Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!mailrus!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request From: 0004133373@mcimail.com (Donald E. Kimberlin) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Good For a Laugh: Polish Payphones Message-ID: <9508@accuvax.nwu.edu> Date: 8 Jul 90 03:03:00 GMT Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu Organization: TELECOM Digest Lines: 44 Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 469, Message 15 of 15 ..Here's a mini-laugh just arrived here as republished in TE&M magazine for July 1, 1990: "A recent article from Knight-Ridder newspapers describes the payphone situation in Poland: "`Want in on the best little bargain in a changing Eastern Europe? Step right up: A local call at a Polish payphone is still only 20 zlotys -- about one-fifth of a penny in U.S. terms. "`Don't have a 20-zloty coin? Not to worry. With some shrewd dealing you can buy one for as low as 200 zlotys.'" (I make that out to be about 2 cents U.S. !) "`Since Polish payphone mechanisms were increased to 20 zlotys several months ago, 20-zloty coins have gone into hiding. "`Not all 20-zloty coins, mind you. Just the ones that fit payphones. There are three sizes of 20-zloty coins in Poland,along with a 20-zloty bill. (Don't ask; explaining all of this is going to be complicated enough.) "`The payphone-sized 20-zlotycoins are selling on the streets for 200 to 1,000 zlotys apiece.'" (I still say cheap at a thousand zlotys -- about a dime U.S., isn't it?) "`The whole thing might strike you as it strikes Miroslawa Firlej, 35, a Polish waitress who recently coughed up 1,000 zlotys for a coin to call her son's school to report he was sick. Of the payphone situation, she remarked, "It's crazy." "`A great many Poles, like Firlej, have no phone in their homes, so they rely on payphones. And with the breathtaking inflation that has resulted from the country's sudden change to a free-market economy, 20-zloty coins don't circulate much because they aren't worth much, except in a pay phone. And there, incidentally, they are a good deal, considering that a local call from a private phone is now 150 zlotys.'" Seems I recall a similar situation in Greece, where the local payphone rate was a few drachmae, a price so cheap that coins of such a small denomination were hard to come by.