The big telephone companies used to keep unprofitable pay phones open by subsidizing them from other parts of their operations, but that was outlawed by a 1996 federal regulation. The new rule was supposed to make it easier for independent pay phone companies to compete. But pay phone providers have suffered from the proliferation of cell phones, the difficulty of recovering costs from toll-free calls, and the failure of state governments to establish the amounts the independents must pay the big companies for access to phone lines. Now the pay phone industry wants the Federal Communications Commission to step in with regulations that make it feasible to keep pay phones available. Sounds good to me.
Competition is fine as long as it leads to greater choice and accessibility.
But when large numbers of people are losing access to something as fundamental as telephones, it's time for the government to step in. The loss of pay phones is most serious in poor and rural areas. BellSouth Corp. announced last month it will get rid of 143,000 pay phones in the South within two years. Millions of low income Southerners who rely on pay phones in front of gas stations and general stores. In California, the loss is felt most keenly in the vast rural areas, in inner cities and on school campuses.