Well, sort of. Pay phones are not necessarily going to go extinct, at least not right away, but there will be a lot fewer soon. That’s because AT&T, the single largest operator of public telephones in the US is going to be getting out of the business and hanging up on coin-operated pay phones. The first pay phone was installed in Chicago a century ago and they were iconic for much of the twentieth century. However, with the cell phone revolution, by 1998 pay phones had begun a downward trend. There are now less than half as many as there were in the 1990’s.

It’s kinda sad, because although the full “booth” pay phone had become a rarity in the US a while ago, this means there will be even fewer. Where will Superman change? And who could forget all the times a ringing pay phone played a staring role in a spy movie or practical joke. Ah yes, back when I was younger (like two years younger… I mean… ten years younger) there were occasions when a pay phone was the ultimate place to make a couple crank calls from and get a ridiculous amount of immature laughter.

(Um… I would never do that sort of immature thing… I was talked into doing it… um… at gunpoint. Yeah, that’s it.)

But technology progresses and few people now a days rely on these hardwired links to the world for communications. There will surely still be pay telephones in certain locations, such as airports, where travelers might find that they have arrived with a phone which does not have coverage in the area they are in. But they’ll no longer be operated by the direct descendant of Ma’ Bell, which is somewhat sad, in a nostalgic sort of way.

One thing which would definitely be welcome: More phone booths. Not necessarily with phones though. Providing “cell phone booths” has proven to be a way of quieting the annoyance of yacking cell phone talkers by giving them a place to make the calls. I’ve been to a restaurant which had a couple of phone booths from which the phones had long since been removed and which were redesignated for cell phone talkers to go get some acoustic separation. It’s something we really could use more of.

The booth shown to the left is know as the “Cell Zone” and is one of the mobile-oriented booths now avaliable. It’s acoustically isolated and comes in models with a seat or as just a simple standing booth. Seems like a pretty good idea, but not nearly common enough. Special acoustic isolation material is great, but in most cases, just a simple door or nook set away from others would provide a very welcome relief for those not talking on the phone as well as a good place for those who want to make a call to go and feel free to talk without worrying about annoying others or being obnoxious. Yes, there are at least some of us who will actually make an effort to avoid lengthy or loud calls when in public places like trains, eating establishments or waiting in line for something.

Perhaps some of the old phone booths, retired from coin operated landline service, can find a new home here. If nothing else, the booths still in existence provide that nostalgic retro effect which seems to be all the rage. I certainly hope that phone booths do not become an endangered species in Brittan, as those big red booths are pretty cool. I saw a few when I was over there two years ago, so hopefully they’ll be around for a while longer.

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This entry was posted on Monday, December 3rd, 2007 at 10:43 am and is filed under Good Science, History, Misc. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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