VoIP brings back old-fashioned pay phones to rural Vermont (2025)
spectrum.ieee.org129 points by bookofjoe 8 hours ago
129 points by bookofjoe 8 hours ago
One of the few good things that Telstra did in Australia was open up their whole old payphone network for free, nationwide.
Apparently they're a genuine lifeline for people fleeing from abusive relationships; they need to leave their mobile behind to avoid being tracked.
I remember reading some stats on the Telstra phone boxes, they help a lot of people in need. A ton of calls go to emergency services, government services, etc.
I would be keen to know the total cost to run and maintain everything. There is a ton of boxes still around.
The costs are offset by the fact of the boxes providing free advertising for Telstra. That's the main reason they keep them operational.
> A ton of calls go to emergency services, government services, etc.
Is it common for providers to charge for emergency service access? I thought this was a given.
I believe emergency services calls are free. The cost being talked about is the maintenance cost to the provider.
My voip line has a charge for (e)911. I can pay $1.50 per month or $75 per call.
Since my local police department has no direct dial number, non-emergency calls are routed through 911; that's pretty unusual, but I don't want to pay $75 to call police non-emergency, so I pay the $1.50.
I've never seen emergency calling broken out on my bill from an ILEC though.
Telstra also provides WiFi access points to the proximity of many of their phone booths, which is very cool as well.
In my country we don’t have operational phone booths any longer, and haven’t had them for many, many years. They even went as far in my country as to dismantle and remove all of them save for a few that are still around for sentimental reasons but also not operational.
I wish we had that in the US. Not due to abuse victims per se (though that does sound super useful for them), but just because it would be nice to not have to carry a cell phone to get ahold of people.
The US is functionally a Third World country now. There are so many places worse than us that have so many better things. Anytime you see a little thing like this that is a good idea and helps people you can just assume that America would either fuck it up or just hate it because it helps people. Or because of the fact that they can’t ring every penny from the stone.
It’s hard to appreciate this until you spend some time elsewhere.
I was in Barcelona for a few weeks for work. While I don’t want to pretend there are no problems, I can only say that life seemed better and happier than back home. I didn’t sense the cynicism that I’m used to. It was especially jarring considering that pretty much everyone is underpaid by American professional standards.
That said, it’s anecdotal, I speak mediocre Spanish and toddler level Catalan, and my boss was paying the bill. But it was still striking to me.
Urban life in the US had decayed considerably over the past thirty years. Life in the suburbs, small towns, and countryside, however, is amazing. I have a house in the countryside and rent in a city in another state when I need to be in the office. In the city I have to step over addicts passed out and their trash; in the country I don't bother locking my doors when I leave, and I have cheaper, faster, and more reliable internet. You can't really compare "America" to another country, because the cities and other places have radically different standards of living.
Wow this article really gave me flashbacks of payphone phreaking back in the day to call my mom for permission to go somewhere.
I wonder how this will work with the FCC's proposed regulation to require ID, address, and "alternate phone number" for anyone who make make a phone call.
That sounds alarming, but from reading more about it, it doesn't seem like it would be relevant to this, although in the long run it's certainly possible that calling from a payphone would never actually reach someone directly, being shunted to the "you probably don't care about this" purgatory voicemail.
https://www.mintz.com/insights-center/viewpoints/2776/2025-1...
But that would seem true today as well.
Credit card only?
https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-420711A1.pdf Credit cards may no longer be enough soon
I appreciated the concern, but after looking into it, that’s much more than what the FCC has proposed.
The “ID, address, and alternate phone number” idea is part of a proposed Know-Your-Customer rule for artificial voice service providers when they sign up or renew customers, especially to stop illegal robocallers from getting network access. It’s not a requirement that every person provide ID before placing each phone call.
The call-branding proposal is separate: it’s about displaying verified caller name/branding information when a call gets top-level STIR/SHAKEN attestation.
“ID required for anyone who makes a call” is doing a little too much work. The telecom acronyms are exhausting enough without adding extra panic. :)
I didn't say every time they make a call. But everyone who is able to make a call. I don't see any reason a user of a payphone is not a customer of the payphone provider for example.
We'll have to wait for the final guidance from the FCC, but as a telecoms provider I'm quite concerned about the direction.
May I submit you do see the reason, even, you named it? :) They are a user of a payphone, not subleasing a number that could be used for robodialing.
And if they stand at the payphone and make scam calls for an hour and someone reports this and the payphone operator gets asked to identify this customer of theirs?
How many phone numbers do you have memorized? These days I only know a few but I used to know dozens.
I know half a dozen. All from the 80s and 90s, and only two which actually exist today.
Other than that I know mine and my wife’s.
Oddly enough I knew a company which had a phone number which was two digits transposed from my home number - 818614. My number until about 1993 was 818641. Didn’t realise the company was still going until a couple of weeks ago when a lorry pulled up outside my window with the name and phone number on.
The other number I remember is my school number for some reason, I can’t think of ever have rung it. It’s still the same number today, 30 years later.
A few family, a few friends, some past work numbers, some of my phone numbers from a decade or two ago when I occasionally changed them, the Apple switchboard because I might have bled in six colors a long time ago, and of course Jenny because if not for her I'd have no clue whose phone number to give to the grocery store checkout system.
I should add a VoIP pay phone to my Little Free Library. A friend reported a pay phone in a dumpster near work and I was, at the time, feeling like I should rescue it, but I have too much stuff as it is.
I went to school with Patrick and I live a couple towns over from him. He knows his stuff that's for sure.
(2025) OP
Prior to that: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44188204
See also:
Futel (Portland, Wash. State etc) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42220598
Philtel (Philadelphia) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33851030
This is an example of the few places where something like this is feasible.
free-to-use pay phones
What an oxymoron. I suggest the term "public phone".
Look at the device in TFA. That's a pay phone, which is also a way of describing a specific range of hardware types.
> free-to-use pay phones
Some redundant words there perhaps.
You could use a pay phone to call the operator. You can use it to make collect calls. Hell, if you were industrious enough, you could trick the phone into giving you a dial tone for free. The VoIP ones will probably be harder to trick though
Why? Payphones have never been distinguished by the fact that you had to pay to use them. You also had to pay for the phone in your home.
Payphones were distinguished by the fact that they were located in convenient public places, and if you needed to contact someone, you could use them. That's still true here.
People know what a payphone is, and the service it provides. As he said in the article, he chose the payphone style for what it signals to people - that it is public infrastructure.
dudes rock