Why are public telephones vanishing so rapidly?
609977
The major land line providers like Pacific Bell, South Central Bell, etc. have made a business decision to get out of the pay phone business, because practically everyone has a cell phone for communications while on the move. It is no longer feasible for the phone companies to do repair and maintenance on something that is not generating a profit any longer. Even the payphones that you still see sometime, which are owned by private companies, are in the same bind as the big phone companies.  Every now and then, you see an ad in the classifieds seeking people to buy private payphone business ventures.  I predict the payphone will be as extinct as a dinosaur within the next five years.
298172
I don't care at all about stuff like that. Actually I hardly use mine. Emergencies only. Too many gadgets added onto them also.\nI know some people who are on welfare and have the most up to date phones and sometimes more than one also......baffled !
1134088
It would have to be extremely high-pitched (probably over 25,000 cycles per second). Are telephone speakers able to generate such a high pitch? Probably not, as that would drive up the cost of the phone a lot.
752965
More than would have died BEFORE CELLPHONES!
1103331
If what you say is fact (which I will research after I answer this) Then I say I have a serious problem with a single ownership of media.  Just as I've always have had with the monopolies of the telephone companies.  We have only made the great strides and advancements we have in telecommunications because they broke up the monopolies.  Thanks for the heads up!
519874
could be your browser or the speed at which your connected, sometimes you lost your signal altogether.
311367
If you do phone them 24 times in a row you are an absolute idiot.  You are tying up the telephones at the station.  If a real emergency occurs the people may not get through.  If you do keep phoning I do hope they find you and charge you.
993729
Why not look them up either on the internet or in the yellow pages\nIf you do not get them on the internet there is still the telephone
26694
If you do not see telephone poles, then the telephone lines are most likely buried.  In many developed cities, the lines are buried to make it look better.\n\nBuried lines are subject to less interference from TV and radio and it looks nicer.
211713
I'm a college student with a 12 hr a week job. I don't do much here towards the end of the day and I just dicscovered this. Right now I have time becuase the phones arn't ringing. :)
708542
A bit drastic. But given that a lot of cell phone owners are incapable of simple courtesies like switching the ringtones off in lectures or other events and not answering their phone if they are in the middle of a conversation with somebody else,  it makes sense as an educational measure. \nNow people can start learning talking to each other directly instead of talking through a cell phone. People survived for a surprisingly long time without cellphones, if cell phones would all break down tomorrow it wouldn't be the end of the world.
960302
you may have to get that service turned off for a while because it is eating up your minutes . This happened to a friend of mine with the joke of the day , he had to get his text msg turned off to make them stop !!!
494070
Some people just can't talk on the phone.  My husband and I love each other very much and have a wonderful relationship but when he was in Iraq, our phone conversations last about ten minutes on average.  We just aren't phone people.  When he came home, we had alot to catch up on that we just never brought up over the phone.  Don't worry about it so much.
1087403
you can't stop them. use a public phone
481438
I love my cell phone and now I don't have a land line at home. Like anything, I think it can be abused or overused. I think its very rude to be dealing with a customer or walking with someone and be on the phone with someone else.
1035560
We live in a society of instant gratification.  You ask an answer here, and you get an answer instantly.  If you need to research an important topic, you no longer need to make a trip to the library.  Reliable resources are now available online.  Not so long ago, email was the fastest source of communication.  Now we IM and have cell phones.  We no longer make dates a week ahead of time.  We use IM or cell phones to make instant dates 1-2 hours beforehand.  We live in a "fast" society.  Technology has invaded our lives and put almost any information or task at the tips of our fingers, cell phones, computers, or blackberries.  \n\nBut you know what?  That technology has not been able to invade the roads yet.  We have highways and interstates full of wired people who live wired lives.  Every second counts.  All the technology in the world cannot prevent slow traffic, accidents, careful drivers, or folks who are lost.  \n\nIt is time to put that hurry up and get out of my way "rage" aside, and start waving at strangers with all of our fingers again!
18454
This will be a simplistic answer since I don't work in the phone industry but this is what I know:\n\nFirst, we must assume that we are leaving the newer kinds of phone service out of the equation - I might touch on them later. Anyway, yes, in the traditional phone service setup, all phones are connected by lines & different areas are connected by cables that hold what we could term as super lines...basically a larger collection of lines to allow for more data flow back & forth. The phone service reaches your house through a line actually connected to your house above or below ground. In order to get there, it winds through your neighborhood & connects to a type of juncture box which houses all of the equipment for the area (these are normally short-ish green boxes on the side of the road or look like transformers at the top of telephone poles).\n\nAs for connecting countries themselves, there is/was (not sure if it is still in use but I think it is) something called the TransAtlantic Cable which originally carried the ability for telephone service overseas. Of course, when you make the jump to another continent, you then continue with the lines & cables either above or below ground.\n\nBack in the day, "Ma Bell" (nickname, can't think of the real name right now) & AT&T owned all the lines. At some point, this company was split up into what became known as the "baby Bells" which included, Southern Bell, Pacific Bell, etc. The other early player in the game & in our ability to communicate across the country & overseas, AT&T, is a company you are likely still familiar with today.\n\nI would suggest researching both "AT&T", "Ma Bell" & something like "history of telephone communications" online to get more information as the history of the worldwide telephone service is quite interesting. You'll be amazed at what folks accomplished when all of this was first set up; I certainly am when I look at where we were even when I was a child as opposed to where we are today.\n\nAs for my comment on the newer technologies, those would include broadband (or internet) telephone service - which carries the information over either the DSL or cable connected to your computer - & satellite telephone service. I can't say much to satellite as I've not researched it...