Disappearing Pay Phones

[Mulboyne]

MarketWatch: Japan may ease pay-phone installation requirements
Japan's communications ministry is considering loosening rules requiring the two local phone carrier units of NTT to install pay phones, in an effort to reduce deficits in their pay-phone businesses...If the rules are loosened, the disappearance of pay phones has a chance of speeding up, possibly causing difficulties for those who don't own cellphones or hampering efforts to make calls in times of disasters...Currently, one pay phone must be installed every roughly 500-meter-square area in densely populated districts under the enforcement rules of the Telecommunications Business Law. In other districts, one pay phone is needed every roughly 1-kilometer-square area...The new plan now being mulled by the Ministry would apply the 1-km-square rule to the densely populated area. The number of calls initiated by pay phones in 2005 was 590 million, down 92% from 7.14 billion calls in 1995, due largely to growing cellphone use...NTT East posted an operating loss of Y2.8 billion in the pay-phone business in fiscal 2004, while NTT West saw a deficit of Y2.1 billion in the same year...more...

[IkemenTommy]

There were times when I still had to rely on the payphone when my mobile phone battery died and I was too cheap to spend a 1000 yen on those expensive portable batt chargers. Though these phone booths only invite trouble and its a haven for posting those annoying Fuzoku Chirashis (Pink ad-flyers.. you guys know what I'm talking about)

[ichigo partygirl]

Last month i friend and i saw an old man sitting in a phone booth singing songs to himself. Where will people like him go without them?? Where will i see such an amsuing site?? Its so sad.

[Taro Toporific]

...I still had to rely on the payphone,....Fuzoku Chirashis (Pink ad-flyers.. you guys know what I'm talking about)

Oh noooo! Those works of Japanese folk art and the special service they provide will be sadly missed.

Old FG thread

[Socratesabroad]

It's these kind of changes that are just damned annoying.

I'm in China, so obviously Japan's pay phone situation won't affect me, but the same trend is apparent here as well. Heck, it's worse.

As a consequence of living with the 'rents till marriage or of going to school, the vast majority of young Chinese have mobile phones. And then there's the salaried folk in their 40s and so on who use the phones for work.

The end result is the pain in finding a pay phone for those of us who don't need - or want - a cell phone. But why fight the tide of new technology, you say. Why not just get a cell phone?

The answer is simple: privacy. I want to retain some small bit of free time to myself. My Internet connection time is unlimited and my home phone/fax takes calls 24 hrs a day, so people can contact me at home at any time. Why in the world would I now want a cell phone to allow unfettered access to me personally?

Convenience, schmenience. I'll take a small bit of privacy anyday, even if it means spending 10 min to find a pay phone.

[Mulboyne]

During the London terrorist bombing last year, mobile phones didn't work for about eight hours. There were stories that the carriers were ordered to shut down in case phones were being used to set off bombs but as anyone who has tried to make calls at New Year or in a big crowd knows, sometimes the networks can't handle the demand and you can't get connected.

[Taro Toporific]

I...for those of us who don't need - or want - a cell phone....

Ketai: Just say no.
[floatr][/floatr]
In my case, the manufacturers won't make a cell phone with large interface and buttons (preferably with a Treo/Crackberry-style QWERTY thumb-board). What's worse, no Japanese phone service fits my 3-voice-calls-in-month usage pattern (I mostly send short text messages to other keitai). The only keitai and service I would consider is Willcom's Sharp Zero3 [es]. I have used Willcom's flat-rate service to connect my notebook in the hospital, and I would love to beat the System with a Skype cellphone for flat-rate, 'free' calls like the Zero3 .

Sadly, the obvious solution, a prepaid cellphone, is more expensive to use than bare-bones service plans, meh.

Bottom Line: D.I.Y. -- I'll just go with a Mylo that uses totally free WiFi and Skype by the end of the year.

[GomiGirl]

all of you are blasphemous!!!! Keitai's rule!! Go with a flat rate monthly plan for data and you are set.

