Gotta love that small government and fiscal conservatism that's the hallmark of a truly Red Tea-Partying state like Nebraska.... oh, wait...

SN1987a goes boom: Otherwise known as the Superman Tax.

/God I hope the younger gen gets the reference.

Old wood framed phone booths actually have a bit of value.

Actually... We could revive phone booths. But the idea I just had has to be trademarked or something. I need to consult my IP lawyer, but I think I might have a winner. Or at least a novelty.

weave: I remember in the mid 90s, COCOTs were the big thing.

Did anybody else read that as "COONTS" at first and get confused?

Goimir: Also, how many 911 calls originated from those phones?

911 calls? Pfft, just use your iPhone. It will never, ever, ever fail in an emergency. Unless you were just robbed. Or your battery ran out.

So, just how much has said telephone company received from the government for infrastructure upgrades they just never got around to doing?

The 'OMG Free market! Captitalism in peril!' idiots need to shut the hell up. That has never, for nearly 100 years now of service, applied to landline telecommunications, and IT DAMN WELL SHOULDN'T. Christ. Morons.

The company told the commission it spent $1,469 maintaining them that same year. That includes checking the coin boxes, repairing damage and paying for dial tones, surcharges, fees, taxes and phone books, Woods said.

Really? I would have thought phone companies would have learned something from the phreaks after all these years. Why would you pay for a dial tone?

I think the problem lies with the sales clerks of today not wanting to give out change, quarters mostly.

///obscure, but you should know the reference

Wolf_Blitzer: You can make the argument that payphones are obsolete (I'd probably agree), but requiring a company to provide a public service as a condition of the privileges granted by the government (if nothing else, their phone lines are probably running through public spaces) is hardly unprecendented.

This is the point really. Utilities get a lot of privileges and get to cause a lot of nuisance (e.g. dig up roads, erect ugly towers and poles, etc.) and also get some semi-monopolistic exclusivity. So if there is some sort of minor requirement that the city feels is important, like a pay phone in a poor neighborhood, or more commonly a requirement to provide equal service to the full area (to avoid a "rural divide") I don't see anything wrong with it.

Ideally, the requirements that the city/county should be useful, but really they have the right to ask whatever they want of the company that they are granting the privilege of making hundreds of millions of dollars.

wildcardjack: SN1987a goes boom: Otherwise known as the Superman Tax.

/God I hope the younger gen gets the reference.

Old wood framed phone booths actually have a bit of value.

Actually... We could revive phone booths. But the idea I just had has to be trademarked or something. I need to consult my IP lawyer, but I think I might have a winner. Or at least a novelty.

It would be nice if there were sound proofed "phone booths" at concerts, bars, strip clubs, etc. where you could just duck in and make or take a phone call without all the loud music.

This sounds like books just need to be changed so that payphones can be substitued with a) fixed cellular based phone stations or b) fixed VO-IP based phone stations.

Why do I have to think of everything?

Omahawg: Highway 20 is a beautiful drive out through the sand hills. stop in valentine and get rocky mountain oysters.

no, there are no people. there is no cell phone service. the pay-phones need to stay.

Head north a few miles and drive west through the Rosebud reservation in South Dakota. Turn north before you get to Pine Ridge. The road sucks, there is NO cell phone service to speak of, but it is mostly pristine prairie and absolutely stunning. The only other vehicles are cattle trucks, and they want to go 80mph on that road.

Nem Wan: cyberspacedout: SN1987a goes boom: Otherwise known as the Superman Tax.

/God I hope the younger gen gets the reference.

It doesn't quite work, since the photo in TFA doesn't show a phone booth.

[www.byrnerobotics.com image 549x440]



And others shall know it as the "TARDIS Tax".

toddalmighty: $19.58? No pay phone takes pennies. And they never have.

That's after the hidden taxes and fees.

HBK: What about all of the poor migrant workers who need payphones to use their calling cards to call home? What about them?

If only there were some kind of cheap and affordable cell phone plan that allowed one to cheaply purchase minutes before calling, all without signing a contract. Perhaps even make them available at local convenience stores and low budget supermarkets. That would be the ticket.

The mexicans need to quit hogging the pay phones. They're obviously making drug deals.

Heres my snowflake with the payphone that came from the liquor store across the street from the harbor in Kodiak. The telco I work for decided to up and remove all phones before checking if it was cool with the government authority. Every payphone in the state went into the garbage. As far as I know, we didnt even receive a slight slap on the wrist, but the complaints and howling from the public was epic. I managed to snag this one and another one and rigged them up as working (non collecting) house phones. I cant imagine how many drunk fisherman yelled at their wives through this phone.



cool story bro

coo

Sounds like a unicameral designed by a committee

EdNortonsTwin: It's called a value added service. Not everything a business does neccessarily makes money, but the absence of certain services may certainly cause business loss.

Where's the value added for the phone company by having a phone in the middle of nowhere? Like that phone is gonna somehow lead to profits elsewhere? A value add is selling a $75 printer for $50 because you know you are gonna make a killing on the ink cartridges. A value add is having happy hour at your bar and pouring stiff drinks because you know enough drunks are gonna stay after happy hour ends and order more full priced watered down drinks.

There is absolutely zero value add by having this pay phone in BFE.

