Payphones? Of course!

The Daily Herald warns against getting ripped off by unscrupulous payphone operators, and also includes a few interesting facts and figures about the state of the payphone business.

“Some billion and a half calls were made on pay phones last year nationwide, many by low-income families with no other option.
“Who uses pay phones? Many are located in low-income areas, but even Blackberry-strapped professionals find themselves without a choice at times. Batteries go dead or reception is terrible, and there in the airport or hotel stands a pay phone silently waiting.
“Natural disasters also bring the mass public to the long-forgotten phone booth. Remember the pictures of scores waiting in pay phone lines during the 2003 Northeast blackout or in the wake of Hurricane Katrina?”

Well, who knows if the “2003 Northeast blackout” picture referred to in this article is mine, but I’ve long been proud of my picture from the 2003 blackout. Much of the Northeast was cast into darkness and many people stood on line for hours waiting for a payphone. Many payphones and other land lines failed to work, calling into question the old saw that a land line phone should always work with or without electricity. Despite the assumption that payphones are an obsolete technology, events such as the 2003 blackout illustrate that their value in emergency situations is reason enough that they should endure, regardless of their profitability.
Read more at the Daily Herald