3. A payphone is a public telephone, often
located in a telephone booth or a privacy
hood, with pre-payment by inserting
money (usually coins), a credit or debit
card, or a telephone card.
4. Ever since the first payphones were
opened to the public, using attendants
who collected the money and placed
the calls, the payphone has become an
American icon.
5. Payphones are often found in public
places, transportation hubs such as
airports or train stations, convenience
stores, malls, casinos, and on street
corners.
6. Payphones were
preceded by pay stations,
manned by telephone
company attendants who
would collect payment
for calls placed. In 1889,
the first public coin
telephone was invented
by William Gray and
installed at a bank in
Hartford, Connecticut.
7. The invention quickly
caught on, and by 1902,
there were 81,000
payphones in the
United States. By 1905,
the first outdoor
payphones with
booths were installed.
By the end of 1925, 25,000
of these booths existed
in New York City
alone. In 1960, the Bell
System installed its one
millionth telephone
booth.
8. A telephone booth or public call
box is a small structure furnished
with a payphone and designed
for a telephone user's
convenience. In the USA and
Canada, "telephone booth" is
used, while in the United
Kingdom, Australia and the rest
of the Commonwealth of
Nations it is a "telephone box" or
"phone box"
9. Now the industry is leading the way with new technologies and
innovations for the 21st century. From a street corner to a coffee
shop, in all the familiar places where payphones are located
today, consumers can see cutting edge technologies that offer
services ranging from sending a fax, surfing the web, or calling
home using a laptop.
10. The payphone has come a long way
since William Gray sold his first
back in 1891 - an exciting journey
from coins to cutting edge.
