Look for a couple of quotes from me in this story by Coulter Jones, which also mentions the Freefone business model that I think represents a substantial part of the future of the public telephone.
“In the past nine years, a million pay phones have been shut off in the United States — nearly a 50 percent decrease. Competition with cellular phone companies and maintenance costs have led to a 10 percent to 12 percent drop in the number of pay phones each year for the past decade, according to the Federal Communications Commission.”