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Nothing highlights how rapidly the telecom sands are shifting than the juxtapositioning of two pieces of telephone-related news this week:
- AT&T shuttering its 129-year-old payphone business by the end of 2008, citing severely declining use in the face of ubiquitous cellphone ownership;
- The veritable land-rush by Verizon, AT&T and other wireless providers to open their networks to unlocked phones and other devices, essentially divorcing themselves from the telecom hardware business.
Not only are fixed-line telephones becoming a disappearing historical footnote, the bring-your-own (within reason) approach to open wireless service suggests that the modern-day communications matrix is more malleable than one could have imagined even 10 years ago.
I just got back from Costa Rica, where cell phones are still quite prevalent. It’s almost as if they were in my face there were so many of the.
Even on the way back at the american airports they seemed kinda sparse these days.
Comment by Gary LaPointe — 12/09/2021 @ 01:50:57 AM
Gary, I think you meant to say “payphones” there, instead of “cell phones”?
Comment by CT — 12/09/2021 @ 11:33:38 AM