Oceania

gallery- payphones currently in service

Made by "Comex Telecom" in Taiwan
www.comex.com.tw

 Many thanks to Derek Diggles.

Distribution of Telstra’s Public Payphones.

The forerunners to the current public Telstra Smart Payphones were the GreenPhone (CT3) range of public payphones that were first introduced into Australia in 1972, when automation of the telecommunications network allowed for direct dialling of STD and IDD calls. Other significant payphone products which have been introduced by Telstra in the past 30 years are the:

Goldphone (introduced in 1985);
Creditphone (introduced in 1987 and withdrawn this year); 
Bluephone (introduced in 1989) 
Telstra Phonecard (introduced in 1989)
Phonecard Express and Phonecard Card/Coin (introduced in 1992 and withdrawn over the last two years).
Telstra Phonecard in chip card form introduced in 1997
Telstra Smart Payphone introduced in 1997 with a number of models today including card only and robust hybrid models for remote areas and areas of potential vandalism. Telstra Smart Payphone models make up over 97% of all Telstra public payphones operated today.

Telstra has played a key role in the provision of Payphone services in Australia for the past 110 years, and continues its strong commitment to payphones today. Telstra operates over 33,000 public payphones, provides and services approximately 30,000 sold or rented private payphones and leases over 3,000 payphone access lines to other competitive payphone providers.
Deregulation of the payphones industry has resulted in numerous alternative providers of payphones and payphone terminals. There are a variety of payphone operators, different types of terminals, pricing schemes, payment options and functionality in the market.

History of the Telephone in NSW. Bateman J Mar 1980. ISBN 0959478701

Public Telephones- From Electro-mechanical to Electronic Public Servants

No attempt will be made to include public telephone cabinets, since these were many and varied throughout Australia and are a subject, which would need to be covered separately.

Public telephones were first introduced in Australia in the early 1890s, the first in new South Wales being installed in the telegraph (receiving) room at the Sydney GPO on March 8, 1893. By 1905 there were 114 public telephones, and at the end of December 1913 there were 916 installed in the Sydney metropolitan area. Today, public telephones are known as 'payphones' a marketing term, which I feel merely, plays with words. Much of my early `area' work in the 1950s involved the installation and maintenance of many of these electromechanical devices, and I will always refer to them as `public telephones' - a telephone for the public to use.

In 1894, the New South Wales Government Gazette dated August 22 published regulations relating to public telephones, which, in brief, stated that where the line length was not greater than three miles, the charge for a three-minute call was sixpence. Where the line was over three miles and under ten miles in length, the charge for the same period of time was one shilling. If the length of line was over ten miles, special rates would apply. These rates changed after Federation, when the Postmaster General's Department was established, as the local call charge from public telephones was one penny.

Not a great deal of information is available about the installation of early public telephones, but it is known that the demand of these phones increased dramatically during the First World War. Many were installed at Post Offices in built up areas, and some at non-official Post Offices in regional areas. Public telephones appeared in public streets during the 1920s when use of the telephone became more common.

In early times the telephone instruments used were the same types that were installed in subscriber's residences, and prior to 1914 Swedish (Commonwealth) Ericssons were used. After 1916, when the British Ericsson telephone (rectangular box type) became available, the use of the ornate Commonwealth Ericsson was discontinued due to vandalism and theft of the easily removable hand piece.

Payment for calls made on the early magneto system involved paying for the call in advance at the Post Office and then waiting for the connection to be made by the telephonist (not `Hello Girls', as portrayed in the recent BBC television series) to a public phone outside the Post Office, which in some small rural areas would be installed on the verandah. This method was unsatisfactory when the wanted number was unavailable and the money had to be refunded to the caller. In some larger Post Offices the public telephone was installed on the public side of the counter, where privacy was lacking and everyone could hear part of the conversation. Later types resulted in the coin box being fitted to the telephone, which was installed in a bureau or cabinet outside the Post Office. In this situation, the telephonist would ask the caller to insert his coins prior to the call commencing, but only after a successful connection had been established. Coins entered the coin box via the coin head and a chute, which activated a mechanism, giving a signal to the telephonist of how many coins (pennies) had been inserted. This system did not need to provide for refund coins.

