Telstra free payphones

Tony Bev · Guru

Telstra free payphones

dabbler · Guru

They're hidden in plain view and unless you pau attention they just blend into rhe scenery. The article I read gave usage figures (including 230,000 Triple Zero calls per annum) and also said Telstra have no plans to get rid of any because the Fed govt controls how many are out there.

peter67 · Guru

I miss the old telephone boxes with the 6v screw top twin terminal batteries on a shelf up the top. We used to run an exchange program with those batteries, when we needed another 6v battery to power the glow plug in our model aircraft engines we just went to the nearest phone box and swapped them over.

Mariner30 · Senior Member

Even though it's free some people still have to have a sook and whinge and or make up stuff.

Crikey!

Possum3 · Guru

peter67 wrote:
I miss the old telephone boxes with the 6v screw top twin terminal batteries on a shelf up the top. We used to run an exchange program with those batteries, when we needed another 6v battery to power the glow plug in our model aircraft engines we just went to the nearest phone box and swapped them over.

Crimes Legislation Amendment (Telecommunications Offences and Other Measures) Act (No. 2) 2004

474.6 Interference with facilities

(1) A person is guilty of an offence if the person tampers with, or interferes with, a facility owned or operated by:

(a) a carrier; or

(b) a carriage service provider; or

(c) a nominated carrier.

Penalty: Imprisonment for 1 year.

(2) For the purposes of an offence against subsection (1), absolute liability applies to the physical element of circumstance of the offence, that the facility is owned or operated by a carrier, a carriage service provider or a nominated carrier.

(3) A person is guilty of an offence if:

(a) the person tampers with, or interferes with, a facility owned or operated by:

(i) a carrier; or

(ii) a carriage service provider; or

(iii) a nominated carrier; and

(b) this conduct results in hindering the normal operation of a carriage service supplied by a carriage service provider.

Penalty: Imprisonment for 2 years.

(4) For the purposes of an offence against subsection (3), absolute liability applies to the following physical elements of circumstance of the offence:

(a) that the facility is owned or operated by a carrier, a carriage service provider or a nominated carrier;

(b) that the carriage service is supplied by a carriage service provider.

(5) A person is guilty of an offence if:

(a) the person uses or operates any apparatus or device (whether or not it is comprised in, connected to or used in connection with a telecommunications network); and

(b) this conduct results in hindering the normal operation of a carriage service supplied by a carriage service provider.

Penalty: Imprisonment for 2 years.

(6) For the purposes of an offence against subsection (5), absolute liability applies to the physical element of circumstance of the offence, that the carriage service is supplied by a carriage service provider.

(7) A person is not criminally responsible for an offence against subsection (5) if:

(a) the person is, at the time of the offence, a law enforcement officer, or an intelligence or security officer, acting in good faith in the course of his or her duties; and

(b) the conduct of the person is reasonable in the circumstances for the purpose of performing that duty.

Note 1: A defendant bears an evidential burden in relation to the matter in this subsection, see subsection 13.3(3).

Note 2: See also subsection 475.1(2) for the interaction between this defence and the Radiocommunications Act 1992.

(8) For the purposes of this section, a facility is taken to be owned or operated by a nominated carrier if the Telecommunications Act 1997 applies, under section 81A of that Act, as if that facility were owned or operated by the nominated carrier.

Bicyclecamper · Guru

Well, I will tell you what this going to be good for, me, when I am on the bike, I carry a sat phone. When I ring home, or my daughter, whilst I am camping, I have to limit the time, spent on the sat. phone, because it's pretty expensive. I have always wanted to use the phone boxes. They are not coin machines anymore, so you need a card. Well out here in the bush, in the evening, or on the weekend, their is no open places to get a card. I will now be able to pull up a a phone box, and ring home, and my daughter for a good conversation, not the 3 minutes, I am limited to on the Sat. phone. This will also be helpful in places where there is no signal, and you will be able to just use the phone which is in the middle of nowhere. It is very unusual, for a Liberal Government to be generous like this and to give something to us for free like this for no reason. This will save a lot of lives. Excellent idea.

