Is It Time To Commit To Ongoing Payphone Availability?

jenningsthecat writes "Public payphones seem headed the way of the dinosaur, as noted here on Slashdot 10 years ago, and again by the CBC earlier this year. Reasons typically cited for their demise are falling usage, (thanks to the ubiquitous cell phone), and rising maintenance costs. But during the recent disaster in NYC caused by Hurricane Sandy public payphones proved their worth, allowing people to stay in contact in spite of the widespread loss of both cellular service and the electricity required to charge mobile devices. In light of this news, at least one Canadian news outlet is questioning the wisdom of scrapping payphones. Should we in North America make sure that public pay phones will always be widely available? (After all, it's not as though they don't have additional value-added uses). And, should their continued existence be dependent on corporations whose primary duty is to their shareholders, rather than to the average citizen?"

Comments

Common emergency problem

[Todd Knarr]

This is a common problem: emergency and safety systems are completely pointless 99% of the time... until you have an emergency, at which point they're indispensable. It's like the bail-out bag in the closet with the first-aid kit and other necessities for an emergency: for years you wonder why you keep it because you never use it, until that day you didn't see coming when the fire department knocks on the door saying the fire's jumped the line and you've got 15 minutes before it gets here (which has happened here twice since I moved here, so not a theoretical example). Myself, I'd keep pay phones around as one of those necessary emergency expenses, the kind of thing you know you've needed in the past and will need in the future but that you won't have time to get deployed if you wait until you do need it.

Re:Common emergency problem

[hawguy]

This is a common problem: emergency and safety systems are completely pointless 99% of the time... until you have an emergency, at which point they're indispensable.

San Francisco still has thousands hardwired call boxes for the fire department on every other street corner, it's a fall back in case an earthquake takes out other forms of communication.

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Why-S-F-still-counts-on-street-fire-alarm-boxes-3081293.php

Re:Common emergency problem

[h4rr4r]

What exactly is wrong with a tax to pay for stuff like this?

This is exactly the sort of thing government is for.

Re:Common emergency problem

[Todd Knarr]

Yes, I'd rather have my taxes going towards this than many other things. But I think frankly we don't need another tax for it. It's traditionally been handled as quid-pro-quo: "Telco, we're giving you cheap access to the public right-of-way to run your wires. Part of your side of the bargain is you're going to maintain these important services. If you don't want to maintain them, then let's talk about what the market price is for access rights for all your wiring...".

No - Move Forward Instead

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Instead of maintaining a system that is practically obsolete we should put the effort into making the newer system more robust.

How about building pico-cells into emergency vehicles with some sort of dedicated wireless backhaul? Figure out how to queue access to cell phones so that even if such a system can only handle 5-10 voice calls at once (due to backhaul bandwidth limits), anyone with a basic cell phone can virtually "wait in line" until it is their turn to talk.

It doesn't have to be limited to emergency vehicles, we could build stand-alone units too that could be battery powered and deployed fairly quickly.

Re:No - Move Forward Instead

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

In other words:
Don't bother keeping what works working, instead we should spend obscene amounts of money and manpower on some new, theoretical system that may or may not work.

Uh no. Maybe you haven't noticed but payphones are going away because nobody is willing to spend an obscene amount of money maintaining them because nobody uses them. Meanwhile cell phone usage continues to increase. What i propose is to tweak the system that works 99% of the time so that it works 100% of the time.

Re:No - Move Forward Instead

[dywolf]

The higher the technology, the bigger the fall when it fails in a disaster.

you cant overengineer everything, and the more complex/higher tech a thing is, the MORE likely it will fail in a disaster.

keeping around low tech backups is never bad, and its cheaper too.

Re:One good reason for a landline

[SJHillman]

You also need to remember to keep a non-cordless phone around to use with it. If the power is out and all you have is cordless (as many people do these days), you're still out of luck.

Already too late.

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

I couldn't tell you where ANY pay phones around here are. Heck, where you do see a pay phone, it's usually in a neighborhood where you're likely to get mugged or shot if you tried to use it anyway.