AT&T Exits Pay Phones, Seeing Writing on Booth

AT&T EXITS PAY PHONES, SEEING WRITING ON BOOTH
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Jeffry Bartash jeffry.bartash@dowjones.com]
The first public pay-telephone station was set up in 1878, just two years after Alexander Graham Bell invented the talking device. The first coin-operated pay phone was installed in Hartford, Conn., in 1889. But, for AT&T, the nation's largest telephone company, the days of pay phones will soon end. The San Antonio telecommunications company said its pay phones will be phased out during the next year. A company spokeswoman declined to say how much revenue the pay-phone business generates, but the number is small and declining. In a country full of BlackBerrys, cellphones and iPhones, it isn't surprising. Most Americans, rich or poor, now have wireless handsets, and pay phones have become increasingly scarce. AT&T operates 65,000 pay phones in the 13 states formerly served by the local phone company SBC Communications, which acquired the old Ma Bell in 2005 and took its name.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119669199338311803.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace
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* AT&T to hang up on pay phones
About 5% of all U.S. households, and 8% of those with annual incomes under $20,000, have access to neither wireless nor land-line phones.
http://www.latimes.com/business/printedition/la-fi-payphones4dec04,1,6724136.story?coll=la-headlines-pe-business
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* AT&T to Exit Pay Phones as the Business Shrinks (Associated Press)
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/04/business/04phone.html?ref=todayspaper
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