BellSouth hopes to sell the pay phones to other companies by December 2002. We've obviously recognized that pay phones are not part of that. Blumenthal said BellSouth expects no trouble finding buyers for the phones, even as the market for the coin-operated boxes continues to cool.
Pay phones appear safe in other parts of the country, too.
SBC Communications, which covers the Midwest, said it has no plans to sell its more than 400,000 pay phones. And Verizon Communications, which covers the Northeast, said Friday it will hold on to its 460,000 pay phones. They're not dropping coins in the boxes. BellSouth said it wants to focus attention on more popular communications devices, including Cingular Wireless, its partnership with SBC, broadband data transmission and interactive pagers. The Macon Telegraph.