The payphone industry may be in decline, but it’s still...
The payphone industry may be in decline, but it’s still providing valuable services, the American Public Communications Council told FCC Wireline Bureau officials at a meeting Tuesday, according to a slide presentation (http://bit.ly/XXzO64). That’s why the FCC should reconsider its…
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refusal to initiate a proceeding to assess whether payphones should get Lifeline support, APCC said. About 700 million calls are placed each year from payphones, and anecdotal evidence from a San Diego study “conducted several years ago” indicate that up to 25 percent of calls from payphones went to social service agencies, APCC said. The group said it was attempting to gather additional data, and believed that “this number may have increased.” The same study shows that, on average, there’s “slightly more than one” 911 call per month from each payphone. The commission needs to take a comprehensive look at its regulatory scheme for payphones, said Albert Kramer, APCC counsel. Despite the “mobile explosion,” payphones play a valuable role that should be considered in any regulatory rewrite, especially since the FCC “set up a regulatory scheme that has nothing to do with the world as it exists today,” Kramer told us.