Telcos said they are keeping payphones affordable as a community service FOTO: VIHANYA, WEE'S COLLECTION
Nestled in a corner of a Bukit Purmei provision shop is a relic – an iconic orange payphone belonging to the 78-year-old shop owner, who wants to be known as Charlie.
The coin-operated payphone used to serve Charlie’s customers well. For 10 cents, they could make a two-minute call. This service also made some extra cash for Charlie.
But when mobile phones became more commonplace in the 2000s, Charlie decided to pull the plug on this service – but not because there was no demand for his payphone.
The Singapore Conscience 27 October 2022
This orange pay phone was a common sight in Singapore during the 1970s and 1980s. I explained to my kids that we had to insert 10 cents to operate the pay phone. They were just shocked that I had to have lots of coins on standby back then!
At least one payphone near every HDB block with 1- and 2-room units: IMDA
The Infocomm Media Development Authority says operators Singtel and StarHub are required to maintain at least one payphone near every public housing block with one-room or two-room units.
We thank Mr Kevin Tan for his feedback on payphones in Singapore (“Payphones a thing of the past? No, they should stay”; Feb 9). Operators determine the availability and location of payphones based on factors such as demand for the service. While they continue to maintain payphones at key locations, including residential areas and commercial buildings such as shopping malls, they have also gradually phased out payphones from areas with low utilisation.
In December last year, Singapore’s mobile phone penetration rate was 158 per cent of the population. Mobile network operators providing third-generation and fourth-generation mobile services have achieved nationwide coverage in accordance with the Infocomm Media Development Authority’s (IMDA) requirements. Where there are complaints, the IMDA will work with operators to improve coverage. Nonetheless, as part of the IMDA’s efforts to ensure that everyone has access to telephony services, basic telephone service operators Singtel and StarHub are required to maintain at least one payphone near every Housing and Development Board block with one-room or two-room units.
Make FREE calls locally
Need to make a call? We now offer FREE local calls island wide on any of our payphones.
Staying in touch is FREE. Capped at 3 minutes per call.
International calls are not supported.
“Hello, Hello” The Rise and Decline of Singapore’s Public Payphones
Public phones were uncommon in Singapore in the fifties and sixties, especially in areas from the city. For example, until the late fifties, the Sembawang Hills Estate only had one public phone serving 6,500 residents.
Singapore’s mobile population penetration rate stands at almost 155% (from the 2014 statistics by Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore). That is more than a mobile line per person. Despite the large number of mobile subscriptions, public phones still play a part in Singapore’s society, providing telecommunication services for domestic maids, foreign workers and others who do not possess mobile phones.
Public phones in Singapore arguably reached their peak in the eighties and nineties, when they were almost present in every housing estates, hawker centres and shopping malls. This could be a coincidence with the rise of pagers in the same era, when pager’s users often had to make returning calls to the paging initiators.
The first telephones were introduced in Singapore as early as 1879. Two years later, Bennett Pell, the manager of the Eastern Extension Telegraph Company, used a simple manual 50-line switchboard to set the first Private Telephone Exchange at Collyer Quay. He later also established a trial connection between Raffles Square and Tanjong Pagar using a telegraph line, making Singapore the first British colony in the East to have a telephone system.
Payphones a thing of the past? No, they should stay
The writer says that there is still a need for payphones in Singapore. I am concerned about the demise of public telephones in Singapore. The iconic orange and red payphones, operated by coins or cards, were once ubiquitous in our country.
Over the years, these payphones have dwindled as society became more affluent. Practically everyone has a mobile phone now. I remember the days when we bought payphone cards and kept them as collector's items. While it is understandable that payphones have been pared back because of maintenance costs, there is still a need for them, say, when the battery of our mobile phone is flat.
We cannot expect others to lend us their phones. A nearby payphone will come in handy. We should also spare a thought for those among us who may not be well-off, do not own mobile phones, or use prepaid top-up cards for their mobile devices.
