America's largest telecommunications carrier, AT&T, announced on Monday (American time) that it plans to exit the paid public telephone business, which it has operated for 129 years, by the end of 2008. AT&T's public phone booths will become a thing of the past.
AT&T stated that due to the widespread adoption of mobile communications, the number of paid public phones across the industry in the U.S. has dropped from 2.6 million units in 1998 to the current 1 million units. AT&T currently operates 65,000 payphones in 13 U.S. states.
However, the company will continue to provide wholesale payphone services to independent payphone operators. Verizon, another major American carrier, is still operating its payphone business.
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