Payphones again

In reading the EU Household Usage report I blogged about earlier, I came across their study of payphone usage in the EU. So, to follow up on this item, consider what the EU found. The percentage of people reporting that the "sometimes" use payphones ranges from a high of 34% (Austria) to a low of 3% (Cyprus) with an EU mean of 22%. 44% of payphone users report doing so because their mobile phone is out of range or its battery has run out, while 19% report not having a mobile phone and needing to place a call while travelling and 16% report not using their mobile phone due to high international tariffs.

Very interesting. I will have to search out similar data in the US. Anecdotal evidence is that payphones are disappearing in the US, which would make it difficult to use them! Do you have any data about payphone use elsewhere in the world?

US Telecom revenues by source

You might find this graph interesting, which was derived from data reported on FCC Form 499-A. I think it shows what we have all been experiencing ... declining wireline and increasing wireless. The data are in $US millions and the y axis is logarithmic. I do not believe that these are in constant dollars.


Note the decline in payphone revenues, wireline, and toll revenues and the increase in revenues for companies classified as wireline competitors (my words, not the FCC's) and, of course wireless providers. This data has wireless providers' revenues exceeding wireline ... I think that is because it is aggregated data.

Payphones

The subject of payphone use came up in a recent class. To my surprise, two of the students in the class had never used a payphone. (OK, I know I am old -- I use email after all.) But the discussion did get me thinking about how payphone use has evolved in light of the penetration of mobile phones. I have not been able to find reliable, transnational data (at least for free).

I did find some tidbits that are relevant. Check out the results of an informal survey (too bad they didn't include the option "never"):


This item (from the World Dialogue on Regulation) reports on payphone use in Africa.

The ACMA (Australia) issued an annual report that contained some data. Unfortunately, I was spending too much time trying to copy some graphics from that report into this blog post.

The FCC provides some data for the US, though it does not include usage data:

So how about you? Did you ever use a payphone? When was the last time you used one (please feel free to update the "Swivel" chart)?

Update(2007-12-3): This item (via Forbes) reports that AT&T will "... exit its declining public pay phone business by the end of 2008 to focus on faster growing areas."