Can you still call phone boxes???

[zlcrazy]

Hi all,

As the title says, can you still call phone boxes??

I know many years ago you could but just wondered if you still can???

Anyone know and if so, how???

[cs123]

From memory privately owned coin phones can receive incoming calls but Telstra owned cannot. Although that was too many years ago now so I may be wrong.....

[danzvtil]

a what?

[FGII-XR6]

You could never call Australian public phones.
you can call public phones in American movies

[Tonz]

Years ago could do it in NZ damn that was fun esp when you saw the people going to answer. he he he

[xisled]

Growing up in the early 2000's, people use to used phone booths for target practice. They aimed the car and rammed them.

In my area I grew up, when one was fixed the next morning someone had driven through it. After a few months, they removed all phone boxes from the side of the street.

But back on topic. I have never seen a public phone ring.

[redxm]

Used to be secret squirral telecom number they used for testing. 000 had access to this info incase they had to call someone back.
Cant remember the last time i saw a payphone

[Swathe]

You could call them but they had the ringers removed so it didn't make an audible sound. At one point their were some documents getting around in the early 90's that had most of the phone boxes listed by street address and their corresponding number.

[supershifty]

Originally Posted by redxm

Used to be secret squirral telecom number they used for testing. 000 had access to this info incase they had to call someone back.
Cant remember the last time i saw a payphone

Used to be 199, you'd dial it and hang up and the phone would ring to check if you had a line to the exchange. I just tried it on my cordless landline and it didn't work, I'm with Optus though. Back in the old days when there was only Telecom and corded phones it worked.

Never been able to dial a phonebox directly in Oz to my knowledge from a private phone.

Cheers!

[XBROO]

Originally Posted by supershifty

Used to be 199, you'd dial it and hang up and the phone would ring to check if you had a line to the exchange. I just tried it on my cordless landline and it didn't work, I'm with Optus though. Back in the old days when there was only Telecom and corded phones it worked.

Never been able to dial a phonebox directly in Oz to my knowledge from a private phone.

Cheers!

Dam you beat me to shifty, yeah we used to dial 199 and walk away and watch who would answer it. Used to do it at home and see how many times my mum would answer '4KQ is my radio station'.

[wicksy]

the only time i see people use phone boxes, they are real shady looking drugged out people

[MDS69]

You use to be able to dial 22123 or 12722123 and an electronic voice would read out the number you were calling from. I haven't done it for years so couldn't tell you if it still works.

[xxx000]

it was 19123 for that service

[stev3n]

Originally Posted by au3xr6

You could never call Australian public phones.
you can call public phones in American movies

Yes you could call public phones. I used to call one in front of my mates house regularly.
We were sitting on his verandah one day and the pay phone started ringing, when my mate answered it he asked what number the person rang. This person told him the number. As my mate didn't have the home phone connected it was quite useful.
This would have been around 15 years ago, the particular phone is no longer there as a car crashed into it and it was never repaired or replaced. I am unsure if is still possible to call a pay phone, but 100% certain that it was possible years ago.

[Feathers]

I'm sure I've seen them with a phone number listed on the info behind them, for reporting faults and such.
No idea when the last time I had to use one was...

[stev3n]

Originally Posted by Swathe

You could call them but they had the ringers removed so it didn't make an audible sound. At one point their were some documents getting around in the early 90's that had most of the phone boxes listed by street address and their corresponding number.

The phone i'm talking about in the post above used to ring with an audiable sound, very loud actually.

[devilcv8]

Ok, time to clear up a few things.
You could call the ct3 ( big green one) if you knew the number.
Pay phones, especially new models were usually placed near universities and when they were hacked for free calls etc, mods were performed to fix the issue before being rolled out around the country.

When they went electronic, the incoming call feature was removed
The number in the box identified the phone, but was not the phone number

There are still lots of test numbers that do ring back, tell you your number, let you listen to various tones and rva's. Best list is on a website, I think access comms or something similar.
Google it.