Phone with full keyboardThis is new to me… Since when can you text, nay, email… from a public phone.  I am not kidding.  Leaving work today I wanted to head to Alexis Neon to grab a few groceries before heading home…  Seeing as it is winder outside I wanted to stick to the tunnels as much as possible.  While waiting for the metro at Square-Victoria, I happened to notice a keypad embedded into the front side of the phone… Not just the 0-9 * # keypad… a full-blown alpha numeric keypad (see photo).  So i decided to take a close look.  The top instructions are in french (Duh, I live in Montreal, 90% of instructions have French Only), and looks like it had some graffiti sticker attached to it previously, so a lot of the instructions are blocked… but it leaves just enough to decider at least some part of the instructions:

Translation:

  1. Dial **01 , deposit 10¢ to send 1 (text) message, or
    Dial **05, deposit 25¢ to send 5 (text) messages
    Dial **02, deposit 10¢ to send 1 email
  2. Enter the 10 digit receiving phone number (or email) using the numeric keypad (obviously using the full keyboard for the email)
  3. Press *9 on the numeric keypad and type your message (rest is blocked by paper residue from possible graffiti sticker)
  4. Press *9 using the numeric keypad to send your message
  5. Wait for sent confirmation then hang up to terminate.

French instructions

I though it was pretty cool, next time I am in the metro tunnel I might actually pup in 10¢ and send myself an email.

Now as an after though… how creepy is this… if you wanted to send an anonymous email, why not use a public phone… It’s not linked to you in any way (unless you use a credit card for payment) and you are gone (half way across town) via the metro before any authorities could investigate what happened… Creepy… Yet so freaking cool.

Update

Here is the output:
wpid-wp-1418687749534.jpeg