Wait so this is a real....phone? Using old-school twisted pair phone lines? If it has a monthly cost that scales with use it must, but it seems like making this IP would be more practical, if a little less fun?
My big worry with the disappearance of public pay-phones is for the homeless and other poor. However, I recently learned that there are often programs to assist them with getting cellular devices. All in all, a mobile device is probably much more useful than a public payphone (as long as they can keep it charged). I'm a little under-educated on what the actual reality of this situation is, tbh.
Every hospital I have ever been have a free phone in the ED waiting room. It’s common to see a homeless person using it. Has a list of numbers for shelters, taxis etc posted along side it.
Obama Phone Lady as evidence of fraud.... laughable.
I used to sell Lifeline phones into certain carriers back in 2009 - 2012 when I worked with various phone OEMs. I can see where some phone resellers could create some fraud.
But the government is not involved. They merely subsidize the program.
Just to be clear, I was not claiming that Obama phone lady was evidence of fraud. I was only pointing out it was a memorable moment during the 2012 election because that clip was replayed ad nauseam at the time. So I think people call them "Obama phones" because of a fairly successful campaign at pinning their existence or popularity on Barack Obama (where this woman credited her free phone to Obama), and this particular video clip was shown quite a bit at the time.
The fraud remark in my comment was about the other news video I linked and also a link to wikipedia. Free phones and phone plans are really, really low on my list of things I care about in terms of examples of bad governance in the US.
Around the time Obama became president is when they started giving cell phones from the program instead of just subsidizing landline phones. It happened before he was president but given the recession that took place while he was president it was regarded as the Obama phone because he was president when the majority of people got them.
As someone who thinks free phones to those who need one is a good thing, and thinks Obama was generally a pretty good dude, I wouldn't automatically ready negative sentiment into those words.
Indeed, it should be a very good thing. In wise societies, the most honored are those who are poorest because they've given away the most to the people who need it (and are best at obtaining the resources to give away).
Gut to the right wing in today's society, anything that might be giving someone (especially non-white someones) a helping hand is basically a slur. See "Welfare Queens", "Obamacare", etc.. God forbid one tax penny go to help someone else, and they don't know and don't care whether any such helping programs actually help reduce costs.
One is from a wise society that values every member, and shuns those who hoard resources, recognizing their poverty of spirit.
The other is from a society which is far less wise but still knows enough to understand that a society where everyone contributes some resources to common goods will always build a better society than can result from any anarchy.
And then there are the people in the latter societies who somehow think that the benefits of everyone else's taxes, such as roads, legal system, public education system, clean food and water regulations, national defense, etc. are simply natural resources existing for their benefit and that they shouldn't have to contribute.
Those people are called freeloaders, and are recognized as a problem, so contributions are compulsory, and called taxes.
If you don't like taxes, it might be best go find a country that doesn't have them.
A quick search turns up none, but you can get close; there are five countries where the total tax revenue is less than 5% of their GDP: Syria (1.30%), Cuba (2.40%), South Sudan (3.10%), Nigeria (4.10%), and Burma (4.20%) [0].
I notice no exodus among the many people who claim to despise taxes to go to these places where taxes are minimal.
This is proof positive that the benefits that come with taxes (e.g., a working system of infrastructure, law, education, etc.) far outweigh the "freedom" from taxes.
Have you picked up an moved to a near-zero tax country? If not, maybe stop being a hypocrite whining about taxes and start appreciating the benefits that a higher tax and higher service society brings, of which you obviously prefer to take advantage.
Supporters often call the free phones "Obama phones" too. Just like Obamacare started off as a slur towards ACA, the party saw Obama's name as a way to link a benefit to Democrats and détourned it. It's like the Bush tax rebate or the Trump stimulus.
Homeless and poor can get free phones in many municipalities. I'm a technical consultant for the BigBurg app [http://www.informingdesign.com/bigburgh] and getting free phones into people's hands in part of the project. It actually saves the municipalities money - which makes sense in our digital society. They are able to deliver social services more directly and at lower cost.
