Slashdot Mirror
AT&T To Decommission Pay Phones
oahazmatt writes "According to MarketWatch, AT&T said that its pay phones will be phased out over the next year. A company spokeswoman declined to say how much revenue its pay-phone business generated, but the number is small and declining. 'The first public pay-telephone station was set up in 1878, just two years after Alexander Graham Bell invented the talking device. The first coin-operated pay phone was installed in Hartford, Conn., in 1889. For decades after the pay phone's invention, many Americans relied on them because of the expense and difficulty in obtaining reliable home service. Only after World War II did the telephone become a household necessity.'"
People are treating ATT like the scum of the Earth here, which they may be in their mobile business, but I can't see why expecting to break even is such an evil goal.
Pay phones here in Canada are up to $1 a call now, ridiculous, when it was a quarter merely a few years before. The downturn in usage means increased cost per call for the few people that still use them, which drives a cycle that forces everyone to get some sort of cell phone.
Both my brother (an academic) and my mother have pay-as-you-go plans, which cost them about $120 a year. That's really not too bad, considering they're light users. They enjoy the convenience of a cell phone, and also the security from being able to call emergency services wherever they may be, as opposed to having to locate the nearest (dwindling number) payphones.
I simply do not see pay phones as having any further use to our society. They were important pieces of technology from a bygone era, that's all.
In Finland there is an excellent telecommunications infrastructure, and yet mobile phones are necessities. For example, some new apartment blocks lack doorbells, since when you reach the outside door it is expected that you can phone your acquaintance to let him know you are waiting to enter. Payphones were generally phased out years ago, with only a handful left in the very centre of Helsinki for tourists. Then there is the whole social issue, sometimes people just don't want to deal with you if you don't have a mobile.