Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site brl-tgr.ARPA Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!mit-eddie!think!harvard!seismo!brl-tgr!wmartin From: wmartin@brl-tgr.ARPA (Will Martin ) Newsgroups: net.consumers Subject: Re: wanted= coin phone Message-ID: <11440@brl-tgr.ARPA> Date: Tue, 9-Jul-85 15:49:07 EDT Article-I.D.: brl-tgr.11440 Posted: Tue Jul 9 15:49:07 1985 Date-Received: Fri, 12-Jul-85 00:16:20 EDT References: <141@python.UUCP> <> <715@udenva.UUCP> <70@cholula.UUCP> <11377@brl-tgr.ARPA> Reply-To: wmartin@brl-bmd.UUCP Distribution: net Organization: USAMC ALMSA Lines: 38 >> >-->> Does anyone out there know where I can purchase a coin phone? >> >-->> A few years ago I remember some firm selling retired pay phones >> >-->> for about $60, but I can't locate them now. If those of you wanting a coin phone want one that will actually *work* like a real coin phone -- that is, collect coins before it allows you to dial, screen for long distance, etc., and then you expect to collect the coins from the box yourself, I am afraid you will be disappointed. I believe that all the used "reconditioned" coin phones you find for sale in mail-order catalogs, etc., have been rewired so that they are really just ordinary phones in a coin-phone box. (I also believe that the coin box lock has been changed from the real telco lock, if it even locks anymore, so you can't use your key on telco phones out in the "real world".) I recall reading, not too many months ago, in a magazine for electronics-products dealers (I get several, so I am unsure which it was), that it is possible in some BOC areas to buy your own coin phone, but you then have to contract with the BOC for the software/operator support required, pay some ridiculous monthly fee, and then *share* the income you collect (or they collect -- not sure there) from that phone. It can pay for small store owners, whose coin phones are the neighborhood's telephones in poorer areas where many people don't have their own phones. It wouldn't pay for you to have one in your shared apartment, if that is what you have in mind. If anyone on the net has definitive info about this, and also about the restrictions and modification the telcos impose on sold older coin phones, please post the info. I think I'll mail a copy of this to the Telecom Digest, too, to solicit info there. Regards, Will Martin USENET: seismo!brl-bmd!wmartin or ARPA/MILNET: wmartin@almsa-1.ARPA