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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
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>> >-->> 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