The last phone boxes

[Sedalia Dave]

 

 

 

Walk round a city, a town, a village and you see them. The last phone boxes. Once you start seeing them, you see them everywhere. For a while, I became preoccupied by their contradictory presence, often standing proudly on a street corner, completely ignored. At their peak, in the mid-1990s, the British population of phone boxes was about 100,000. Now, there are just over 20,000 working boxes left, which still sounds like quite a lot, given it’s hard to imagine anyone actually using one. And yet, they do. According to Ofcom, 5m calls are still made from phone boxes annually. Five million! It seems impossible. A number so surprisingly large it made me think there must be a lone guy in a box somewhere obsessively making one-minute calls all day to random numbers.

[Pat Riot]

I haven’t seen a pay phone in years, let alone a phone booth. 

[Wallaby Jack, SASS #44062]

 

 

    .... I'm sure Superman is disappointed .......   

[Eyesa Horg]

By the time we started removing them in Connecticut, we were losing about 18 cents on every local call made. They are pretty scarce now and the ones left you wouldn't any where near your face!

[Sgt. C.J. Sabre, SASS #46770]

In 2019 I was on my way to Ohio from Arizona, and my cell phone crapped out. I could not for the life of me find a pay phone ANYWHERE. I had to wait until I checked into a motel for the night to call back home to tell my wife what happened so that she could send my backup to Ohio.

It didn't bother me that much, but my wife and the friend I was going to visit were about wetting themselves because they couldn't get ahold of me.

[Forty Rod SASS 3935]

1 hour ago, Pat Riot, SASS #13748 said:

I haven’t seen a pay phone in years, let alone a phone booth. 

Pat, come down here to visit.  I know where there are fourteen of them....in a local antique store....and one more in the lobby of a safe and alarm shop.

[Alpo]

Saw this in LIFE IN THESE UNITED STATES several years back.

 

Guy said he was driving down the road and he had to make phone call. And he saw a public phone (one of those clamshell things) so he pulls over. It was pouring down rain. Just as he reached for the phone it started ringing, and he answered it, and the man on the other end of the line says, "If you had a cellular telephone you would not be standing in the rain right now".

 

Across the street from the public phone was a cell phone company, and a salesman was standing in the window looking at him.

[watab kid]

i think they are cool but cant figure what id do with one if i had it ...........

[Utah Bob #35998]

There are actually still places in the US that have no cell service.

[Capt. James H. Callahan]

There's one around here at a Methodist camp where we have Kairos stuff. Way out in the sticks where cell service is iffy at best.

JHC

[Buckshot Bear]

We used to have the same red boxes shown in SD's OP here in Oz

 

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/aug/03/telstra-to-make-public-pay-phone-calls-around-australia-free

[Marshal Mo Hare, SASS #45984]

I was in Newark airport about 3 years ago. There was a bank of about 8 pay phones by the exit.

[Colorado Coffinmaker]

Last time I was stationed in England, the "hot ticket" for some service folks was to buy and bring back an English phone box.  Never mind those thins are cast iron and take up most all your restricted weight for household goods shipment.

 

A lot like those signs onna freeway that say "keep alert."  I mean, after you catch a lert, what are ya gonna do wid it??

[LawMan Mark, SASS #57095L]

9 hours ago, Utah Bob #35998 said:

There are actually still places in the US that have no cell service.

Yeah, the shooting range the North Alabama Regulators use is one of them.  

[Rip Snorter]

9 hours ago, Utah Bob #35998 said:

There are actually still places in the US that have no cell service.

For sure, and I much enjoy living in one of them! 

[Wallaby Jack, SASS #44062]

8 hours ago, Colorado Coffinmaker said:

A lot like those signs onna freeway that say "keep alert."  I mean, after you catch a lert, what are ya gonna do wid it??

 

 ...... well, .... most dogs chase cars ..........

 

 

          ..... I s'pose you could whizz on its' wheels like they do ....   

[Wallaby Jack, SASS #44062]

20 hours ago, .44bang said:

I bet so many people today would need a manual on how to use a pay phone.

 

 

 ....... they could use their iphone and look up the manual on the internet .......   

[Marshal Mo Hare, SASS #45984]

20 hours ago, .44bang said:

I bet so many people today would need a manual on how to use a pay phone.

Hell!  Would need the phone number to call.

[ptmn]

I live (unfortunately) in the People's Republik of Kalifornia, San Francisco Bay area.  Being a blue state, and the bluest part of of the state, crime runs rampant and the liberal District Attorneys won't put any criminal in jail or prison.

 

Because of this, there are no working pay phone boxes left. The liberal cities in the area won't publicly admit to rampant crime, since it's not within the liberal agenda, but privately they know it's a problem and they know the criminals loved using pay phone boxes because they aren't as traceable. So the liberals stopped servicing the pay phone boxes as they wore out, broke or more commonly were vandalized by the "under privileged" (since they won't call them criminals).