AT&T Launches Wireless POTS Replacement Service → Re: This is old news

malls have payphones? better yet- where is a payphone anymore besides your local 7-11 where 95% of the people that use it are sell/dealing drugs. Payphones are a thing of the past and more and more places do not have them.

Around here in Western Mass; Holyoke Mall has payphones and Eastfield Mall last time I checked had a payphone. Enfield Square in Enfield, CT took theirs out. Maine Mall in South Portland, ME still has payphones. The Walmarts have payphones in the back of the stores as well. The facilities that have payphones have greatly reduced their numbers (such as Holyoke Mall had them in pods of four that now house one payphone per pod) and they are rarely used. My mother used one to call me at the mall once when she picked up what she thought was her cell phone and it happened to be an old one that happened to be deactivated. They also happen to have Payphones at resort areas such as the beach at Old Orchard Beach, Maine as they get a lot of tourists that don't want to pay international roaming on their cell phones to make a local call (where a payphone costs 50¢ for a local call where international roaming on a cell phone can equate to $2.49 per minute in US dollars which is why hotels have not taken out room phones).

There is still a residual market for payphones such as people who forget their cell phones or have a dead battery. I used a payphone once when I broke my cell phone and a collect call in 2002 cost my mother $15 on the home phone bill for a five minute call.

'If your State is answering your 911 calls from a cell phone you really need to lobby them to get up to date.. Around here all calls are handled on a county basis with dispatchers able to tell exactly where you are if needed. That ability really trumps all. Imagine how often that gets used in accidents and such. They dont use the tracker unless they have to. But i cant really imagine any state being so far behind as answering cell phones at a state level. i really doubt you are correct on that tho to be honest. I was involved in a accident in the woods in the middle of a State park and they were able to find me. So anyone that thinks they dont have the ability to do that is wrong. If they can find me in the middle of a 2000 acre park they can find anyone if they want. And it was only because i had a cell phone.

There are a bunch of pay phones in our mall at three different locations. Plus, there is one outside the mall building on the front of CVS. There are a bunch at the main grocery store and more in the next small mall. There are two at the entrance to Wal-Mart across the street. Where there is a noticeable lack is in the new shopping center that has a new Safeway and Target. They get less of my business for this reason even though they are nice stores. I rarely need to use a pay phone (why would I need to use a phone, except in an emergency, when I am away from home) but I want them available if I did need one.