Payphones

What Is A Payphone?

A pay phone or payphone is a public telephone operated by coins or a phone card.

The first public coin telephone was installed at a bank in Hartford, Conn in 1989. In this coins were deposited after placing the call. The first automatic "prepay" phone was put to use in Chicago by the Western Electric in 1898. The first Bell System coin telephone was installed on a Cincinnati in 1905. The new phone where the dial tone was available before placing the coin were introduced in 1996. This gave advantage as emergency calls could be made without first depositing coins.

In 1978, the coinless pay phone was introduced by AT&T and with the introduction of this the terminology coin phones changed to pay phone. The AT&T Card Caller phone with video screen for instruction was introduced in 1984. It used AT&T Calling Card. AT&T Public Phone 1000, introduced in 1990, provided data port for connection to laptop and was designed for hotels & airline lounges. The AT&T Public Phone 2000 with a built-in keyboard, a data port and a nine-inch color monitor was introduced in 1991. In addition to data connection it provided facility to check e-mail, access online data bases, get weather forecast, access speed-dial travel assistance services.

Feature to Look for in pay phones:

- Language
- Mount: Desk or Wall type
- Volume control
- Programmable keys
- Length of handset cord ( Typ. 32”) : Shorter preferable to avoid abuse.
- Reinforced armored handset cord
- Rugged construction: Important for unattended phones.
- Hearing aid compatibility (HAC)
- LCD screen with instructions for making call as well as display dialed numbers.
- Chargeable Data Port : If data facility is required
- Voice and Printed Instructions for All Calls.
- Vandal-Proof Locks