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Identifying your payphone

Introduction

One of the more common questions I recieve is 'How do I tell what kind of payphone do I have?'. Like most people, even when I was clueful and understood payphones, I still used to think payphones were payphones, and there were not many differences between them. Oh, how I was mistaken. This will document all the payphones I know. If you find a payphone not listed here, please drop me a line and I will try and figure it out. You'll also get credit on this page. :)

CO Provided vs COCOT vs Hybrids

Right now, there are three 'types' of payphone coin-signalling methods. CO Controlled, COCOT and Hybrid. There are key differences between them and how they behave. We'll go into a brief overview of each tye here.

CO Provided & ACTS

CO Provided Coin Control phones are 'dumb' phones (compared to COCOTs, more on that later), all the decision making is done at the switch in the CO. This spawned a entire family of payphones orginally made by Western Electric, called "Western Electric Single Slot", in phone phreak circles, these are often refered to as "Fortress"style payphones. So, let's talk a little about CO Coin control, ACTS, and Fortress Style payphones.

How WECO Single Slots phones work

When a WECO Single Slot phone is used for a local call, the user deposits the initial rate (right now, usually $.50), the phone senses the coins depostied rate and, when the right amount goes in, throws a relay inside the phone. When the phone number is dialed, the switch in the CO conducts a "coin ground test" which sees if the phone has that relay thrown. If it has, it allows to call to go through, if not, it forwards the call to an intercept saying that they did not deposit enough cash.

Now, when dialing a local toll phone call, the number is dialed and the call is forwarded to something called the Automatic Coin Toll Signaling (ACTS) system. The ACTS system informs the customer how much this call will cost them, and they deposit the cash. The ACTS system listens to tones from the phone, which are generated when coins are deposited, to determine when the call is paid for. When the call is paid for, the system places the call. When the alloted time is up for the call the ACTS system comes back onto the line and asks for more money. The same process repeats, ACTS waiting for the tones from the phone, and when the amount it deposited, the call is allowed to continue. If the amount isn't deposited, ACTS terminates the connection.

AT&T used to run a very big ACTS system for quite a while, but they decommisioned it due to rampant toll fraud. Fraud is bad, and if you want to play on the phone system, you should expect to pay. Because of a few so-called 'phone phreaks', who should call themselves 'fraudsters' the once beautiful AT&T ACTS system is no more. OK, rant over. A lot of RBOCs now use ACTS for intra-LATA calls, however, a lot of Hybrid phone and COCOTs are starting to replace them. Verizon seems to be pushing for this. I've seen this in Maryland and a good chunk of New England. I'm guessing about the rest.

Single Slot phones are a lot of fun, due to the switch doing the coin test, the switch often realizes what is a 'free' call (For example, Time of Day announcements, Proctor Tests sets, ANACs, etc). Allowing free fun on the phone network. :)

COCOTs

Customer Owned Coin Operated Telephones came about in 1984 after the Ma Bell breakup. They allowed independent operators to set up a payphone and reap the profits thereof. As Single Slots are 'dumb' payphones, COCOTs are 'smart'. There is not decision making done by the switch, everything is done within the phone itself. COCOTs, therefore, are on regular phone lines, as opposed to Single Slots which are on special 'pay phone' lines to the switch. COCOTs are easy to set up by anyone who wants one, so they are more common then ACTS payphones.

How COCOTs work

COCOTs only make one type of phone call. There is no special switching between Long Distance and Local calling. When you pick up a COCOT, the dial tone you are hearing is generated by the phone itself, the CO dial tone is not available yet. When you dial the phone it problems you to enter the initial rate, once again, this is the phone itself generating the prompt, we haven't even his the PSTN yet. Once the Initial rate is deposited, the COCOT picks up the actual phone line and dials out the number you entered, you can usually hear this in the background, muffled, but there. At this point, you are on the PSTN and making your call.

Hybrids

Hybrids are a relatively new to the payphone scene (well, at least in New England, I never noticed any back in the early 90s). Hybrids are exactly what the name entails, a crossbreed of CO Provided signalling and COCOT phones. I figure they are capable of fitting into any type of housing, but I see a lot of these in old WECO payphones.

How Hybrids work

To be honest, I'm not 100% sure how the phone is set up. However, the phone behaves like a regular payphone when making Intra LATA phone calls (Simple Coin test, or handing the call over to ACTS), however, it behaves like a COCOT when dialing Inter-LATA calls (Electronic voice prompting for money, number dialing in the background, etc). I'm pretty sure these phones sit on a 'payphone line' since the switch does to coin control for local calls, and back when the 555-1140 ANAC was up, they passed '27' as ANI II. I don't like these phones.

Identifying phones

CO controlled Payphones

There are three major kinds of CO controlled payphones. WECO Single Slots, Nortel (Quortech) Milleniums, and GTE Automatic Electrics.

WECO Single Slots

WECO Single Slots are the "standard" payphone so they are oft imitated. The obvious signs of a WECO Single Slo are that it's run by the local Telco, the handset wire comes out of the front to the left of the keypad, and on the top, the coin slot is in the middle, and the coin return lever is on the right, plus, there is only one coin slot :). Single Slots made by the Western Electric Company are identifible by the "Made by Western Electric" or "Bell System Western Electric" engraved on the coin return. Sometimes there is also a Bell System logo located just above the instruction card on the left.

WECO model numbers are confusing at first, but make a very orderly sense when you figure them out. Strom Carlson explained it to me in an e-mail:

The WE payphones are as such:

The first number is the housing type - 1 is a typical fortress type
housing, 2 is panel-mount.

The letter denotes the revision - early phones were A, late phones were D.

The second number is the type of dial - 1 for rotary, 2 for touchtone.

See, simple!

Milleniums

Milleniums were originally developed by Nortel, but the payphone divison was later divested into a company called Quortech. Milleniums kind of stick out as they look like nothing else currently on the market. They have a LED display above the keypad and handset, they have both a coin slot and credit card/smart card reader, and they also lack a coin return lever. I've never seen one of these in Verizon New England territory. These seem to be more prevelent elsewhere. I always get a kick out of playing with these when I am in Las Vegas for DefCon, they just feel so... futuristic.

GTE Automatic Electric

I have never touched these. They look odd to this east-coaster. They are prevelent in old GTE territory.

COCOT Models

Hybrids

The mysteeeeerrriousss WECO Single Slot COCOT

I have no idea who makes this. This for all intents and purposes appears to be a WECO fortress, but it doesn't have the WECO logo on the coin return. I consider these newer knockoffs Fortresses, but some purists may not. There are also WECO Single Slots, proper markings and all, that have COCOT capabilities installed into them. Kind of a weird perversion of them.