04-06-2005, 11:45 AM
|
 |
Cheesesteak GURU! Wiz with
|
|
Join Date: Jun 2004
Location: Somewhere between Spruce Hill and Cedar Park
Posts: 6,247
|
|
The Importance of Pay Phones
Quote:
Maine Joins Fight to Keep Pay Phones
Wed Apr 6, 5:39 AM ET
By GLENN ADAMS, Associated Press Writer
FAYETTE, Maine - Along a hilly stretch of road in central Maine, there's no cell phone service for more than a mile.
Callers once used the pay phone outside the Fayette Country Store, but that ended when the phone company, despite objections, removed it. Customers who need to make toll calls now are told to drive a few miles to use a pay phone at the Readfield Post Office.
Around the state and country, similar scenes are playing out as telephone companies remove unprofitable pay phones. In Maine alone, the 8,200 pay phones available to the public in 1998 dropped to 4,500 by 2003, according to state Rep. Herbert Adams.
"Public pay phones are going the way of the passenger pigeon," Adams said.
But the lawmaker is sponsoring legislation to put pay phones in designated areas, including regions outside the reach of cell towers, low-income communities and remote areas frequented by tourists.
Several other states — including New Hampshire, Arkansas and California — have programs for so-called public interest pay phones, according to the Maine Public Advocate's Office.
Walter Ash, a state representative who owns a fleet of tow trucks along the coast, said he sees many instances in which stranded customers could use pay phones. Ash said he's been called to one spot on the island of Islesboro where "you can see two (cell) towers and not get service."
On Cliff Island, the pay phone at the community square was removed a year or so ago over the objections of local residents, said Stevan Little Sr., who heads an island civic group that supports Adams' bill.
Little said cell phone service is spotty and if a signal is picked up, it's often lost mid-call. That can create a dangerous situation in the event of an emergency on the island, where a wintertime population of about 50 swells in the summer.
"If you're out here, except for the height of the summer, it's pretty easy not to see anybody else," Little said.
Public Advocate Stephen Ward said his office, which represents the public in utility cases, has received complaints about the issue from Cliff Islanders as well as from agencies that protect domestic abuse victims, the mentally disabled and the poor. Officials from small, remote towns also have expressed their dismay.
"The availability of a pay phone could be the only access to emergency help in a variety of scenarios," Ward said in recent testimony. Wayne Jortner, senior counsel in the Public Advocate's office, said the public interest pay phones "have the potential to save a life at a very small cost."
Adams said his bill seeks to set up a process in which the state would be notified before a pay phone is removed. Citizens could petition the state to keep a phone in operation in places where they think one is needed. State utility regulators would decide whether a phone would stay put.
Funding is not finalized. Adams' bill calls for surcharges on owners of pay phones, but another idea is to tap an account of phone customers' unclaimed deposits.
The Legislature's Utilities and Energy Committee has embraced the idea of tapping a fund comprised of surcharges on ratepayers' bills. The fund subsidizes rural customers' phone bills.
Verizon Communications Inc., a major player in Maine's pay phone business, believes public phones are located in areas where they are needed, said spokesman Peter Reilly. "Verizon is committed to the public pay phone business," he said. "It's a goal of ours to keep pay phones available where people need them."
Reilly said that making the phone company pay to put pay phones in newly designated areas could backfire. Costs would have to be recovered in some way, and that could result in the removal of other public phones, the spokesman said. Verizon believes it's appropriate for local governments to consider making public access phones available, just as they provide other government services.
___
On the Net:
Maine Public Advocate: http://www.state.me.us/meopa
|
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp..._us/pay_phones
__________________
Illegal aliens have always been a problem in the United States. Ask any Indian. - Robert Orben
|
Similar Threads
