Exploring a Payphone
						By Magma

	Well, in the 519 NPA there are basically four payphones that we see 
on the streets, those are: The Bell Canada Millenniums, manufactured by Nortel 
(these are the pretty phones with the digital display). The next are the older 
model of Bell Canada payphone, these are the black phones that don’t have the 
new fancy features of the millenniums. Then there are the two Customer Owned, 
Coin Operated Telephones (COCOT’s) found in our area: Paytel and 1st. Canadian 
Telecom. (more can be read on these in the COCOT text). The millenniums are the 
Cadillac of payphones they have nice features like quick reset (the delay when 
you hang up and try to dial again) which is a very useful feature for those of 
us who skan. Security on these phones is very tight. This I guess is due to the 
vandalism that has be caused to them. So when you complain about it remember people 
like you caused it. I personally think it’s good that they finally woke up and tightened 
things up. 

	So, one night when SuperHonkie and I were driving around looking for a rural 
payphone to take the signs from (we like Bell signs) we found a great location in 
a car pool parking lot. Well our goal was to get he signs out (the plastic signs 
that are at the top of a payphone booth) so we started unscrewing the white plastic 
cover just above the payphone and noticed that there were wires incased in there. So 
we got the whole cover off, saw that there were two prongs for our lineman’s handsets 
and the connection for the power for the light and the payphone. Then SuperHonkie got 
the idea of ripping off the little silver cover at the bottom of the payphone to see 
where the wires lead. So the point is, you can tap the payphone with the use a wiretapping 
device (see wiretapping) but as you may have guessed you cannot beige box of the line because 
payphones have their own trunk. Why you would want to tap a payphone is your business but now 
it is possible. And as a closing note we did not get the signs out. Maybe next time.

	Another thing about the new millenniums is the way Bell can keep tabs 
on all of their payphones. You have to hand it to them; they have really done 
a good job on the physical design (Nortel) and the software (Bell). I remember 
being 12 and having fun prank calling the operator and thinking "haha you don’t 
know where I am, neener neener neener!"  Well times have changed. Now when you 
call the operator they know in a matter of seconds where you are, if you are in 
a mall they know which section of the mall you are in. So I think you can understand 
prank calling the operator is not a smart thing to do.

	Next, the physical security of the millenniums is really good. On the 
older Bell payphones the materials used were fairly weak. I’m sure if you really 
wanted to you could just tear the thing open with a crowbar. If you tired that on 
a millennium you’d be there for a while chance are you’d be caught first. It has 
been said that there are two alarms in the new millenniums. The first being the 
loud one that goes off if you open the phone without having authorization e.g. 
with a crowbar. The other alarm is silent this alarm sends a message via the modem 
inside (get to that in a second) telling Bell that something is up. In either case 
start running, when the silent one goes you can hear the modem if you listen super 
close. The modem in these things has two main purposes, one to allow Bell Canada 
employees to dial in and check the phone for any problems and for it to dial out 
when there is a problem. The other reason for it is the alarm as stated above.

	As you can see Nortel and Bell have teamed up again to build a quality 
payphone.