Payphone - Australia

Australia

Australia has two major payphone operators: Telstra and Tritel.

Telstra has removed a large portion of their payphones, believing them less necessary than in the past due to their declining profit, and ongoing maintenance and repair costs. The phones are prone to repetitive graffiti, vandalism, and deliberately have their coin slots jammed; making them expensive to maintain

Telstra Payphones are regulated at 50 cents a local call by law and some payphones also have the ability to send SMS messages at 20 cents a message. Some Telstra payphones, especially ones in central city locations, have a teletypewriter facility. Generally, Telstra payphones accept all Australian coins, and Telstra Payphone Cards. The payphone will not issue change for any credit unused, however, unused coins will be returned to the user, any remaining credit can be used for another call by pressing the 'Follow On' key. 1800 numbers are also charged free, and therefore a variety of calling cards and services, such as the Telstra PhoneAway Card may be used free of charge. Telstra payphones can also call +800 (dialled as 00111800 + 8 digits), and 1100 (Dial Before You Dig) without payment.

All payphones can call emergency services (000) without payment.

Telstra has payphones at almost every railway station, on some major streets and in some government buildings.

TriTel operates payphones generally on lease sites - therefore they are usually located inside shopping centres. Most shopping centres, particularly newer ones, will have a TriTel payphone instead of Telstra payphones because it seems TriTel is more lenient in installing payphones.

TriTel payphones are charged at 50 cents per 15 minutes for a local call and most 1800 calls. They accept all Australian coins (Telstra payphones do not accept 5c coins) and TriTel payphone cards which are sold at newsagents. 1800 Reverse (for collect calling) and 1800-TRITEL (their customer service line) can be called without payment at the payphone.

Private payphones can be installed. Most are bought from Telstra, however some can be bought through other special payphone specialists. There are two predominant types of private payphones, one of them no longer supported.

Gold phones used to be very popular and were installed generally in large restaurants/cafes, small shopping centres and other places where there were staff (as the phones were easily vandalised or even stolen due to their compact size) and there wasn't a need for such a big full size payphone. Gold phones were generally small, and had the dialpad and handset on the top of the machine. Gold phones only accepted coins, and had to be wired up to a special payphone subscriber line to allow charging.

Blue phones have replaced the Gold Phone, which predominantly relied on decadic dialling and the now defunct 50 Hz metering system. They are installed where gold phones were installed, and at some schools. These phones are smaller than their gold phone counterparts. These phones have a front which is slanted/angled and have a dialpad, a small 1 line LED screen and a handset. On the top of the machine is a coin slot. These phones accept coins only, and also need to be wired up to a payphone subscriber line to allow charging, otherwise calls will not be metered and will go through for free.

As of 30 March 2009, the 50 Hz Metering System was switched off nationwide, meaning unmodified goldphones were rendered inoperable. Bluephones, however will still operate if the owner changes the phones metering settings, done by changing a DIP switch inside the phone (blue phone can recognize either 50 Hz or 12 kHz meter pulses)