Hopefully those free phone booths also have a USB port for charging.
It is a helpful program. With minimal paperwork, you get a device with calling and data service. The phone hardware ranges from basic to decent. They typically have much less crapware installed than your average store phone.
Several challenges with the program exist, compared to payphones.
a) It is difficult to hold on to anything when you live on the street, even without any bad habits. Without a place to keep your things, they regularly get lost, stolen, etc. If you have a habit, you may also be tempted to pawn the device for a few bucks.
b) The paperwork and process is minimal, but is still a barrier. For example, some programs do not give you a device on the spot, but it must be mailed to you. I had mine mailed to a post office and it got lost. I never received the device, but I was marked as having ordered one in the system. From that point on, even years later, I could never qualify for another one.
Compare this to a stationary device that's always there that doesn't have to be maintained by you, and the advantages are clear.
New York has a pretty good system of LinkNYC kiosks, which provide basic calling service, and are maintained reasonably well (about half work at any given time.) They were better when they allowed browsing the web, but that functionality was taken away after Reddit raised a stink about someone browsing porn on them.
Having common phones around at predictable public places is good for everyone in the sense that it prevents people from feeling obligated to carry a tracking device everywhere just to be prepared for emergencies.
Parent is probably referring to the Tech Model Railroad Club at MIT, which is considered the first recognized group of hackers and predates Capt. Crunch by at least a decade.
I will defend Capt. Crunch a bit.. no, not 'predator' thats a legal accusation. AutoDesk brought a fully configured Sun to his messy desk in the 1980s, and "the workout" was sort of repressed sexual behavior yes, but not 'predator' .. no way.. How many people here are active kinky ? loud about it too.. Its a complicated story.. no CANCEL on Capt Crunch, please
If you want to hate on someone in a cowardly anonymous way, I would go for that ReiserFS guy, who lived in the same area at the same time
I'm somewhat acquainted with one of the guys running this effort, and it's really been amazing to see it go from "unknown niche hobby project" to "all over the news" practically overnight. Nobody is sure why the media seized on it so much, but in the course of a week or two, it went from completely obscure, to being reported on by a few Internet-based techy/nerdy media outlets, to being talked about by the mainstream news (NBC!). I guess people are more interested in payphones than expected.
Though it does bum me out that a typical comment section on the mainstream news articles is 30% "why is the government spending money on this? Lower my taxes!!" It's a completely volunteer project guys, there is no government money involved... ah well.
There is a crossover point on VoIP providers where the unlimited plan is worth it if your phone is making more than X minutes a month. I'm sure they'll switch it if they reach this point.
> Nobody is sure why the media seized on it so much
Doesn't everyone phone (ha) it in right before Christmas? This is a novelty human interest piece with community, nostalgia, consumerism (all those new iphones in wrapping paper) appea. And you just have to interview one guy? Thats it's own Christmas present if you're on a 24 hour or even daily news cycle.
Many years ago I worked for a VOIP provider. The most expensive frauds that we detected was calling special service in remote place of the world like Tristan de Cunha, Nauru, Falkland or Buthan. Something like 50$ for minutes and 10$ at the response.
For a while there was a lot of in-cahoots fraud where a country’s telecom would make seemingly arbitrary numbers a premium rate $$$/min number and some uncareful VoIP providers got hosed.
a few small pacific island nation-states that have no submarine cables and are entirely dependent upon geostationary satellite capacity and o3b right now, most likely. this is still satellite but does not go to the "special" country codes for calls to iridium or inmarsat.
there's also a few "special" toll-bait destinations in the caribbean which are unusually costly due to the fees charged by their local telco as a revenue source.
