 2010, or about 1 call per box per month. The cost of callboxes for the Service Authority for Freeways and Expressways (SAFE) program in the San Francisco Bay area is $1.7 million annually. As a result, since 2009 approximately half of the callboxes have been removed from certain California highways, preferentially leaving them only in places where cell phone coverage is poor.

Florida previously had callboxes installed at one-mile intervals along all its Interstate Highways as well as Florida's Turnpike. These boxes were all removed by 2014 after a 65-percent decrease in usage over an eight-year period, in line with increased mobile phone usage. The boxes were costing the state roughly $1 million per year to keep operational.

 

[tvguy]

Looks like they are going the way of the pay phone as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_box

Decline in usage​

In California, freeway callboxes were used about 98,000 times in 2001. That number dropped by 80 percent to 19,600 times in 2010, or about 1 call per box per month. The cost of callboxes for the Service Authority for Freeways and Expressways (SAFE) program in the San Francisco Bay area is $1.7 million annually. As a result, since 2009 approximately half of the callboxes have been removed from certain California highways, preferentially leaving them only in places where cell phone coverage is poor.

Florida previously had callboxes installed at one-mile intervals along all its Interstate Highways as well as Florida's Turnpike. These boxes were all removed by 2014 after a 65-percent decrease in usage over an eight-year period, in line with increased mobile phone usage. The boxes were costing the state roughly $1 million per year to keep operational.

The other issue is how totally useless California has discovered cell phones can be in emergencies like wildfires. In Santa Rosa, the entire cellular system was down because towers had all burned up in the first few hours of the fire and it took days to get temporary portable cell sites set up. It appears that all Roadside Emergency Phones installed since 2015 are solar powered satellite phones to avoid that problem. Of course, in Santa Rosa's case, landlines were not impacted. They were all underground and the phone company system was able to generate power to keep them operating. We got a plea from the hospitals in Santa Rosa to put out the word to their employees checking in to not call their supervisors cell phone numbers, as they were down....but to call the landlines numbers in the hospital.

 

[amcnj]

That reminds me of roads that used to have periodic call boxes.

I can't remember the last time I saw a highway with call boxes. I wonder if those still exist anywhere? I-185 here in Georgia had them, but I have not been on that interstate in years.

I believe all the roadway call boxes around here were removed ten or more years ago now.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Used them primarily in the parks to call back home to see if I could stay out later, friends and I would bike ride all over the place often ending up in a park and back then rule was dinner time best be home unless you call ahead.

 

[mylilnikita]

Especially in high school we had a few phone s in the school so we could call at lunch or sneak a call.
Come get me at the mall or roller rink.

Got my drivers license so that cut down on calls until pagers came out lol.

 

[Jayunit09]

You have received a call from, “Mom come pick me up!”

Would you like to accept this call?
Nope all set! Lol

 

[barkley]

The other issue is how totally useless California has discovered cell phones can be in emergencies like wildfires. In Santa Rosa, the entire cellular system was down because towers had all burned up in the first few hours of the fire and it took days to get temporary portable cell sites set up. It appears that all Roadside Emergency Phones installed since 2015 are solar powered satellite phones to avoid that problem. Of course, in Santa Rosa's case, landlines were not impacted. They were all underground and the phone company system was able to generate power to keep them operating. We got a plea from the hospitals in Santa Rosa to put out the word to their employees checking in to not call their supervisors cell phone numbers, as they were down....but to call the landlines numbers in the hospital.

landlines don't require electricity from any source to operate though most folks that still have them tend to have cordless phones which do NOT work absent electricity. I've still got an old corded phone I used to plug in when the power went out before we got our whole house generator. my brother had to hunt one down when he was pre generator purchase and his area in northern california lost not only their regular power but also their cell phone access when pg&e included the cell towers in that region's rolling blackouts.

 

[sam_gordon]

landlines don't require electricity from any source to operate though most folks that still have them tend to have cordless phones which do NOT work absent electricity. I've still got an old corded phone I used to plug in when the power went out before we got our whole house generator. my brother had to hunt one down when he was pre generator purchase and his area in northern california lost not only their regular power but also their cell phone access when pg&e included the cell towers in that region's rolling blackouts.

Landline phones get their power from the phone company (through the phone line).

 

[barkley]

Landline phones get their power from the phone company (through the phone line).

thank you for the clarification.

 

[RangerPooh]

Yup, in high school when practice was over and I needed to be picked up. Used either change or collect call from “pickmeup”. I also called my parents collect from college.

 

[kdonnel]

thank you for the clarification.

-48 volts DC when all the phones are on hook and 100 Volts RMS @ 20 Hz to make the phone ring.

It’s also why in a hurricane Verizon and AT&T wireless will often have service and T-Mobile will not.

The practice of having generator backup is more part of Verizon and AT&T’s history as a traditional phone company than the company’s that sprang into existence as a wireless carrier.

 

[bcla]

As I recall, you didn't get a dial tone until you put money in.

Depends. You had to know if it was a local call. At least in the 80s, I would dial the number first, and then I’d get a message saying how much the call would cost for how long. Certainly didn’t need to do it to call home from a few miles away where the basic cost was fine. The technology was fairly advanced to automate all that.

 

[tvguy]

-48 volts DC when all the phones are on hook and 100 Volts RMS @ 20 Hz to make the phone ring.

It’s also why in a hurricane Verizon and AT&T wireless will often have service and T-Mobile will not.

The practice of having generator backup is more part of Verizon and AT&T’s history as a traditional phone company than the company’s that sprang into existence as a wireless carrier.

Technically, most landline central offices run off battery all the time. It's just a question of how the batteries are recharged. Shore power or generator. The central office I toured had a huge room of batteries. They could run the phone system for 24 hours if the shore power was down and the generator failed.

 

[DodgerGirl]

When Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone in 1876 little did he know that his new invention would soon gain popularity and as telephones became more and more popular with new styles such as rotary phones in the 50's-70's direct-dial phones in the 80's wall phones "also known as kitchen phones" and slimline telephones also becoming a fad in the 80's pay phones began to see popularity especially if you were a teenager because when you reach your teenage years your parents would give you money for a pay phone "to be used only in emergencies" and some of the emergency uses you might've used the pay phone were if you needed a ride home or if you needed to be home at a certain time if you had a curfew. But once cell phones became popular the pay phones suddenly grew out of style because with a cell phone you could do the exact same thing as a pay phone without paying the price of pay phones. And not only teenagers used pay phones but other people did too "like if you were at the mall shopping and you wanted to order pizza to pick up on the drive home" you would go to the payphone and order the pizza and then you'd leave the mall and pick it up and it was simple. My mom used to order takeout from a pay phone when my family would go shopping at the mall and then we would pick up our food and go home. And my father would do business calls from pay phones when we would go shop too. But I think when cell phones came out in the 90's pay phones went bye bye and soon everyone started carrying cell phones and nowadays I think if you go to places like airports and bus stations and train stations they are the only places that pay phones can be seen because people who travel by plane use them to call for a taxi