Verizon Communications Inc. does not require a deposit if the customer had service in the last three years and has good credit, said spokeswoman Lacy Yeatts . The amount is equal to two months' billing for the average New Jersey customer, Yeatts said. That's Starr's problem. But she can afford a pager, so Starr receives messages on her pager, and uses pay phones to get back to callers. Even as the number of pay phones drops steadily, people in South Paterson have no trouble finding one.
Additional phones are in stores and bars.
But others carry less familiar names, such as Crescent Telephone Co., Phone Tech Inc., or Cooper's Actel. Some of them offer discounted rates. The industry changed radically in 1984, when the Federal Communications Commission ruled that local phone companies had to open their networks to competitors. Quickly, the established utilities lost their monopolies. A quarter of the nation's 2 million pay phones are now owned by independents.