Investing - Payphones

[ecotourist]

This sounds like the biggest scam ever. Fifteen to twenty years ago takes us back to 2000, and anyone back then knew that payphones were about to go extinct. The pay phone owners were looking to sell before they were left with a dead technology. Smart, but ill intent.

Sounds like a bunch of pay phone owners came up with a sleazy plan to sell everything to an unsuspecting individual.

They weren't selling them as a block or in big lots to an "individual". The plan was so anyone could buy 1 or 2, or a half dozen. Your payphones had an address.

It sounds as though there was at least one place where payphones would have paid - in prisons. I don't imagine you'd be too popular there if you trashed the payphone, which was the other problem with the investment. The buyer got to pay for the repairs after vandalism.

 

[PandaBear]

I'm still resisting. We have a family cell phone but I don't have one.

I would pay $35/month but not $75. The average cellphone plan in Canada is apparently just over $100, one of the highest in the world. Lots of people here must think they're rich, but there's a big difference between being rich (ie assets) and being able to pay the bills (ie cash flow). In Alberta they have a phrase that covers it nicely - "big hat, no cattle".

I could afford $100/month but I'd rather take it in pizza and beer.

Can you go to US and get a Google Fi sim and then bring it back to Canada and use it there?

 

[PandaBear]

I think that kind of pay phone business would make sense only 45-50 years ago. 15-20 years ago they need to pay me monthly to keep that graffiti magnet outside of my place.

 

[ctechbob]

Payphones are at this very moment huge profit centers in US prisons.

No as huge as they used to be. FCC issued some rulings that capped rates on them. Now they've moved on to tablets as a profit center in lots of them.

Also, at least here in GA, the profit can only be used for the inmates. Granted, that covers a wide area and can be used for things like cleaning supplies and the like, but it does free (In the case of a county jail) the counties budget up to spend that money elsewhere.

 

[ecotourist]

Can you go to US and get a Google Fi sim and then bring it back to Canada and use it there?

We've used sim cards when traveling in Europe. It's a good suggestion but I don't think it would work. Here's a quote from Reddit,

" You have to be in the US to order service (meaning they won't set up an account without a US address and they won't ship the sim outside the US) however you do not have to be in the US to activate. All you need to do is connect your phone to WiFi, run a VPN and connect to a US server and then start the setup."

Another idea I've toyed with is subscribing to a cellphone plan with SaskTel using my sister's address in Saskatchewan. Saskatchewan has low rates compared to the rest of the country. I don't think that would work in the long run however as they'd soon wonder why I was in "travel mode" almost all of the time.

I guess I'm not that interested in having a cellphone. We have a family cellphone that works fine when we're traveling, and when I'm at home I use our land line. I had a corporate cellphone for the last few years of my career (after a dangerous incident at our workplace) but hardly ever used it.

I'm not opposed to cellphones, in fact I own shares in 2 of the companies that overcharge Canadians for their cellphones. And they're both doing just fine I might add. Meanwhile I'll spend my money on pizza and beer.

 

[Jetronic]

I would say 15-20 years ago was still at least 10 years late to the party. Kind of like VCRs or cassette tapes in the late 90s (when DVDs were already out). Someone doing their due diligence had to have seen the writing on the wall, as cell phones were already quite popular.

Since they are selling you an existing payphone, it sounds to me like they are not profitable at that time unless someone else (you) pay for maintenance and repairs.

 

[PimTac]

Considering that most telephone companies have or are getting out of the landline business altogether, the pay phone is a dinosaur.

 

[ecotourist]

Considering that most telephone companies have or are getting out of the landline business altogether, the pay phone is a dinosaur.

Landlines do have some advantages. They work during power outages (which are all too common in this area during storms - not to mention what might happen when we get "the big one"). They're a reliable platform for 911 calls. And I find that speech is clearer on a landline.

Payphones worked just fine but with the loss of the market because so many people have cellphones and since payphones have become a target for vandals, I can see why they've disappeared. And I still think it was tricky of the phone companies to try to sell the payphones.

 

[PimTac]

Landlines do have some advantages. They work during power outages (which are all too common in this area during storms - not to mention what might happen when we get "the big one"). They're a reliable platform for 911 calls. And I find that speech is clearer on a landline.

Payphones worked just fine but with the loss of the market because so many people have cellphones and since payphones have become a target for vandals, I can see why they've disappeared. And I still think it was tricky of the phone companies to try to sell the payphones.

Good points but cellular service is getting better and better all the time. Recently, ATT in our area announced that all their landline services would cease. It might be just certain regions but that is the direction we are headed.

As for the big one, the Inaugural Day Storm of 1993 wiped out everything in our region. We had no services at all for 9 days including phone and it took much longer to get back to normal.

 

[aquariuscsm]

Anyone remember the Brady Bunch episode where they had a payphone installed in the house bec cause the kids kept running up the phone bill haha!!

 

[Andrew1972]

Landlines do have some advantages. They work during power outages (which are all too common in this area during storms - not to mention what might happen when we get "the big one"). They're a reliable platform for 911 calls. And I find that speech is clearer on a landline.

Payphones worked just fine but with the loss of the market because so many people have cellphones and since payphones have become a target for vandals, I can see why they've disappeared. And I still think it was tricky of the phone companies to try to sell the payphones.

Cell phones work fine in power outages too. Not sure what your point is?

 

[ecotourist]

Cell phones work fine in power outages too. Not sure what your point is?

I understand it varies. Sometimes they work and sometimes they don't. I'm no expert on cellphone systems but my understanding is the cellphone service requires power. Some components have backup batteries and some have backup generators and some don't. So some people have service and some don't.

And backups have a limited life, from a few hours to as much as a few days. We're in "the big one" territory and are trying tp be prepared to be self sufficient for a week. So our cell service might or might not work, and if it does work I don't think we can count on it to last for a week.

 

[y_p_w]

Cell phones work fine in power outages too. Not sure what your point is?

They have battery backups, but it's not always that reliable or where there's a battery backup at every cell tower.

However, while some still have "plain old telephone service" there are a fewer and fewer who use regular phones that can power off the line. It's mostly cordless phones now. I do have an old phone in my house and it's not connected to service. However, I can tell it's powered because I can pick it up and heard a little noise. The power is always provided on the line from the switching center.

 

[IndyIan]

I'm still resisting. We have a family cell phone but I don't have one.

I would pay $35/month but not $75. The average cellphone plan in Canada is apparently just over $100, one of the highest in the world. Lots of people here must think they're rich, but there's a big difference between being rich (ie assets) and being able to pay the bills (ie cash flow). In Alberta they have a phrase that covers it nicely - "big hat, no cattle".

I could afford $100/month but I'd rather take it in pizza and beer.

Koodo has the plan for you, $15/month with unlimited texts, and 100mb of data. Then you buy data and minutes separately in blocks that don't disappear until you use them up. Koodo is telus and they seem to be able to use bell towers so coverage is pretty good.
Canada is a rip off though, Australia has similar population and area and prices are a fraction of what they are here.

 

[ctechbob]

During 'the big one' landlines are not going to work any better than a cellphone. Most landlines convert to digital not far from your house, which requires networking and power supply backups, just like the cellphone net does.

 

[y_p_w]

During 'the big one' landlines are not going to work any better than a cellphone. Most landlines convert to digital not far from your house, which requires networking and power supply backups, just like the cellphone net does.

There’s a difference between battery backups at cell phone towers and the kind of backups that can be stored at a switching station. There will likely be people there to check the equipment. They might have something like a diesel generator on top of UPS battery backups.