Payphones Past

Canada: $1 Payphone Calls?

The Chronicle Herald reports:

“Using a payphone — yes, they’re still out there — will cost $1 instead of 25 cents in Nova Scotia if a rate increase requested by Bell Aliant is approved by regulators.

“‘If it is approved, and when it is implemented, it will be the first time the cost of a pay telephone call has gone up in about 20 years,’ spokesman Mark Duggan said Monday.”

Read more at the ChronicleHerald.

One of the ironies of the always-connected way of life is that I have come to loath talking on the phone. This is quite a change for someone such as I who used to talk on the phone for long hours. Now I can hardly stand the intrusion of merely hearing a phone ring, and making a call feels like an unwelcome self-invitation into another human being’s technology-saturated agita.

I was thinking about my cell phone plan the other day. For as much as I pay, and for as few phone calls as I make or receive, I probably pay way more than $1 per call. For cost-effectiveness maybe I should just stick to payphones.

the payphone project