Editing Payphone (section)

===United States===
[[File:1C Payphone - Bell System, Made by Western Electric, July 1979.png|thumb|upright|1C Payphone - Bell System, Made by Western Electric]]

"Dead-heads"--non-subscriber users who make a call at a place of business and do not pay for it--may have influenced the development of the payphone. The Wisconsin Telephone Company in 1893, for example, attempted to put an end to this practice by implementing ten-cent coin slots so that users had to pay for the call. The idea behind this was to reduce the financial stress a smaller business may face from having dead-heads.<ref>{{Cite news|date=17 December 1893|title=No More Dead-Heads|work=Milwaukee Daily Sentinel}}</ref>

Payphones were preceded by pay stations, staffed by telephone company attendants who would collect rapid payment for calls placed. The Connecticut Telephone Co. reportedly had a payphone in their New Haven office beginning 1 June 1880; the fee was handed to an attendant. In 1889, a public telephone with a coin-pay mechanism was installed at the Hartford Bank in [[Hartford, Connecticut]], by the [[Southern New England Telephone Company|Southern New England Telephone Co]]. It was a "post-pay" machine; coins were inserted at the end of a conversation. The coin mechanism was invented by [[William Gray (inventor)|William Gray]]; he was issued a series of patents for his devices, beginning with {{US patent|454470}} issued 23 June 1891 for a "Signal Device for Telephone Pay-Stations" which rang a bell for each coin inserted. He subsequently founded the Telephone Pay Station Co. in 1891.<ref name=Robertson2011>{{cite book|last=Robertson|first=Patrick|title=Robertson's Book of Firsts|year=2011|publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing USA|isbn=978-1608197385}}</ref> The "pre-pay" phone debuted in Chicago in 1898.<ref name=Newton2006>{{cite book|last=Newton|first=Harry|title=Newton's Telecom Dictionary|year=2006|publisher=Backbeat Books|isbn=1578203198|page=687}}</ref>

In the late 1920s, the cost of a payphone call in the United States was two cents. In the 1930s, calls were five cents; the cost of a typical local call had risen to 10 cents by the 1960s, 15 cents during the 1970s, then 25 cents in the 1980s. By the early 21st century, the price of a local call was usually fifty cents. The rise of [[mobile phones]] led to the near extinction of payphones by the early 21st century. [[New York City]], which once had 30,000, removed its last public payphone in 2022.<ref name=":2">{{cite news |last1=Sharp |first1=Sarah Rose |title=NYC's Last Public Pay Phone Is Now a Museum Artifact |url=https://hyperallergic.com/741920/nycs-last-public-pay-phone-is-now-a-museum-artifact/ |access-date=23 July 2022 |work=Hyperallergic |date=June 22, 2022}}</ref>

The [[Bell System]] payphone took nickels (5¢), dimes (10¢), and quarters (25¢); a strip of metal along the top had holes the size of each coin. The US slang term "{{linktext|drop a dime}}" means to [[Informant|inform the authorities]] about another person, originally by placing a call from a pay phone. It can also refer to the placing of a phone call for social purposes. The term has risen in popularity in the US since the 1980s, and is still in use since 2000, despite the price increase of pay phones and the rise of mobile phones.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Osmond |first1=Candace |title=Drop a Dime (or Dropping Dimes) - Origin & Meaning |url=https://grammarist.com/idiom/drop-a-dime/ |access-date=December 25, 2023 |work=Grammarist |date=November 25, 2019}}</ref>

[[File:Verizon payphone on a street corner (United States) pd.3.jpg|thumb|upright|left|A [[Verizon]] payphone on a street corner in [[Silver Spring, Maryland|Silver Spring, MD]]]]