THE KEITAI GODDESS

[cliffy]

all of you are blasphemous!!!! Keitai's rule!! Go with a flat rate monthly plan for data and you are set.

THE KEITAI GODDESS

I would be very surprised if you wrote anyting else GG! I am not disapointed

[dimwit]

Ketai: Just say no.

As a member of the Luddite Guild of western Japan I hardily endorse those sentiments.

As one of the few people* who still occasionally uses pay phones, I find that there removal irksome. Pay phones have always had the benefit of being reachable and unreachable at the same time.


* along with 'I like Ike' generation tourists

[Greji]

all of you are blasphemous!!!! Keitai's rule!! Go with a flat rate monthly plan for data and you are set.

THE KEITAI GODDESS

Yah, but you can't beat the good old Koshu Denwa when you just want to ring up some bird that ya don't know and do some heavy breathin into the handset. It offers that nice feeling of security that you don't get from your house phone and keitai on the trace, and you don't even have to clean the slobber and mucous of the mouthpiece.

Ahh, another piece of history goes winging!

[GomiGirl]

you don't even have to clean the slobber and mucous of the mouthpiece.

eewwww A perfect example of why I don't like using public phones.... GBoothe Slobber

[kurohinge1]

[Greji]

eewwww A perfect example of why I don't like using public phones.... GBoothe Slobber

Ahh, where would you get that idea?


P.S. Be extremely careful of unusual stains on the glass of the phone booth walls right under the Massage and Health Club stickers!

[Mulboyne]

[YT]ppCPJ2BRSEo[/YT]

"Markuz Wernli Saito decided to declare May 2007 as Pay Phone Memorial Month because the decline of this public inventory is an undeniable fact. The event series consisted of a free photo service inviting people to get into pose with pay phones around to create photo memories. The green-white banner reads: "Good Bye Pay Phone: Get a Free Photo Before it's Gone!" "

[GuyJean]

I like it..

GJ

[kamome]

[yt]ppCPJ2BRSEo[/yt]

"Markuz Wernli Saito decided to declare May 2007 as Pay Phone Memorial Month because the decline of this public inventory is an undeniable fact. The event series consisted of a free photo service inviting people to get into pose with pay phones around to create photo memories. The green-white banner reads: "Good Bye Pay Phone: Get a Free Photo Before it's Gone!" "

That guy stood outside all day to take pictures of people next to a phone? Completely ridiculous.

[GomiGirl]

When I was a kid we didn't even have a phone in our house. Small country town. We had to go to the corner store to make a call or for people to call us. I think the shopkeeper was a bit pissed about having to knock on our door and ask us to come down to the store.

[kurohinge1]

. . . "Markuz Wernli Saito decided to declare May 2007 as Pay Phone Memorial Month because the decline of this public inventory is an undeniable fact. The event series consisted of a free photo service inviting people to get into pose with pay phones around to create photo memories. The green-white banner reads: "Good Bye Pay Phone: Get a Free Photo Before it's Gone!" "

Cute, and so much potential if it takes off.

Maybe June should be Whale Memorial Month, or do they have a few more months left?

And with metal theft in Japan (for construction in China) on the rise, maybe July could be Guard Rail Memorial Month.

When I was a kid we didn't even have a phone in our house. Small country town. We had to go to the corner store to make a call or for people to call us. I think the shopkeeper was a bit pissed about having to knock on our door and ask us to come down to the store.

And don't tell me, the town was so small that when you finally did get a phone, your phone number was just "8".

[Greji]

When I was a kid we didn't even have a phone in our house. Small country town. We had to go to the corner store to make a call or for people to call us. I think the shopkeeper was a bit pissed about having to knock on our door and ask us to come down to the store.

Did you learn that if you took the insulation of the receiver wire off and grounded out the "hot" wire against the phone or phone booth, you got dial tone and didn't have to put any money into the phone?

If you didn't learn that, I won't tell you about it!