USA — It’s the end of another era. This time it’s the end of the pay phone era. With Americans relying increasingly upon mobile telephone technology in order to stay in touch when they’re away from home, at least one provider in the 129-year-old communication business has decided to pull the plug.AT&T, the nation’s biggest telephone carrier, announced Monday that it will begin decommissioning its pay phones during 2008. The company declined to say how much money pay phones made, although experts believe that the amount it is small and getting smaller.
Although America has come – or gone – a long way since the days of phone booth stuffing, not every pay phone provider has given up on the conveniences. Perhaps sensitive to the fact that not every stretch of road is accessible via cell phone – and eager to make money even in those areas – Verizon Communications, Inc. continues to operate the coin ops in Northeastern states, including New York City and Boston.
According to MediaWatch.com, the first pay-for-use telephone station was initially made available to the pubic in 1878, a mere two years after its invention. The first coin-op pay phone as we would understand it appeared in Hartford, CT slightly more than two decades later.
Once vital to a phone service hungry WWII America and an essential part of any film noire detective or reporter’s work routine, a mere 1 million phone booths exist today, compared to their 1998 number of 2.6 million. By comparison, nearly 251 million of the 301 million Americans are now cell phone customers; 66 million of them AT&T subscribers.
While it will no longer directly provide pay phone services, AT&T currently plans to continue wholesale service to independent operators, thus taking up some of the slack in areas that continue to benefit from the emergency landlines.
America’s big question may soon be: Where will Superman change his clothing without running afoul of the law?