Payphone calls generally cost 5¢ into the 1950s and 10¢ until the mid-1980s. Rates standardized at 25¢ during the mid-1980s to early 1990s. The Bell System was required to apply for increases through state [[Public utilities commission|public service commissions]]. Therefore, the actual increases took effect at different times in different locations.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1981/12/14/bell-pushes-25-cents-as-nationwide-pay-phone-rate/4f7219ce-b1be-415f-a88f-0f219f3d23e8/|title=Bell Pushes 25 Cents As Nationwide Pay-Phone Rate|last=Sinclair|first=Molly|date=14 December 1981|newspaper=The Washington Post|access-date=28 June 2018|language=en-US|issn=0190-8286}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|last=Yarrow|first=Andrew L.|date=October 19, 1992|title=Goodbye, Dime Call?; 25-Cent Toll Sought in Connecticut|language=en|work=[[The New York Times]]|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1992/10/19/nyregion/goodbye-dime-call-25-cent-toll-sought-in-connecticut.html|access-date=28 June 2018}}</ref> The small town of [[Beggs, Oklahoma]] attracted national attention in the late 1970s when public payphones offering calls for only five cents had been essentially phased out across the country, but Beggs still had one.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1978/12/21/archives/fivecent-phone-calls-ending-in-louisiana.html |title=Five-Cent Phone Calls Ending in Louisiana |newspaper=The New York Times |date=21 December 1978 |access-date=17 July 2020}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1988&dat=19770820&id=nWciAAAAIBAJ&pg=5097,4472112 |title=Deposit One Nickel, Please |work=The Argus-Press |date=20 August 1977|access-date=17 July 2020}}</ref> As of 2020, Beggs still has a nickel payphone, maintained in front of the Beggs Telephone Company office.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.beggstelco.net/ |title=Home Page |publisher=Beggs Telephone Company |access-date=17 July 2020}}</ref>

After the [[breakup of the Bell System]] in 1984, it was not long before independent stores selling telephones opened up. After that, privately owned payphones hit the market. Sources differ as to whether the peak number of payphones in the United States was 2.6 million in 1995<ref>{{cite web|author=CHRISTIAN BERG |work=Morning Call |url=https://www.mcall.com/2001/03/18/pay-phones-reached-their-peak-in-95-slot-design-to-neighborhood-store-they-served-america-well/ |title=Pay phones reached their peak in "95 – Morning Call |publisher=Articles.mcall.com |date=18 March 2001 |access-date=10 April 2014}}</ref> or 2.2 million in 2000.<ref>{{cite web|author=Howard Yune |url=http://napavalleyregister.com/news/local/pay-phones-forgotten-but-not-gone/article_6cf4ba4c-f48d-11e1-97c6-0019bb2963f4.html |title=Pay phones: forgotten but not gone |publisher=Napavalleyregister.com |date=1 September 2012 |access-date=10 April 2014}}</ref> Since then the number of payphones in the United States has declined. In July 2009, [[AT&T]] officially stopped supporting the Public Payphone service. Over 139,000 locations were sold in 2009. At the end of 2012, the [[Federal Communications Commission]] (FCC) reported the number of payphones at 243,487<ref>{{cite news 
| url = https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/12/17/pay-phone-decline/4049599/ 
| title = As pay phones vanish, so does lifeline for many 
| date = 17 December 2013
| newspaper = USAToday}}</ref> generating $362 million – falling to $286 million by 2015.<ref>{{cite book|title=Universal Service Monitoring Report|publisher=[[Federal Communications Commission]]|page=8|url=https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-343025A1.pdf|access-date=14 November 2017}}</ref> The major carriers, AT&T and [[Verizon]], exited the business, leaving the market to independent payphone companies.<ref>{{cite news | first = Greg | last = Bensinger | title = Era ends as Verizon drops most of its pay phones | date = 12 October 2011 | publisher = MarketWatch, Inc | url = http://www.marketwatch.com/story/era-ends-as-verizon-drops-most-of-its-pay-phones-2011-10-12 | work = [[The Wall Street Journal]] Market Watch | access-date = 23 January 2013}}</ref> In 2018, it was estimated 100,000 payphones remained in the U.S., with roughly a fifth of them located in New York.<ref>[https://money.cnn.com/2018/03/19/news/companies/pay-phones/ "There are still more than 100,000 pay phones operating in the US"]. Retrieved 19 March 2018.</ref> Four years later, NYC removed its last public one, though some private pay phones remained on public property, and four full-length booths still stood on the Upper West Side in May 2022.<ref name=":2" /><ref>{{Cite news |date=2021-10-25 |title=Upper West Side Is Home To NYC's Last 4 Phone Booths |url=https://patch.com/new-york/upper-west-side-nyc/upper-west-side-home-nycs-last-four-remaining-phone-booths |access-date=2023-01-11 |website=Upper West Side, NY Patch}}</ref>