This seems a bit off. Public payphones were what, 25¢/min? Now that they have been eliminated, the cash equivalent is a prepaid mobile service.
Public payphones had an infrastructure of phone booths that needed to be maintained, cleaned, and serviced. They consumed real estate.
Prepaid mobile service is a trivial deployment by comparison. I must maintain my own hardware. Yet my carrier charges 22¢/min in 2025. Comparable to the cost of public payphones.
If my memory serves me, I believe Payphones also had government backing in the US. They were seen as a public work so the phone companies that owned them received governmental assistance to help cover cost. Now there’s no gov. aid to help cover cost which means they make sure consumers pay more to maintain their profit margins.
And also inflation.
