Wrong Number

“It’s just kind of a thing of the past.”

K & M Telephone Co.

Photo by Daniel R. Blum (Creative Commons)

What next? Small towns across the country are losing their schools, their churches and their grocery stores, and now in Chambers, Nebraska (population 287), the phone company wants to pull the plug on the town’s one and only pay phone.

It’s not personal, says the phone company. It’s a dollars and sense decision. Last year the pay phone in Chambers brought in only a little over 3 dollars, so it makes sense to discontinue service, especially considering it cost the phone company 700 dollars a year to maintain the darn thing.

But not so fast. There’s a rule in Nebraska that requires at least one pay phone in every community across the state. The rule hearkens back to the day before cell phones, and the phone company says it’s outdated. That’s a valid point, seeing as how over two-thirds of the phone numbers in Nebraska are cell numbers.

The phone company hopes the Public Service Commission dials in on a decision soon. Because there’s one thing landline phone companies and pay phones have in common: both are struggling to avoid becoming a “thing of the past.”

Read more → Peter Salter, Company wants to pull small town pay phones, Lincoln Star Journal, April 7, 2012.