Aside from fraud and weird toll numbers, for bonafide use its often calls (esp to mobile) in certain countries where there's less competition, often smaller island nations like British Virgin Islands or the Maldives https://www.voipkredi.com/page.php?page=betamax-dellmont
Does anyone still make phone books? I can count the number of phone numbers I have memorized on one hand. Without access to a phone number registry of some sort, I think these would have extremely limited value to most people.
When I was younger some of my friends who had very limited income could often not afford to top up their cell phone minutes, but still had their phone with an address book full of numbers in their pocket. I would lend them my phone and they'd call someone from the list in their phone using my phone.
I feel like someone who relies on free or community phones would have a similar book of numbers that are meaningful to them.
Of course if you're looking to call somewhere new, then that's definitely an issue.
When I was a kid I had a DTMF tone-dialer which was a small device with all my numbers in it and a small speaker in a rubber cup. I could select a number from the list then hold the speaker against the receiver of a (hardwired) telephone to dial the number. I actually had two of these, the other of which I modified to simulate the signalling sound of dimes and quarters dropping into a payphone.
In the UK they were still about up until recently but became smaller and smaller. I've not had a landline for years now so not sure if they're still released now. I'd imagine not, but who knows.
Sadly, they stopped giving them out around here almost a decade ago. Made me sad, because we got them in early October and every year I would hang onto it until near the end of the night on Halloween when some over-aged kid doing the ironic tour called out “Trick or treat” and I’d say “trick” and drop it in their pillowcase.
I see what you’re saying but if you don’t have a phone, you’ll remember the numbers you need or at least write them down somewhere and create your own registry. If you don’t have that there’s always 411
>I think these would have extremely limited value to most people.
Quite recently in Australia, every single phone booth in the country was made free to use.
When asked why this was the case, the spokesperson for Telstra (the company that owned them) explained that one of the major users of phone booths were people escaping from domestic violence situations. Apparently it was very common for abusive partners to control phone access (and access to cash, too, hence why they made the network free).
Point is, don't underestimate the importance of obsolete services!
Based on what I've heard from the people who work there, not at all. :P
But even cold hard capitalism explains this one. The good optics that come from helping victims of domestic violence would far, far outweigh the negligible income they get from the booths themselves.
One of the best projects I've seen in years. This project should receive some sort of grant or at least award from Philadelphia. This brought back good memories :) EDIT: Hack The Planet and maybe @giantg2 for downvotes! ^_^
Good luck getting money from Philly. Philly is one of the poorest big cities. They certainly don't have money for anything like this. Better off looking for grants from rich people who work in Philly (I didn't say residents because most of them choose to live outside the city in places like Radnor).
Why disagree? I don't, necessarily. But you took a side comment and turned it into a very off-topic topic of discussion that has nothing to do with TFA. Have a downvote.
You replied to a complaint about an off-topic post elsewhere with a further discussion of the substance of the off-topic issue. So other HN readers were probably not eager to have you continue that discussion in this thread.
How long before someone with less-than-good intentions walks up and starts using this phone in ways that the creators didn't intend, and it has to be shut down?
Users are apparently anonymous -- this will make it non-sustainable. One plausible fix: A video camera that records faces. Otherwise the homeless will be taking a beating from the local drug dealer whenever they get in the way of urgent business.
Like this:
Q. Do Links have cameras and what happens to the footage?
BT in the UK has been replacing payphones with advertising billboard, with a little digital infopad, USB charging and free domestic calls. Calls are cheap as, they probably still make a profit with the advertising.
It's win-win, though they are a bit of an eyesore.
NYC has been doing the same thing, but there are concerns over tracking (the terminals are equipped with cameras that may or may not be running facial recognition software).
This is all good, hack the planet and all that, but meanwhile there are Link NYC boxes with free calls all over NYC no? (debatable quality etc but still, they're there)
However those are well-documented to be data-harvesting devices placed by a for-profit company, despite receiving government money as well. PhilTel is a non-profit volunteer organization run by community members.
