December 30, 2003

Pay Phones and Telegraph

The slow death of the payphone continues with nice article from Rocky Mountain News.

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Cutting the cord

Pay-phone business plummets as cell numbers add up

By Mark Wolf, Rocky Mountain News
December 29, 2003

Josh Kohl leaned against a bank of pay phones at the Cherry Creek Shopping Center on a busy holiday-shopping Sunday while his friend Cory Johnson made a phone call.

On his cell phone.

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The last time Johnson used a pay phone was . . . hang on, he's trying to place it . . . oh yes, a few months ago when he didn't have his cell and needed to get in touch with a friend.

"It was probably the first time in years," the 20-year-old said. "I always use my cell."

Kohl, 21, whose cell hangs from his belt, said three or four years have gone by since he's dropped a pair of laundry-money quarters into a pay phone.

Pay phones are perched prominently near mall entrances at Cherry Creek, but they're largely ignored by the growing legions of walking talkers. The pay phones' digital screens offer four minutes of anywhere-in- the-USA time for only $1, and there was a time when that come-on could seduce seekers of cheap talk.

But now that free long distance is frequently embedded in cell-phone packages, the notion of spending parking-meter money on a phone call seems as quaint as a hitching post in a parking lot.

The old-style phone booth has virtually disappeared from the landscape, and the pay phone is steadily receding from the cultural shoreline.

Nearly 1.5 million pay phones were in place in the United States as of March 31, compared with 2.1 million in 1999, according to the Federal Communications Commission. Colorado has 22,595 pay phones, down from 24,044 in 2002. The state has the nation's third-highest percentage of households with telephone service (97.8 percent, slightly behind Maine and Pennsylvania).

The story of the pay phone's decline doesn't make much of a whodunit.

Glance down the escalator from the upper-level phone bank near the theater at Cherry Creek and you see a kiosk for T-Mobile. Downstairs, a pay phone at the east entrance is within sight of a Verizon Wireless store.

More than 153 million Americans subscribe to wireless service, according to the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association, and the number grows by more than 30,000 a day.

When cell phones first came out, they were a novelty, said Frank Semone, president of Western Paytel in Wheat Ridge and president of the Colorado Payphone Association. But that changed quickly.

"As they started multiplying and getting smaller and smaller, you could see your revenues keep dropping and dropping," he said.

"We've pulled out probably 15 (percent) to 20 percent of our phones the last couple of years. We used to have over 800. Revenues are off by 50 percent the past five years.

"We're trying to relocate them as much as possible. We pulled out all of our restaurant phones, and we're putting them where we can make some money: convenience stores, gas stations, places like that."

And malls. The Cherry Creek Shopping Center has 18 pay phones throughout the center and recently removed a bank of phones during the renovation of lower-level restrooms.

"We do think there's a place for them. Our customers are still using them, but not nearly at the same frequency," said Liza Herzlich, Cherry Creek's marketing director, who estimated that the mall had about 30 pay phones when it opened in 1990.

Pay phone can be lifesaver

Qwest is by far the largest pay-phone supplier in Colorado, with about 13,000 pay phones, down 1,000 in three years, said Qwest's Kate Varden. "Over the last five years, we've seen a decline of nearly 50 percent (in pay-phone use)," she said.

Still, when the cell battery is dead or there's no service, a pay phone may literally be a lifesaver, and Qwest remains committed to the business.

"When you need a pay phone, you need one," Varden said. "We know they're being used and know customers value them."

More than 600 pay phones await travelers at DIA. Qwest has removed 200 of its phones in the past year, bringing the total to about the same number as were available at the old Stapleton airport.

Each of Qwest's pay phones at DIA has a data port, and the airport has 20 AT&T Internet phones with screens and keyboards.

By contrast, the year-old, $100 million Alfred A. Arraj federal courthouse, at 19th and Champa streets, has a single pay phone, on the first floor with the vending machines.

Time was, University of Colorado students stood in line at a bank of phone booths that lined a wall on the lower level of the University Memorial Center. Pull the door closed and privacy was preserved.

They've been gone for years.

"We might have eight now; we probably had 20 when I came here six years ago," said UMC director Carlos Garcia. "Most students have cell phones."

Only about half of pay-phone calls are made with coins, according to Qwest, and high-tech Internet connection phones are replacing some pay phones.

All of Qwest's pay phones charge 50 cents for a local call.

Verizon, which has about 320,000 pay phones, tested lower rates (10 cents for a minute, 25 cents for 3 minutes) in Virginia and Florida recently but found little effect on use.

Public displays of confession

Even though pay phones are receding, public telephone conversations have never been more ubiquitous.

Cell-phone conversations have become part of the soundtrack of daily life. Personal and professional matters are blithely bantered into a cell with little regard for passersby.

"If you lived in a small town, you probably wouldn't do that. There's such anonymity in a city," said Audrey Brodt, a Denver psychologist who specializes in emotional intelligence and workplace issues.

"You're on the 16th Street Mall and talking about something awful or embarrassing that happened to you. Later that day, if you find your office mate overheard it, you'd be totally shocked."

On a recent Sunday, Nasya Newport stood a few steps from a bank of pay phones at the Cherry Creek Shopping Center and used her cell phone to find a pair of red strappy heels.

"We were just in Steve Madden and they didn't have the shoes I wanted, so I called the Park Meadows store and they have them, and that's where we're going," said the 18-year-old.

She last used a pay phone four years ago when she was in France: "My cell phone didn't work over there."

Down on the lower level, Majuma Wesakania of Denver dropped quarters into a pay phone next to Cinnabon.

"I don't have a cell," she said. "It's too hectic. I can have some peace. If I have to call somebody, I just use a pay phone."

The call she placed was to a friend - who answered on her cell phone.

Posted by Craig at December 30, 2003 04:17 PM