Pay phone, "no incoming calls" - why is the number on it?

Factual Questions
1

I figure I’d better ask this question now, before the world moves on, and people ask, “What’s a pay phone?”

So I’m standing at the transit center, and the station where my bus stops is next to the bank of pay phones. First, I reflect that it’s not something you see everywhere anymore, now that everyone’s carrying their mobiles around. Then I notice the little sign above the cradle where the handset hangs: “outgoing calls only, no incoming calls.” I remember when this started a number of years ago, to make it more difficult for drug dealers to protect themselves by accepting calls with the relatively anonymous pay phone, or whatever the rationale was.

Then I see, on the phone: its phone number has been printed on one of those little cardstock strips, and slid into the rectangular slot behind the plastic window insert. Clearly, this is not useful information, if nobody can call the phone. In a sane world, I thought, there would be no reason to provide the phone number if it can’t be used.

But then, waiting for the bus and pondering, I came up with two possible rational explanations, to be offered here for consideration and, hopefully, enlightenment.

Hypothesis one: It’s cheaper. As the need for pay phones dwindles, the manufacturing base shrinks, until the production of the hardware becomes a small specialty niche, for two and maybe three players. Also, not every region enforces the “no incoming calls” rule. So if you’ve got a small-to-medium sized company making everybody’s phones, it’s easier just to make them all the same, including adding the slip with the number, and ship them out that way, rather than maintaining two separate production paths, or keeping track of which phones are going to which buyer, and adding or not adding the number slip accordingly. The buyers will affix the “no incoming calls” sticker or not, depending on where the phones are to be installed, and then they leave the phone number, because removing it isn’t a priority.

Hypothesis two: It serves some actual purpose, say for maintenance. If there’s a problem with a phone, and a technician has to visit, it’s easy to see, by glancing at the phone number, that one has arrived at, and is working on, the correct phone. The alternative would be referring to a serial number, possibly requiring opening the device, which would add time and annoyance. The presence of the number, then, has real utility.

Any telecommunications types able to shed light on this?

2

Hypothesis three: it’s forbidden, not disabled. Did you try calling the number?

3

The number is still useful for identifying calls made from the phone for tracking purposes purposes, such as billing and caller id logs. You might as well know what number is going to show up on various records for the call you are making.

4

Hypothesis one can’t be right. The manufacturer doesn’t set the phone number, that’s set by the phone company and the line it’s connected. They may make a slot for a card to go in with the number on, but they can’t print the card, because they won’t know the number.

5

I’d also think you’d need something to identify the phone for the signal to get through to it. Sort of like the IP address on your computer. And it’s easiest to just assign a phone number to it.

6

I’m gonna third maintenance issues. I’m also wondering if there is a switch inside the phone somewhere to turn incoming calls back on for when they are working on it. Also, that number is probably just there from when incoming calls were allowed.

7

It has been seven years since I worked in the pay phone business, but unless matters have changed dramatically in that time, I can put the kibosh on this one. The manufacture of the phones and the printing of the information placards were two very different businesses.

The placards are contracted out to a printer, with very exact specifications that will vary over time and place based on the capabilities of the phone and local laws and regulations. And, those placards have to be changed out periodically. It wasn’t a one-time, one-size-fits-all operation.

As others have said, the number is useful as an identifier, for maintenance, customer complaints, etc.

8

Even if it does not accept incoming calls, it still has all the hardware associated with a normal phone. You need to have a way of identifying all of the resources used by that phone. From the handset to the line card in the central office. It’s much simpler to treat it like a normal phone, assign it a number, and flip the bit in the central office configuration database that says whether that line accepts incoming calls.

9

Somewhat OT, but I once just for the hell of it answered a ringing pay phone in the subway in NYC. “Columbus Circle Subway Station, how may I direct your call?” CLICK! Sound of an emphatic New York hang-up.

I always wonder if I fucked up a drug deal. Seeing as I’m still alive, I’ll assume not.

10

Uh… yeah, that’s true, isn’t it.

The banging and groaning you can faintly hear in the distance is me punishing myself for being stupid.

11

Not necessarily. My ex-wife calls me from a payphone at her place of employment on a pretty regular basis that shows up “Las Vegas, NV” and a Las Vegas area code and number…thing is, she’s calling from a hospital in Mississippi.

The first time I saw it come up, I assumed it was a collection agent so I didn’t answer. I Googled the number and found that different pay phones all over the US show that number.

There were some interesting anecdotes about teenagers getting in trouble with their parents because they were supposed to be in Buffalo, NY (or wherever) and the caller ID showed they were in Las Vegas. :smack:

12

It’s also useful as an identifier when someone calls 911 from a payphone.

13

I’ve received calls on such phones. I call someone and have them call me back. It doesn’t ring but you can hear some muffled thing happening inside the box. I pick up. “Hello?” Sure enough.

I suppose if you found a phone that wasn’t working and wanted to report it, an easy way would be with the phone number.

14

A very important reason: the phone number is used to record the amount of money collected from the phone when the guy from the phone company comes around to empty it. The phone company is very careful about that, recording the collections and comparing it to the electronic record of calls made at that pay phone since the money box was last emptied.

15

I think the OP is not asking why it has a telephone number but why bother to print the number on the phone itself? Why not just put, “No incoming calls,” and no phone number

I know I’ve called my home phone collect from those type of pay phones and the number shows up on my caller ID as Pay phone with the telephone number

16

That’s exactly my question. And “it’s the easiest way for somebody looking at the phone to identify it, even if that number has become divorced from its originally intended function” is an explanation that makes sense.

17

I used to know a trick back years ago where you dialed a number, then the pay phones number, hung up and listened for a tone and then hung up again and the phone would start ringing. Maybe that trick still lives on and that’s why the number is there.

If memory serves the trick we knew was some sort of phone company switch check.

Also, if you find a payphone that takes incoming calls it’s fun to call it from a cell phone near by and mess with people.

18

Do emergency services not have caller ID?

19

So people can make collect calls from them, maybe?

20

They generally have access to the phone company database, however, it’s standard practice to verify the number calling in the initial stages of the call.