In article , Frank Slootweg
wrote:

I just slipped one coupler cup on the phone's mouthpiece, the other on
the phone's earpiece, and I was good to go. 20 seconds max. No moving
hotel furniture, no attacking spiders, no screwing around (literally).

a screwdriver and an rj11 jack are a lot smaller, with both fitting in
a pants pocket

Putting the coupler in a suitcase was not a big burden when I traveled.
Much like I take a laptop or tablet along today.

connect it once when first arriving and remove it before checking out.

As I said YMMV. With my luck the hotel room cleaning person would spot
the unauthorized electrical trespass and report me. Then I'd be out on
my ear... 8-O

At the time, our techs would use acoustic couplers in phone booths.

i wasn't talking about payphones (which were not always in a booth).

I'm quite sure that the telephone company would not have thought lightly
of it if we would have tampered with their equipment in order to make a
hardwired connection! :-)

i'm quite sure they encouraged that, because many payphones had rj11
data jacks so that you *could* make a hardwired connection.

for the payphones that did not, then you'd be stuck with acoustic
couplers and slow speeds.