|
No one is using the five pay phones outside the Park Street subway station,
at the edge of Boston Common, when a 56yearold homeless man named Mike checks
each for forgotten coins. Though he comes up emptyhanded, he is loathe to
declare the pay phone dead.
"In the past year," he says, "Ive probably gotten $5 and change."
And so the public pay phone limps along, its place as the mainstay of
awayfromhome dialing usurped by the cellphone. A decade ago there were 2.6
million pay phones in the United States. Today there are only 1 million. Now,
more than a century after the pay phone made its debut, AT&T has announced plans
to exit the business by the end of the year, just as BellSouth did in 2001.
Yet pay phones have not outlived their usefulness, particularly for the one
quarter of Americans who remain wirelessless, whether by choice or financial
necessity.
Then there are special circumstances. A 50yearold consultant from a western
suburb he declines to name finds pay phones handy. "I dont want traceability to
my cell," he says. Why? Hes a married man calling his girlfriend. Lynn Sweeney
of Quincy is on cellphone hiatus. The reason? A $1,240 cellphone bill. So she
slips two quarters into a South Station pay phone to tell her husband shes on
her way home.
The bank of pay phones beside the Common, not to mention the six fourphone
kiosks inside South Station, may constitute an example of supply exceeding
demand, but they yield their share of stories. After five months in jail for a
probation violation, one of 30yearold Neil Langs first acts of freedom is to
call a friend from a pay phone before heading home to Connecticut and a future,
he says, of "doing the right thing."
NOHEMI GONZALEZ, 40, doesn’t leave her Mattapan home without quarters, phone
cards, and her prepaid cellphone, but she tries to limit her use of the latter.
‘‘My minutes’’ — she snaps her fingers — ‘‘just go like that,’’ she says in
Spanish. For half an hour she stations herself at a Park Street phone on whose
receiver is affixed a sticker from the anarchist collective CrimethInc. that
says, ‘‘This phone is tapped . . . courtesy of the US Patriot Act.’’ Gonzalez
calls her husband in Ecuador ($5), her sister in Guatemala ($2), and her
daughter in Somerville (50 cents).
JEFF AVONDO of Springfield, 48, is frustrated and on his way to visit his niece
and ill sister in Halifax. He needs to tell his niece when to pick him up, but
her cell is busy and the pay phone wont return his coins. In go more quarters.
Now his niece isnt answering, but at least he gets his money back. His train
departs South Station soon. "Im worried I wont get hold of her before I
leave," he says. At times like this Avondo wishes he had a cellphone, but he
hasnt passed a credit check. His prepaid phone is out of minutes. Finally, he
reaches his sister. "Thank God."
JOSE GONZALEZ , a 29yearold Tshirt vendor from Dorchester, and Joseph
Feldman, a 26yearold student from Cambridge, represent the roughly 7 million
American households with no telephone at all landline or cellular. Several
times a day, Gonzalez uses a pay phone at the fringe of the Common, the first
time one recent morning being a $1 call to his girlfriend to check on their
sons day care arrangements. Feldman, using a $2 phone card purchased at South
Station, calls his wife in Peru, and for half an hour they talk about her
anticipated move here next month. His card covers 48 minutes of calls to Peru or
100 minutes of local calls. "You cant beat that," he says.
JOANNE HILL, here on business from New Jersey, ordinarily would be multitasking
on her mobile as she heads to meetings with money market managers, not standing
here, rushed, feeding coins into a pay phone. "Im between cellphones," she
says.
** Check out our
International Calling Cards
PCS Tags:
Calling Cards,
Phone Cards,
Prepaid Calling Cards,
Long Distance Phone Cards
Source: http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/articles/2008/03/10/busy_signals/
<-- Back
|