Isn’t it frustrating when you need to make that ‘one’
important call and all the phone-booths are taken?
You patiently wait and the person on the phone cant
stop talking about their new hairdo, watch or
whatever else. Damn if only they knew how urgent
this call was for me.
But no. They never seem to
care (George from seinfeld dedicated an episode on
this frustrating experience). But that could change
with the bid phone. For every line of payphones one
is designated a bid phone. Where the one who bids
highest gets to use the service.
How it works is this there is a LCD display that shows how much the
person using the booth has paid for this call (it could
be that the person had already outbid someone else
and so the number will be high). If you are really in a
hurry you can outbid him and he/she will hear a
message saying how many minutes he/she has left in
the current call (or maybe there could be just a
display on the phone that shows this). The higher you
bid the more the time is shaved off from the other
persons call. If the person on the phone wants to
outbid you again he/she just drops in the bid amount
and continues talking. If they fail to do that then
after the designated time his phone disconnects and
you get to make your call. Once you get to the phone
you cannot connect unless you have paid the amount
you bid.
Prepare for a few very ugly stares.