[tadfisher]

Landline phone calls should just be free at this point. Put like 0.0001% of mobile profit into a fund and surely you can maintain the existing POTS payphone base. POTS-quality voice is like a rounding error in bandwidth, but we're saddled with POTS-era costs for connections.

[cyberax]

It's not the traffic but the CO equipment and copper line maintenance.

[ninalanyon]

They don't need to be landlines. Just put a mobile phone in a steel box.

[cyberax]

There are phones like this along the highways. They also tend to use high-power microwave links instead of mobile networks, so they work even with no regular phone coverage.

[citizenpaul]

You are underestimating just how many people that are out there that want free long distances calls lol. I worked at a phone company and this was a never ending persistent security issue. There are lots of tricky ways to get someone to pay for your long distance call. If the pay phone was free then the local provider would be on the hook for those calls.

Just block long distance calls right? If it was that simple it would not be a persistent issue.