-- Edited by Bicyclecamper on Tuesday 3rd of August 2021 10:44:08 PM

Bicyclecamper · Guru

Possum, this Act of 2004, does not relate to Peter 67's , situation which was probably happening in the 50's to 60's. I am pretty sure they were not getting into trouble for doing that , as well as, they would not have left the telephone exchange in a position where it would be vulnerable. No need to publicise this act in relation to his comment, which related to before you were likely born.

oldbloke · Guru

Possum3 wrote:
peter67 wrote:
I miss the old telephone boxes with the 6v screw top twin terminal batteries on a shelf up the top. We used to run an exchange program with those batteries, when we needed another 6v battery to power the glow plug in our model aircraft engines we just went to the nearest phone box and swapped them over.

Crimes Legislation Amendment (Telecommunications Offences and Other Measures) Act (No. 2) 2004
474.6 Interference with facilities
             (1) A person is guilty of an offence if the person tampers with, or interferes with, a facility owned or operated by:
                     (a) a carrier; or
                     (b) a carriage service provider; or
                     (c) a nominated carrier.
Penalty: Imprisonment for 1 year.
             (2) For the purposes of an offence against subsection (1), absolute liability applies to the physical element of circumstance of the offence, that the facility is owned or operated by a carrier, a carriage service provider or a nominated carrier.
             (3) A person is guilty of an offence if:
                     (a) the person tampers with, or interferes with, a facility owned or operated by:
                              (i) a carrier; or
                             (ii) a carriage service provider; or
                            (iii) a nominated carrier; and
                     (b) this conduct results in hindering the normal operation of a carriage service supplied by a carriage service provider.
Penalty: Imprisonment for 2 years.
             (4) For the purposes of an offence against subsection (3), absolute liability applies to the following physical elements of circumstance of the offence:
                     (a) that the facility is owned or operated by a carrier, a carriage service provider or a nominated carrier;
                     (b) that the carriage service is supplied by a carriage service provider.
             (5) A person is guilty of an offence if:
                     (a) the person uses or operates any apparatus or device (whether or not it is comprised in, connected to or used in connection with a telecommunications network); and
                     (b) this conduct results in hindering the normal operation of a carriage service supplied by a carriage service provider.
Penalty: Imprisonment for 2 years.
             (6) For the purposes of an offence against subsection (5), absolute liability applies to the physical element of circumstance of the offence, that the carriage service is supplied by a carriage service provider.
             (7) A person is not criminally responsible for an offence against subsection (5) if:
                     (a) the person is, at the time of the offence, a law enforcement officer, or an intelligence or security officer, acting in good faith in the course of his or her duties; and
                     (b) the conduct of the person is reasonable in the circumstances for the purpose of performing that duty.
Note 1:       A defendant bears an evidential burden in relation to the matter in this subsection, see subsection 13.3(3).
Note 2:       See also subsection 475.1(2) for the interaction between this defence and the Radiocommunications Act 1992.
             (8) For the purposes of this section, a facility is taken to be owned or operated by a nominated carrier if the Telecommunications Act 1997 applies, under section 81A of that Act, as if that facility were owned or operated by the nominated carrier.

Sheet, does that mean I'm in strife for shoving screwed up news paper up the money outlet hole to get sixpence for lollies? Lol

Possum3 · Guru

Bicyclecamper wrote:
Possum, this Act of 2004, does not relate to Peter 67's , situation which was probably happening in the 50's to 60's. I am pretty sure they were not getting into trouble for doing that , as well as, they would not have left the telephone exchange in a position where it would be vulnerable. No need to publicise this act in relation to his comment, which related to before you were likely born.

Ric, I can assure you if the crime was committed by Peter, it certainly was not before I was born.

Regardless of which Act was in force at the time of the alleged offence; 1. It would still carry a severe Penalty. 2. It could have severe repercussions if a Carrier Service was unable to be used. 3. It displays contempt for other persons, particularly if bragging about it.

Bicyclecamper · Guru

Well, Possum, he should be arrested now charged, maybe bashed and put in gaol for it, I am sure the phones that he did it too, are now inoperable and someone will lose their life because of what he admitted too that happened back in the 60's.

Whenarewethere · Guru

Some years ago I reported to Telstra that one of their asbestos pits was leaving lose asbestos on the footpath. I contacted them a few times as kids were playing in it. Two years later they finally fixed fix.

