epcot phone booths

[mymickeymouse]

Read on another site disney has disconnected phones at epcot. Can anyone confirm?

[Maleficent's Dad]

Yeah, they've not accepted calls for a while now. Rumor is that no one was calling out, & lots were calling in - so the phone company was losing money.

[Tekneek]

Yeah, they've not accepted calls for a while now. Rumor is that no one was calling out, & lots were calling in - so the phone company was losing money.

It does seem rather silly that a company with a billion dollars in profit couldn't keep those on for a fun guest experience. The cost would surely just be a rounding error, at worst.

[Polynesian Dweller]

It does seem rather silly that a company with a billion dollars in profit couldn't keep those on for a fun guest experience. The cost would surely just be a rounding error, at worst.

They were real working phone booths. The telephone company that placed them is the company that pulled the connection, not Disney. That company was seeing only cost and no revenue so pulled them.

[big blue and hairy]

They were real working phone booths. The telephone company that placed them is the company that pulled the connection, not Disney. That company was seeing only cost and no revenue so pulled them.

Weeeeelll, THEY'RE no fun....

[mymickeymouse]

Well,that realllllly reeks!!!

[Frog]

Those booths were so much fun!

[Tekneek]

They were real working phone booths. The telephone company that placed them is the company that pulled the connection, not Disney. That company was seeing only cost and no revenue so pulled them.

Disney couldn't get service to them? I'm having a hard time understanding this is a limitation that a company like Disney would really be unable to work around.

[MstngDrvnDsnyLvr]

Disney couldn't get service to them? I'm having a hard time understanding this is a limitation that a company like Disney would really be unable to work around.

Only way that would happen is if Disney made them their property. And then they would create a 900 (toll) number that you'd call to generate revenue. Because we all know for Disney, the bottom line is the bottom line.

[Tekneek]

Only way that would happen is if Disney made them their property. And then they would create a 900 (toll) number that you'd call to generate revenue. Because we all know for Disney, the bottom line is the bottom line.

Disney could afford to do anything they wanted to do with the phone booths. The only reason they aren't working is because Disney doesn't care for them to be working. A company that posts the profits that Disney does could get a working phone line to anything if they wanted it to happen. Even if it was just recordings of Disney characters making phone calls to them on a random basis throughout the day, they could do it if they wanted to. As far as control of the actual booths go, I doubt they are in an agreement thats required them to keep inoperable phone booths on site. They could move them out and put new ones in very quickly, if they really wanted to do it.

[mechanic]

There were stories that lots of profane and "bad " calls were coming in

[Frog]

If that is true about the profane language, then I say "bad form".

[chrim]

I had thought that the Disney company owned the local phone company that provided service at WDW. After doing a web search, it appears that once was true, (it was called Vista-United Telecommunications), but in 2001 they sold out, and now an external entity runs the system and Disney presumably buys services just like any other hotel or resort would buy services from their local phone/internet/telcom provider.