Unlike the Big Apple, SaskTel isn’t hanging up on payphones

It may be the last call for payphones in New York City, but Saskatchewan won’t be following suit anytime soon.

The City That Never Sleeps plans to remove some 3,000 payphones from its streets because residents complained that unused phones are taking up valuable sidewalk space. The people also suggested the phones are antiquated and are becoming redundant with the rise of the cellphone.

Those reasons exist in Saskatchewan too, but it’s unlikely the province will do away with its payphones.

“I’m not sure if it will be within my career that they’re totally removed, but things have been continually changing,” Michelle Englot, SaskTel’s director of external communications, said with a chuckle.

“We’ve been talking about payphones being obsolete for quite a few years now but as long as we are required to continue to provide them, then SaskTel will certainly do that.”

Englot said the number of payphones in Saskatchewan has dropped considerably since 2005, when there were 5,300 payphones in centres around the province. Now, there are about 1,200 payphones in 260 communities.

(Brett Horton/980 CJME)

The phones’ numbers may be decreasing, but regulations are in place to make sure payphones won’t be going anywhere.

“There is currently a moratorium on the removal of the last payphone in a community and the CRTC also does mandate SaskTel to provide one public-access telephone in each exchange area,” Englot said.

“Payphones are considered an essential service, and that is always taken into consideration in whether we maintain a payphone in a particular location.”

Payphones and phone booths used to be omnipresent on street corners in Regina and other cities. Over the years, phones that weren’t used or those that had been vandalized were removed and not replaced.

The high cost of maintaining or fixing the phones also has been a factor in the decision not to replace them.

“Our highest payphone usage comes from remote areas in the north, in downtown cores in the bigger cities and then (at) convenience stores and within hospitals and malls,” Englot said. “If they weren’t being used at all, we definitely wouldn’t continue to maintain them.”

Englot admitted she found it somewhat surprising that a centre like New York City would opt to remove all of its payphones. In her mind, there still must have been some demand.

“Although the majority of people certainly have a cellphone these days, not everyone does,” she said.