Maybe a few Telstra executives should go to gaol due to all the asbestos pits around the country.

Possum3 · Guru

Half of the problems with society's breakdown began with tolerating minor crimes and those who deliberately damage and vandalise Public and Private property - I'm sure all that think this is funny would be bleating and crying for revenge if the property belonged to them and/or they were adversely effected by the lack of amenity of the damaged property.

PMG installed many asbestos fibre reinforced cement pits, which were inherited by Telecom when PMG was divided to Postal and Telecommunications Divisions in 1975. Australia phased out the use of asbestos from the 1980s and banned its use, sale or import in 2003. Before it was banned, asbestos was used in over 3000 products including construction materials and vehicles.

In 1975 the PMG was split into three bodies. Its postal operations were devolved to Australia Post and its domestic telecommunications operations to the Australian Telecommunications Commission, trading as Telecom Australia.Telecom merged with the Overseas Telecommunications Corporation and changed its name to Telstra, firstly overseas in 1993 and domestically in 1995.

Ipso Facto Telstra Executives were not involved in supplying or installing any "pits" and were not culpable for any crime or misdemeanor, in their installation.

Santa · Guru

For goodness sake! what is it about some on this forum? this is a good news story, not everyone has a mobile phone, Telstra have enabled the disadvantaged the opportunity of making free calls in times of emergency.

So what do we see? a cynical/curmudgeonly mob in a pile on, whinging and complaining about every minor gripe they can dredge up from the distant past.

Bicyclecamper is the only person to recognise it for what it is, a great initiative. confuse

dogbox · Guru

peter67 wrote:

I miss the old telephone boxes with the 6v screw top twin terminal batteries on a shelf up the top. We used to run an exchange program with those batteries, when we needed another 6v battery to power the glow plug in our model aircraft engines we just went to the nearest phone box and swapped them over.

yes i must admit to being a criminal as well . one of my sources of pocket money as a kid was to put a tissue up the coin return, then after school do the rounds pull the tissue out collect coins then put tissue back. repeat. plenty of pocket money

Cupie · Guru

dogbox wrote:
peter67 wrote:

I miss the old telephone boxes with the 6v screw top twin terminal batteries on a shelf up the top. We used to run an exchange program with those batteries, when we needed another 6v battery to power the glow plug in our model aircraft engines we just went to the nearest phone box and swapped them over.

yes i must admit to being a criminal as well . one of my sources of pocket money as a kid was to put a tissue up the coin return, then after school do the rounds pull the tissue out collect coins then put tissue back. repeat. plenty of pocket money

In my very young days I was a PMG Technician/trainee, sometimes employed on PT maintenance. We always had bags of coins salvaged from those chocked up return chutes & lots more from inside the mechanism (particularly the common Multi Coin/ A & B button types) where the coins had jumped off the chutes or the coin tins had overflowed. We even provided the Telephone Directories as a source of paper to stuff up the return chute.

Of course we always called up the Telephonists and had them listen to & record the number of coins as we fed them back into the PT. LOL (all you had to do was to strike the sounders (bell gong or spring) with a screwdriver to make the same noise as a passing coin).

The first thing that we did when attending (or even when out of a Saturday night) a PT was to press the B button and collect whatever came out of the coin return chute.

But it wasn't unknown for our Investigations Branch to set traps for unwary Techs.

BTW .. I think that it is a very good move by Telstra to make them free.

I expect that they still have a community obligation as part of their licence conditions to provide PTs perhaps at a defined rate, and BTW, part subsidised by a levy on other licenced carriers.

It may well have reached the stage where there was little profit in that part of the business. They aught to be looking for more publicity about this 'good corporate citizen' act.

BTW .. re the previous comment about 6v screw top batteries in PTs. --- I can't recall 6v ones but 2x1.5v screw terminal dry cells were used in all Magneto era phones & mounted in timber or metal battery boxes (painted green with black stipple) usually under the phone book ledge in PTs. All you had to do was series up 4 x 1.5's. Plenty of PTs around in those days to provide a ready supply.

No local batteries were used in post Magneto era phones.

Another digression .. the magneto era PTs were usually the 'Long Tom" type that had long cylindrical coin tins that made excellent home safes.