Revised local call rates for Singtel payphones
Singapore Telecommunications Limited (Singtel) today announced that from 1 May 2007, local calls made from Singtel’s coin and card payphones will be charged ten cents in two-minute blocks.
Since the 1960s, Singtel has embarked on various initiatives to enhance the payphone service to customers. They include the introduction of phonecards and card payphones in 1985; IDD service for payphone users in 1986; credit card payphones in 1988; and NETS and chip-based payphone cards in 1994. However, payphone charges have remained unchanged at ten cents for a three-minute local call. The rate revision aims to defray the costs of operating the payphone network without compromising on quality and convenience.
Over the years, the company has been taking steps to reduce overheads as part of its ongoing cost management efforts, and also in view of the decline in payphone usage due to the popularity of mobile phones1. Examples of these cost control measures include optimising the payphone network distribution by aligning usage and location as well as reducing the manual handling of coins by replacing coin with card payphones. Singtel continually upgrades its payphones and has the largest network of about 9,000 payphones today. The company remains committed to be the main provider of affordable and quality public payphone services in Singapore.
When Will Payphones Finally Die Off? Hold Please
Last week, New York City removed its remaining handful of payphones from city sidewalks. Their departure marked the finale of a six-year transformation of the city’s 10,000 payphones into high-tech kiosks, under a project called LinkNYC. Backed by tech big shots like Alphabet and Qualcomm, LinkNYC was the winning entry for a design contest announced in 2012 by then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who sought an innovative reimagining of urban pay phones.
In 2016, the city began its rehab program, ripping out payphones and installing Links, each of which includes a Wi-Fi hotspot, charging station, and an anchored tablet for browsing the web and making phone calls. For the most part, the transformation from aging, decrepit payphones into slick Wi-Fi hotspots will be welcomed, and may even seem inevitable. LinkNYC fulfills a vision of making cities “smart” by grafting digital technologies onto city streets.
But before we rush to the payphone’s funeral, it’s worth remembering that before it was an outdated eyesore, this technology shifted everything about how we make phone calls. For more than a century the payphone was a crucial communication tool, a key node in social networks of people, places, and devices. A lifeline of business, news and social ties, payphones allowed people to check in with their bosses from the road, keep friends in the loop with changing plans, and to share news on the fly. Payphones changed relationships to time, allowing people to change plans and be in the know. And they changed relationships to space, turning city streets into portals for communicating with anyone, anywhere.
History of Public Payphones in the U.S.— What You Need to Know
A look back at the history of public payphones in the United States after New York removed its last phone booth
The news that New York City removed its last phone booth on Monday, May 23, 2022, signals the end of the city’s long history of public payphones.
The last phone booth was located between Seventh Avenue and 50th Street in midtown Manhattan. The payphone will now be moved to the “Analog City” exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York.
Since 2015, the New York City Council has removed more than 8,000 public payphones. The plan was to replace the old booths with kiosks that would allow New Yorkers to access the Internet, charge their cell phones and make free phone calls.
Where Have All The Pay Phones Gone?
A stroll along Ninth Avenue in Manhattan reveals an ugly picture of the state of the pay phone these days.
The phones are sticky, beat up and scarred; some don't work at all. A child's change purse is stuffed on one phone ledge, along with a large wad of wrapping plastic. On a nearby ledge, an empty bottle of tequila sits in front of a hole that once held a phone. Empty cans of malt liquor sheathed in brown paper bags are a frequent sight.
With rising cell phone use and vandalism and neglect taking their toll, pay phones are disappearing around the nation. Consumer activists and advocates for the poor have protested the drop in numbers — saying that public phones are necessary in emergencies and represent a lifeline for those who can't afford a cell phone or even a landline.
Do Payphones Still Exist?
Twenty-five years ago, when you needed to get in touch with someone from anywhere but your own home, you’d have to find the nearest payphone and cough up a couple of quarters to make a call.
