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From: forrette@cory.berkeley.edu (Steve Forrette)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: COCOT-in-Violation Label File
Message-ID: <13111@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 5 Oct 90 20:47:03 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 717, Message 12 of 13


The concern raised by several people regarding the possible affect on
public safety caused by the use of these stickers brings up another
issue --  the public safety affect of COCOTs in general.

As most people who have COCOT experience will tell you, often you will
approach a COCOT, and it will be out of order.  Totally out of order.
You pick up the handset, and there's no dialtone.  Or, there is
dialtone, but you can't use it, because it's "local" dialtone, and
when the phone goes offhook (from the CO's point of view) to place
your call, the line is dead.

Very very rarely have I ever seen this the case with a Pacific Bell
payphone.

Now what if there's an emergency?  You go offhook to dial 911, and the
phone is comletely dead!  Now, keep in mind, that before the advent of
COCOTs, it's likely that there was a *real* payphone at this location
that always worked.  COCOTs weren't just added to previosly-vacant
locations, but (in the words of a famous Digest contributor) there has
been a "wholesale replacement" of Bell payphones.  Ones that were
always working to serve you in case of emergency.

So, isn't the current state of affairs in COCOTery a public safety
issue?  Anybody that's cocerned about the amount of damage a few
Digesters can cause with stickers should be for the total ban of
COCOTs they are today, because of the affect on public safety.

Or, perhaps, a tariff clause which states that each COCOT operator
must see to it that their fleet of payphones maintain the same
percentage of "uptime" that Bell payphones have, or lose the right to
be in the payphone business?  Hey, maybe this is something we could
get our representatives and the law enforcement community fired up
about.


[Moderator's Note: I did not mention it at the time, but this was my
thinking about COCOTS in response to the various messages saying that
covering the coin slot posed a potential safety issue. In theory,
perhaps yes, but in actual practice COCOTS are most unreliable anyway.
Here in Chicago, a lot of them (most of them?) are maintained in
dreadful condition; the owners seem to milk them as long as they can
then either abandon them or sometimes install a new one.  A sticker
covering the coin slot is the least of the problems with most.  PAT]