Would you show me where Bell made that statement?The last I heard they were going to raise the price of indoor phones to 50 cents.But this latest annoucement is news to me.Please give me more details or a URL so I can check this out.

As reported on Boing Boing.

See:

http://www.thestar.ca/NASApp/cs/ContentSer...97&col=969048863851

http://rtnews.globetechnology.com/servlet/.../Technology/techBN/

http://www.newswire.ca/releases/December2002/10/c1886.html

Thanks Cory {man that was fast}.Actually they have had dial up access at the train station here for a while.

Payphones are so much cooler than cell phones, though.

My problem with payphones is the people who stand and stare at the back of my head waiting for me to finish my call.I feel like asking them if I can watch while they're talking.

I for one, will miss their presence. We had a big earthquake here a couple of years ago and most telephones and cell phones were down. The only way we were able to connect was using pay phones.

I'm with Erik Newton, a man quoted in the linked article. I am really resistant to getting a cell phone, largely because the companies and their plans are so confusing and annoying, as Cory discusses in a later post. I rarely am in a situation where I'd need one, and only if all the pay phones disappeared would I get to the point where that need would overcome my resistance to having a cell phone.

Eli the Bearded has a good point -- as I read the Post article, I flashed on a visual from some movie or another, of a man talking on a pay phone in a seedy bar, pleadin' with his baby to take him back.... lacks the same romantic look if the man is yelling into his cell phone.

And where will Clark Kent change into Superman? And what will frat boys cram themselves into? And how will you describe your tiny apartment?

And where will daily newspaper reporters stand, with their fedoras tilted back at a jaunty angle, and bark, "Hi, honey, get me rewrite, dis is a doozy!"

Meriadoc, get a Cricket or Boomerang if they're in your area, both are flat-rate unlimited local calling...I ditched my Voicestream almost 2 years ago when Cricket started service here, and have been very happy (and they are pre-paid, so no credit check ickyness!!)

I don't think Cricket reaches my area, and I have heard big complaints about service. So I use payphones, and most of the time I don't even need one of those. Also, if I'm with friends, *everyone* has a cell phone, so . . .

David, what Craniac said: if the plans aren't confusing, the service sucks. And having to lug the phone around (they're small, but they're not that small, and I don't carry a briefcase), and deciding whether to keep it turned on (with the battery always running out) so that I can get messages from people knowing they can reach me; and remembering to turn it off at concerts if I do keep it on; and remembering to check for messages regularly if I don't keep it on; and the fear of turning into one of those jerks walking along talking into cell phones (I've twice in the last month thought somebody was talking to me when they turned out to be talking into a cell phone) ... I'll do this when I have to do it in order to communicate. Not a minute sooner.

After listening to my neighbors yelling into their cell phones I assume it takes greater volume to use them,right?I have never owned a phone of any description all my adult life.

Jim, I have 2 theories why people yell into cel phones:

1. No echo. That is, you don't hear your own voice coming out of the earpiece when you talk, the way you do on a normal phone. When you hear your own voice, you tend to speak more softly.

2. Lousy connections. The natural response to not being able to hear the other person very well is to raise your own voice, assuming that the connection is equally bad both ways (which it isn't always) and that increased volume will help (which it often doesn't).

I've encountered plenty of people who seemed to be doing just fine talking very softly into their cel phone, so yelling isn't universal.

Pay phones are not really dying that hard, and they really shouldn't in a country that everyday wellcomes thousands of emigrants that come here with nothing but hope, and also lots of turist that come to see what this country has to offer. Any way i still see a lot of them everywhere, every 2 blocks you can find them, on the gas stations, everywhere... i think they are almost as good as phone cards or at least a good complement to them.