Nowadays, thanks to the advent of cell phones, the once-useful payphone looks like a relic from a bygone era. Like so many other great inventions of yore — think Blockbuster Video, JNCO jeans, and the special effects in The X-Files — payphones seem to be pretty much obsolete. Except that they’re not.
Payphones still exist and roughly 100,000 of them remain operational in the United States. What’s more, people actually use them. According to a 2015 Federal Communications Commission (FCC) report, major payphone providers in the country raked in roughly $286 million for that year. It turns out that even if only three 50¢ calls a day are made, that payphone is still making enough money to be sustainably profitable.
Payphone
A payphone (alternative spelling: pay phone) is typically a coin-operated public telephone, often located in a telephone booth or in high-traffic outdoor areas, with prepayment by inserting money (usually coins), swiping a credit or debit card, or using a telephone card. (To use the latter, a user calls the provided toll-free telephone number, enters the card account number and PIN, then dials the desired telephone number.)
In the 20th century, payphones in Spain and other countries took locally-sold tokens instead of legal-tender coins. The company that operates the payphone generally pays either rent or a revenue share to the owner of the property where the phone is installed.
Invented in the late 19th century, payphones became ubiquitous worldwide in the 20th, enough to contribute to the notion of universal access to basic communication services. In the late 1920s, the cost of a payphone call in the United States was two cents. In the 1930s, calls were five cents. Early in the 21st century, the price of a call was fifty cents. The arrival of mobile phones led to the near-extinction of payphones. New York City once had 30,000 payphones. A few do remain, despite incorrect reports that the city removed the last public payphone in 2022.
History of mobile phones
Interesting reading on mobile phone invention
We all spend many hours every day on our smartphones, but do you know who invented the phone and when was the phone invented? If not, read this article completely. In this article, we have included details about invention of the world’s first phone.
The mobile phone was invented by Martin Cooper, who joined Motorola in the year 1970. Martin was an American who had a great interest in the telecom industry. Martin Cooper was working on wireless technology. He wanted to use this technology to make a telephone-like device with no cable. Ever since the invention of the telephone, efforts were being made to make it even more modern and portable. Many companies and scholars were working in this field but it was Martin Cooper, the engineer of Motorola, who got success in the field. Martin invented the world’s first phone weighing 1.1 kg and after charging once, this phone could be used for 30 minutes. It used to take 10 hours to charge this phone. The price of this first phone of the world was 2700 US dollars i.e. that is around 2 lakh rupees.
When was the world’s first phone invented? As we all know, the telephone was invented by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876. Guglielmo Marconi introduced wireless technology with principles in the 1890s. After this, many scholars started working in both fields. There were some of them who wanted to combine these two technologies and make a device that allows two or more people to talk to each other without any cable. Martin Cooper, who was interested in wireless technology, joined the Motorola company as an engineer in 1970, and in 1973 he invented the first mobile phone. It is also a noteworthy and interesting thing that the world’s first phone was from Motorola. The first mobile in the whole world was named Motorola DynaTAC which was 9 inches long and weighed around 2.5 pounds i.e. 1.1 kg. After the invention of Martin Cooper, the mobile call industry and the telecom industry started. After this invention by Martin Cooper, a lot of companies started working on this technology and to make a better version of the mobile phone. Work was also done to improve the cellular network in the country. Nearly 10 years later, in 1983, Motorola launched a phone in the market for general public called Motorola DynaTAC 8000X.
Fact or Fiction? 1963 article predicted cell phones
A social media post going around claims to show a 1963 newspaper article accurately predicting people would be able to carry a phone in their pocket in the future.
It even features a picture of a woman holding something that resembles a modern flip-phone. It’s real. The article was published on April 18th, 1963 in the Mansfield, Ohio News Journal.
But predictions about cell phones got back much further than that. In 1926, Nicola Tesla predicted people would one day be able to communicate instantly with one another with devices that fit inside a vest pocket.