New Idea: Android tablet connected by wire (PoE?) with tap-and-pay NFC giving out a unique Wifi QR code. And that will give you pay-per-use-or by-minute internet at every booth. A free phone call is just a headphone plug away with voice activated calling. Full hardware with phone handle and/or tablet screen browsing is (much) extra.
I think the main goal here is that people using the phone don't have to pay for it. To that point though, it may be cheaper to use an existing (maybe thrown away) phone and just install it in a phone booth, then have an unlimited calling service set up so it's free for anyone on the street to use
Time really flies! I still remember when my friends from the Patio Maravillas social center in Madrid set up one in this style... in 2009 ! At the time and in the beginning, it was a bunch of countries only, as VoIP gateways weren't as popular as now.
It's worth it to Telstra, to hold onto the real estate. They have effectively been been gifted a nationwide network of plots of land and structures that turn out to be a good match for 5G/6G/WiFi base station locations.
They are probably kicking themselves for ripping out so many phones in the past, thus giving up the locations.
They have a requirement to provide community phones, the cost of calls is trivial when compared with the cost of emptying coin draws and combating people trying to get a free call.
The money comes from a levy on telecommunications carriers (Telstra included, but also most of it's competitors). There was a bit of conjecture in the media that the "free" payphones were really being paid for by the other telcos, once the money Telstra contributes is discounted.
121 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 184 ms ] thread[0]: https://philtel.org/2022/12/15/asterisk-overview.html
https://www.fcc.gov/general/lifeline-program-low-income-cons...
But it's easy to blame Obama.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpAOwJvTOio
I had a note in this comment on fraud, but it looks like there was probably a consistent pattern of waste/fraud for a long time (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Service_Fund#Waste_a...). There were some proven accusations of fraud in 2012 as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rY4cy95VFes
I used to sell Lifeline phones into certain carriers back in 2009 - 2012 when I worked with various phone OEMs. I can see where some phone resellers could create some fraud.
But the government is not involved. They merely subsidize the program.
The fraud remark in my comment was about the other news video I linked and also a link to wikipedia. Free phones and phone plans are really, really low on my list of things I care about in terms of examples of bad governance in the US.
As someone who thinks free phones to those who need one is a good thing, and thinks Obama was generally a pretty good dude, I wouldn't automatically ready negative sentiment into those words.
Gut to the right wing in today's society, anything that might be giving someone (especially non-white someones) a helping hand is basically a slur. See "Welfare Queens", "Obamacare", etc.. God forbid one tax penny go to help someone else, and they don't know and don't care whether any such helping programs actually help reduce costs.
(yeah, let the downvotes begin)
>God forbid one tax penny
One of these things is not like the other.
One is from a wise society that values every member, and shuns those who hoard resources, recognizing their poverty of spirit.
The other is from a society which is far less wise but still knows enough to understand that a society where everyone contributes some resources to common goods will always build a better society than can result from any anarchy.
And then there are the people in the latter societies who somehow think that the benefits of everyone else's taxes, such as roads, legal system, public education system, clean food and water regulations, national defense, etc. are simply natural resources existing for their benefit and that they shouldn't have to contribute.
Those people are called freeloaders, and are recognized as a problem, so contributions are compulsory, and called taxes.
If you don't like taxes, it might be best go find a country that doesn't have them.
A quick search turns up none, but you can get close; there are five countries where the total tax revenue is less than 5% of their GDP: Syria (1.30%), Cuba (2.40%), South Sudan (3.10%), Nigeria (4.10%), and Burma (4.20%) [0].
I notice no exodus among the many people who claim to despise taxes to go to these places where taxes are minimal.
This is proof positive that the benefits that come with taxes (e.g., a working system of infrastructure, law, education, etc.) far outweigh the "freedom" from taxes.
Have you picked up an moved to a near-zero tax country? If not, maybe stop being a hypocrite whining about taxes and start appreciating the benefits that a higher tax and higher service society brings, of which you obviously prefer to take advantage.