I found this article awesome. I had to write one of my own, regarding my thoughts on the topic, but encapsulated: "REALLY?!" To sum it up, Nebraska should either pay these companies some kind of subsidy or, more reasonably, if it absolutely must provide for telephone coverage, come up with a law that requires 7-11's (or whatever they have there) to permit lost/desperate travelers to make an emergency call.

That's funny, I've never gotten a brain tumor from a land line.
Hmmm

Goimir: How does it cost $1469 to maintain two payphones? Are they sending a guy out there monthly to collect the change and counting it as "otherwise billable time"? That would be 1.5 hours a month at $80/hr.

I have a feeling it should cost them about $100 to maintain them, and they're probably paying more like $250 a year right now. Either one of those is acceptable.

I was wondering that as well. That number sounds inflated. Of course the noble phone companies would NEVER fudge the numbers like that.

ransack.: The water was cold: Duskwuffie: Are people zinging pennies into that thing? Why the strange total?



RTFA

The headline does say "$19.58 in coins"



So the subby is a "moran". What else is new?

I didn't say RTFFH, I said RTFA.

fusillade762: Goimir: How does it cost $1469 to maintain two payphones? Are they sending a guy out there monthly to collect the change and counting it as "otherwise billable time"? That would be 1.5 hours a month at $80/hr.

I have a feeling it should cost them about $100 to maintain them, and they're probably paying more like $250 a year right now. Either one of those is acceptable.

I was wondering that as well. That number sounds inflated. Of course the noble phone companies would NEVER fudge the numbers like that.

In their case, it's probably their network costs divided by their lines, times two (for two phones) plus direct collection costs.

The mighty K&M Telephone Company of Chambers, Nebraska has all of 700 lines. Total. Here (new window), you can see the massive investment they've made in their web page. Poor bastards probably get paid by having the customers drop off their payments at the general store. In chickens.

FTFA: The company told the commission it spent $1,469 maintaining them that same year. That includes checking the coin boxes, repairing damage and paying for dial tones, surcharges, fees, taxes and phone books, Woods said.


So that noise you get when you pick up a land line... Somebody has to pay for that??

They tried to claim big numbers for maint. on these payphones before removing them, something like 1000 bucks a phone. We didnt buy it either, because we would probably spend about 40 man hours a year working on all the payphones on the island.... They are very resilient and easy to replace any part damaged by angry drunks.... we had like 25 phones, and collected significant quantities of money from them. We speculated in our case that the company wanted to push 1% more in cellphone sales, and they were probably successful. We attempted to break into one with common hand tools and basically anything you could get from a well stocked home garage, and we gave up out of boredom after abut an hour. They are very well engineered.

the_chief: This is Obama's Nebraska.

That was his best album. You know, before Born in the USA.

Goimir: How does it cost $1469 to maintain two payphones? Are they sending a guy out there monthly to collect the change and counting it as "otherwise billable time"? That would be 1.5 hours a month at $80/hr.

I have a feeling it should cost them about $100 to maintain them, and they're probably paying more like $250 a year right now. Either one of those is acceptable.

Also, how many 911 calls originated from those phones?

Have you heard about this item known as "Gas"? It's rather expensive. How many MPGs do you think a maintenance van loaded with tools and equipment gets?

And think of the environment and global warming for god's sake!!!! Think of the children!!!

My dad worked in Verizon's pay-phone division from the 1970s to his death in 2006. The industry had gotten so bad that by the early 2000s he had been transitioning into prison-payphones and most of his staff had been terminated. We've got a bunch of various style payphones all over the house. They're not too difficult to get wired into your landline for use. But it's definitely an industry that needs to be put out of its misery.

That's just one of the costs of your government granted monopoly. Suck it up.

Back in 1989 I broke down in west Texas 8 miles outside of a town called Ozona in the middle of the summer with the temp at about 115 F. My car overheated and after about 30 minutes a cop stopped and filled my radiator. I made it about 10 more miles and overheated again. The same cop came back around and said he wanted to double check on me.

It's a saturday in BFE west Texas so everything is closed. He drives me back to town and calls the one tow-truck operator in town at his home and tells him to go get my car. The one 5 room hotel in town has no guests so it's closed for the weekend. The cop calls the owner and has them come give me a room for the night. The one garage in town was closed but the cop called the mechanic up and had him look at my car. I needed a new hose that was not in stock but the mechanic was able to rig some hoses and clamps and get my car running agin the next day.

The big problem was that I was a 19 year-old Army GI with no freaking money to pay anyone. I had just enough money for gas to my destination. The hotel owner let me stay the night for free and even brought me leftovers from their dinner so I could have something to eat. The tow truck operator said "just pay me $10 for the gas". The mechanic waved labor costs and just charged me for parts. I still didn't have any money to pay so my father wired me the money by western union. Well that was on Sunday and the western union was in the 1 local bank which was obviously closed. The cop calls the bank manager and she opens the bank on Sunday just so she can process my money order.

Sunday services are just concluding as I'm ready to depart town and about half the town stops me to shake my hand and thank me for my "service to America".

My point? These phones are not emergency phones like you see on the highways every few miles in remote locations. These are pay-phones in actual rual communities. These are in communities where people will actually help people in need. The idea that these phones need to be maintained for emergency purposes is just untrue.

baronbloodbath: Obamaha, Nebraska?

Baraska.