COCOTs - Coin Operated, Customer Owned Telephones Documented by Miklos Discovered by Magma Like everything else in this world, payphones now compete with each other. In our area, we are seeing 2 new breeds of payphones pop-up. These 2 new breeds of payphones are called COCOTs (acronym above). COCOTs are subscriber lines, owned usually by a business, and are placed on their property. The first one we'll look at is Paytel. As many americans know, Paytel was founded in the US, and has since then expanded from North Carolina, to pretty much all of North America. How do you know if you've spotted a COCOT? Well, depending on the area, if you see something out of the ordinary, you know what it is now. In the case of where I live, all of Paytel's phones are blue. (You can see pictures of this phone in the picture section of our site.) These phones have a slot for a credit cards, and a slot for coins. Now, what do you care? Well, COCOTs when compared to Nortel's fabulous Millennium payphones, are very poor when it comes to security. Lets call up the operator and ask for directory assitance: op: Paytel Canada, how may I help you? you: Yes, may I have the number for directory assistance? op: 1-877-542-2010 you: Thank-you, goodbye. - click - Now, before you put down the receiever, let the operator hang up first. After he or she has hung up, you'll hear a few clicks, and then be put with an unrestricted dialtone, meaning, a free line to make all the free phone calls you want. There is one slight catch; you'll need a tone dailer to place any calls. The keypad, as a security feature, is now disabled. This same type of trick holds true for an toll free number (1-800-XXX-XXXX), or after completing a call you have just paid for. Again, all you'll have to do, is let the other end hang up first, then just wait a few seconds to get to the unrestricted dialtone. The second COCOT is 1st Canadian Telecomm. 1st Canadian Telecomm gets its service from Sprint Canada and then, serves its payphones to business, mostly variety stores. This phone is identified as the red phone, and much like every other payphone, has a slot for credit card, and a slot for coins. Also, uniquely on its own, these phones have a modular jack for your modem. After playing on this phone for about the a week, Magma came across something rather unusual with an operator: op: 1st Canadian Telecomm? Magma: .... op: Ok, we know what you are doing, and are putting a stop to it. - click - After this, Magma proceded to use his tone dialer anyway, and try to make a call. Well, when the receiving end picked up, Magma was disconnected and sent back to the subscriber line, looking for it's 25 cents. This has held true since the day of this incident, and other than guessing that the op is watching his activity, I do not know the technical side of what is going on. What I am saying is, that this other COCOT, 1st Canadain Telecomm, has learned from our little expliot, and taking care of busniess. Basically put, COCOTs in our area aren't as stupid as they once were. I do not say that this is the case for ALL COCOTs however. I'm sure there are thousands of COCOTs out there that are still far behind when it comes to these such security issues. If you have any other story, or discovery with these payphones, I encourage you to e-mail us. We'll post anything/everything on to the site * Here are a couple phone numbers for more information: 1-877-542-2010 1-800-511-6523