[0] https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-countries-with-the-l...
Hopefully those free phone booths also have a USB port for charging.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33120534
Several challenges with the program exist, compared to payphones.
a) It is difficult to hold on to anything when you live on the street, even without any bad habits. Without a place to keep your things, they regularly get lost, stolen, etc. If you have a habit, you may also be tempted to pawn the device for a few bucks.
b) The paperwork and process is minimal, but is still a barrier. For example, some programs do not give you a device on the spot, but it must be mailed to you. I had mine mailed to a post office and it got lost. I never received the device, but I was marked as having ordered one in the system. From that point on, even years later, I could never qualify for another one.
Compare this to a stationary device that's always there that doesn't have to be maintained by you, and the advantages are clear.
New York has a pretty good system of LinkNYC kiosks, which provide basic calling service, and are maintained reasonably well (about half work at any given time.) They were better when they allowed browsing the web, but that functionality was taken away after Reddit raised a stink about someone browsing porn on them.
http://futel.net/
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32118936
its not _that_ uncommon is it? Given that phreakers are like the genesis of hackers.
I was so excited and even got a picture with him. Then I found out about his dark and sketchy past from others when I told people about it.
tl;dr = hes basically a sexual predator/creeper w young boys.
If you want to hate on someone in a cowardly anonymous way, I would go for that ReiserFS guy, who lived in the same area at the same time
https://portal.phreaknet.org/faq
Though it does bum me out that a typical comment section on the mainstream news articles is 30% "why is the government spending money on this? Lower my taxes!!" It's a completely volunteer project guys, there is no government money involved... ah well.
Can't he hook it up to ooma or something that only charges the monthly regulatory fees?
https://www.airvoicewireless.com/plan/monthy-plan
Doesn't everyone phone (ha) it in right before Christmas? This is a novelty human interest piece with community, nostalgia, consumerism (all those new iphones in wrapping paper) appea. And you just have to interview one guy? Thats it's own Christmas present if you're on a 24 hour or even daily news cycle.
https://www.forbes.com/forbes/2005/0919/058.html?sh=3e7f98cc...
there's also a few "special" toll-bait destinations in the caribbean which are unusually costly due to the fees charged by their local telco as a revenue source.
It's a neat project though.
I feel like someone who relies on free or community phones would have a similar book of numbers that are meaningful to them.
Of course if you're looking to call somewhere new, then that's definitely an issue.
[0] https://www.verizon.com/about/our-company/white-pages
Quite recently in Australia, every single phone booth in the country was made free to use.
When asked why this was the case, the spokesperson for Telstra (the company that owned them) explained that one of the major users of phone booths were people escaping from domestic violence situations. Apparently it was very common for abusive partners to control phone access (and access to cash, too, hence why they made the network free).
Point is, don't underestimate the importance of obsolete services!
But even cold hard capitalism explains this one. The good optics that come from helping victims of domestic violence would far, far outweigh the negligible income they get from the booths themselves.
Hack the planet!
name checks out
Like this:
Q. Do Links have cameras and what happens to the footage?
There are two security cameras on each Link.
https://www.link.nyc/faq.html
Why would you charge for that? Especially if you want to help homeless etc.?
Just make it a free wifi hotspot and be done with it.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33851030
Perhaps they meant public phone?
I haven't looked at a copy in forever so I don't know if it's still a thing.
https://web.archive.org/web/20090402170754/http://www.patiom...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patio_Maravillas
They are probably kicking themselves for ripping out so many phones in the past, thus giving up the locations.
https://www.infrastructure.gov.au/media-technology-communica...
The money comes from a levy on telecommunications carriers (Telstra included, but also most of it's competitors). There was a bit of conjecture in the media that the "free" payphones were really being paid for by the other telcos, once the money Telstra contributes is discounted.