Earlier this year I submitted a request to the NYC Open Data web site suggesting that the city release its database of PPT (Public Pay Telephone) locations. My suggestion was never approved and appeared to have been ignored. At the time I just assumed that payphones were not a priority, but it also appeared that the entire Open Data web site had been abandoned. I imagined they might also have thought I was a crackpot.

Last night I submitted the request again. This time the suggestion was approved and a representative from New York’s DoITT (Department of Information Technology & Telecommunications) responded, saying “We are actively working on releasing this data.”

As I wrote yesterday, public telephones need to be saved. Releasing this database of New York City payphone locations will not accomplish that in and of itself, but I hope it will be a step toward erasing the public perception that these phones are worthless, and toward legitimizing the value of public telephones in emergency situations both great and small.

Public telephony today suffers under the stigma that it should turn a profit. The 1996 Telecom Reform Act made provisions for Public Interest Payphones to be subsidized by states when private businesses couldn’t be expected to maintain money losing phones. All payphones lose money now, with their existence subsidized almost entirely by revenue from display advertising. The time for states to subsidize these phones in the public interest is now.