The system of pre-payment of calls continued into the early 1930s, when the Postmaster General's Department (PMG) adopted a 'multi-coin' attachment, which was developed by the British Post Office (manufactured by Hall Telephone Accessories Ltd.). This allowed callers to make local, trunk and phonogram calls from the same telephone. At the time this telephone was being installed, public telephones were being provided at an increasing rate and away from Post Offices, where trunk calls would have normally been connected. The new attachment accepted three coin types - penny, sixpence and shilling, which enabled local or trunk calls to be made by the telephonist from manual exchanges. Automatic local calls and telephonist connected trunk line calls from automatic exchanges were also facilitated. Each coin triggered a signal, which was heard by the telephonist, ensuring that the correct payment had been made when the caller was instructed to press button `A', permitting the coins to pass into the coin tin. Pressing button `B', which enabled a refund to be made, would give a warning signal to the telephonist and the call would not be allowed to proceed. This type of telephone underwent many changes to accommodate increasing call charges, and in 1964 it was converted to accept sixpence, shilling and two shillings. The changeover to decimal currency in February 1966 had a minimal effect, as the decimal coins were of the same gauge and diameter as their predecessors. Some `mufti-coin' telephones were converted to accept twenty-cent coins only, but in New South Wales these were restricted to popular coastal resort areas, and were used to originate STD calls only. The coin box attachment was orange in color, a distinguishing factor from the standard (black) three coin type.

The barrel type phone was generally known as the variable tariff type, but this term only applied to a phase of its life when it was fitted with an adjustable penny mechanism, which allowed alterations to tariff rates without making major changes to the mechanism. There were two basic variable tariff type phones; one with a long breech to house a long coin tin, and the other a short breech, which held a shorter coin tin. They were installed in locations appropriate to their calling rate.

The Goldphone was intended for use in the generally supervised small business market. As a successor to the familiar Victa Red, it provided a service to subscribers and an attractive source of revenue for the business. The Goldphone was the first leased public telephone to provide STD and International Subscriber Dialing (ISD) access, electronic coin validation and the display of remaining credit.

The most profound development of public telephones was the need for ongoing engineering design to make the phones less prone to vandalism, which over the years ranged from minor damage (chewing gum being placed in coin heads, rendering the instrument unserviceable), to almost complete destruction. However, the most costly of repairs was due to attempts to remove the coin tins, which in the case of the A/B multi-coin telephone would hold as much as $200, a considerable sum of money for its time. Damage in most cases amounted to hundreds of dollars (a few costing thousands) where explosives were used in an attempt to separate the coin tin from the telephone, resulting in the cabinet being damaged. One incident recorded the whole public telephone cabinet, with phone intact, being removed from its base by the use of a winch attached to a motor vehicle. Vandalism resulted in the removal of some public telephones in Sydney during the late 1970s where these telephones were installed in areas having low calling rates, and the cost of replacing instruments which were repeatedly damaged became financially unjustifiable.

Modern public telephones are now far more sophisticated than ever before, as the introduction of a card-based public telephone service in 1986 saw many changes being made. The Cardphone accepted only magnetically striped debit and credit cards issued by financial institutions, and did not have the facility to accept coins. Since 1986 further developments have followed whereby electronic public telephones have the capability of reporting (via a modem) a number of statistics, including their own faults, abnormal call rates and some acts of vandalism, making the modern public telephone a smart electronic public servant.

Ray White commenced his apprenticeship with the Postmaster General's Department (PMG) in 1951 and served in many country telephone district of New South Wales until 1966.After that time the author maintained a specific interest in all types of telephones, so much so that the lure of the instruments and the love of a multi-disciplined trade led him to devote more of his time to authentic restoration work.

back row: Easiphone, Redphone (privately supplied)

middle row: Goldphone, Bluephone, Short-barrelled Variable Tarrif, A and B button box.

front row: Gray paystation (?), Cardphone, CT1, CT3, Domestic Redphone.