A Major City Is Bringing Back Pay Phones And Making Them Free To Use
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The antiquated payphone booth has been gone from our town and city streets for a while now. Instead of seeing a pay phone at every corner of your city, when you do run across one nowadays there are people taking pictures of it to share with their friends and family on social media sites and acting like they have discovered an ancient treasure. However, soon when you visit the city of Brotherly Love, you will see pay phones periodically throughout Philadelphia.
An Amateur Phone Collective that goes by the name of PhilTel is going to be building a network of Public Phones throughout Philadelphia. Most people are questioning why they would do that when everyone has a phone in their pocket and most monetary transactions occur with debt cards or other digital payment services. People aren’t even carrying change in their pockets or their purses, even if you wanted to use the pay phone you wouldn’t have the means to do so.
The answer to the first question has a simple answer and it’s because we might believe that everyone on the planet has a cell phone, but that is an inaccurate statement. According to firstpost.com “approximately one billion people do not own or utilize a cell phone on the planet.” Some do not own or have access to one because of the finances required to maintain service or some by personal choice to not be connected to the world at that level.
According to makeuseof.com quoting PhilTel member Mike Dank, “My co-founder on this project does not own a mobile phone himself, so we have first-hand experience with what it is like to have a phone on your person at all times and how important it is for there to be access to public Telephones.” The question still lingers, who is going to have spare change on their person to make a phone call when they need to utilize the phones?
The answer is that these phones will be free for anyone placing an outgoing call from their phone booths. PhilTel is a Linux-based server that runs the open-source software called PBX server Asterisk. This server connects refurbished payphones by utilizing a process called Voice Over IP. This technology has been adopted by many call centers around the world.
It has eliminated the need for hard phones as they are referred to in most corporate offices. Instead of a phone at the employee’s desk, it’s a headset that is plugged into the computer which can receive inbound calls or make outbound calls. PhilTel is utilizing the space where coin-accepting mechanisms were located on the physical payphone.
The phones will continue to be referred to as pay phones even though they no longer will require coins to operate them. PhilTel announced the launch of its first refurbished payphone to happen on December 17, 2022, at an Iffy Books location. This is just the beginning of PhilTel’s plans, they are currently working to be able to get the phones to be able to contact other payphones and an additional network of vintage phone equipment.
If this project succeeds, we may see the return of the payphone popping up on corners around the world. When other cities follow their lead, so the people that are adversely affected by no cell phone access to communicate with their family and friends. I know if one pops up in my area. I will be looking forward to making a free phone call just to remember the nostalgia of an antiquated past that we all thought was far back in our rearview mirror.