-- Edited by Cupie on Wednesday 4th of August 2021 04:27:48 PM

-- Edited by Cupie on Wednesday 4th of August 2021 04:29:49 PM

Tony Bev · Guru

Just had a thought, for some out of the way regions, to snare some of the part time travelers

smile Come to sunny (insert the name of your town here), and enjoy our free telephone service smile

On a serious note, I started this topic, because in all honesty, I find that payphones are few and far between
I can remember plenty of payphones, before the age of the mobile telephones

As others have already said, I must be walking around with my eyes closed

I do recall one person on this forum, (apologies as I have forgot who it was)
Who said that there would come a time, when the telephone services would be free

I was actually unaware of the 230,000 emergency calls from the payphones, until I read the article
For this reason, I hope that they are never removed

Dicko1 · Senior Member

Payphones have never been profitable for Telstra. I was a remote area tech for 20 years in top end of Oz. Used to travel by chopper and small planes, as well as barges and 4wds, to every remote area. Payphones were often vandalised, abused, mistreated and faulty. Fly out to a remote community at $900 an hour for a Bell Jetranger and just to look at one damaged payphone cost well over $3000 a day visiting various sites. Add the damaged parts, my labour and bits and bobs and $5000 a day was quite easily achieved. Multiply by 6 days a week and suddenly $30,000 a week to look after payphones a week out bush. I was one of around 6 techs. Probably 4 full time choppers in the top end and 50-70 techies all up. Payphones lost a lot of money but Telstra, like other carriers, had a Universal Obligation to meet>
6 hours max talk time is a bloody joke! The remote area phones will now be used 24 hours a day for little more than talking crap to neighbours.

Peter_n_Margaret · Guru

Dicko1 wrote:
6 hours max talk time is a bloody joke! The remote area phones will now be used 24 hours a day for little more than talking crap to neighbours.

So what.

Talk time does not add any cost to the service and if they are locally "valued" then vandalism will likely be reduced by the local peer pressures.

A great move by Telstra. Credit where credit is due.

Cheers,

Peter

Dick0 · Guru

Thanks Tony,

A bit more info. smile

Telstra payphones are now free to use in Melbourne (timeout.com)

My town has 10 payphones.

-- Edited by Dick0 on Thursday 5th of August 2021 02:27:19 PM

terriwa · Senior Member

On the old A B phones a popstick was the easiest way to get a free call.

peatop · Senior Member

When I lived in Melbourne back in the 80'sI had to do an emergency shutdown of a plat I was running, I then had to ring my supervisor (2am in the morning) the location was Dandenong I drove around for seemed like hours trying to find a pt that worked, finally at the post office 1/10 worked. it turned out that the reason for the emergency was false but it it had been real finding a working phone was crazy. but hey that's not telstra it was vandalism before the introduction of mobiles as a main phone system public phones were alot of peoples only source of communication in an emergency.

Those 6v batteries were my first storage for my solar outfit back in the early 90's, the local exchange was one of the last non automatic in the country we used to have to dial 0 to ring anywhere out of our local town and to ring local it was just the last 3 numbers, there was lots of things that used to go on withing the exchange area crossed lines, calls to unintended numbers, calls heard over the CFA radio located at the coms officers home, I was there one night to hear a drug deal going down over the phone biggrin

I never put paper up the coin return but I used to flick the hook to make free calls on those phones with the coin roller on the top.

kudos to Telstra for making calls free in Melbourne but Australia wide would be better wink

The Belmont Bear · Guru

When we were first married back in the late 70s we moved to Karratha in WA and once a week we would use the local public telephone box to make long distance calls back home to Newcastle. We would save up heaps of 20c pieces during the week and continually feed them into the phone during the call - lucky if a bag full of coins lasted us 10 or 15 minutes. We eventually had the phone connected at our house but I dont think making long distance calls on your own phone was that much cheaper - at least we didnt need the coins.

BB

-- Edited by The Belmont Bear on Friday 6th of August 2021 02:38:00 PM

chappy · Senior Member

Good move Telstra! The last time I used a payphone was June 2011 as I told my hubby! He doubted me until I reminded him that when we stayed at Lake Argyle we had been without mobile reception for a over week and bought a phone card at the van park to ring our children! Copped an earful from them as they were worried about us! So I hope the free phone will allow families to keep in touch.