[LINK] Free Payphones

[Stephen Loosley]

>>> While last year’s tally of 11 million phone calls, at 50c each, would have brought in $5.5 million, Mr Penn declined to disclose how much free public calls would cost Telstra, other than to say it wasn’t “an enormous amount” to bring new life to an “iconic” asset.

On 3/8/21 3:52 pm, Bernard Robertson-Dunn wrote:
>> I wonder what it costs to maintain public pay phones? Not having a
>> device that collects cash must simplify the whole installation.

And Roger writes,
> Best of all, not having to pay people to go around the now-sparse
> population of machines, extracting the rubbish that very strange people
> shove into the slots.
>
> I understand people not trusting 'authority'.
> But treating a service-to-me-and-people-like-me as the symbol of
> authority, and therefore to be beaten up and bruised, ain't smart.


Yes agreed, also Telstra are doing a ‘good thing’. And whilst they are,
why not multiply the resulting benefits with a free telephone service?

That is, as well free local calls, offer everyone a free telephone number
with it’s own answering machine service to allow maximum usefulness.

Cheers,
Stephen