[IP] : Old pay phones sold as novelty items
-----Original Message-----
From: Steve Barsh <steve@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 04 Mar 2004 19:57:04
To:dave@xxxxxxxxxx
Cc:"'Kevin Werbach'" <Kevin@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: For [IP] if you wish: Old pay phones sold as novelty items
For IP if you think others would find it of interest... I can't remember the
last time I actually used a payphone...
>From http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/ptech/03/04/relic.phones.ap/index.html
ATLANTA, Georgia (AP) -- Old pay phones are selling like they're going out of
style.
Collectors have made an online rush to buy BellSouth's boxy old pay phones that
have been refurbished for home use, after the Atlanta-based company decided to
pull out of a coin-operated phone business that had withered in the wireless
age.
"It's a novelty. You just don't usually see pay phones in people's homes," said
Hugh Bowen, a retired Atlanta police officer who bought one of the 30-pound
phones. "I thought it was so neat and I always wanted one. When I saw this
opportunity I jumped on it."
About 500 orders for the $135 phones were filled in the two months they've been
for sale, and now there's a waiting list of about 300 more people.
Cell phones have increasingly pushed aside the once-ubiquitous pay phones.
More than six out of 10 Americans now own cell phones, said Patrick Comack, an
analyst with Guzman & Co. in Miami. Pay phones have lost so much market share
to wireless, it's no longer a moneymaking business, he said.
So the big phones are going the way of rotary phones, crank phones and early
model brick-sized cell phones.
When BellSouth became the first major phone company to shutter its languishing
pay phone business two years ago, volunteers with the phone company decided to
refurbish the phones for home use and resell them to raise money for charity.
The phones were rewired so they can plug into a wall outlet and to work without
coins.
About $18,000 has been raised from the $35 in profit from each phone, which
will go toward groups like Habitat for Humanity and the American Red Cross.
Other companies will continue to operate some pay phones, but their numbers
will continue to decrease. The total number of pay phones nationwide has
dropped 29.5 percent in the last five years, including a 32.9 percent drop in
pay phones operated by local phone companies, according to the Federal
Communications Commission.
"My grandchildren and great-grandchildren won't know what it is," said Bill
Ray, who bought one of the pay phones and keeps it atop a filing cabinet in his
Memphis, Tennessee, BellSouth office. "I thought I'd get it for the nostalgia,
and it will be a conversation piece for years to come."
Thanks,
--- Steve.
__________________________________
Steve Barsh
steve@xxxxxxxxx
http://www.barsh.com
610.668.8182 Office
215.888.2101 Cell
610.668.8750 Fax
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