Prepaid mobile calls cost what public payphones had cost when the plug was pulled (fedia.io)

submitted 3 weeks ago by ciferecaNinjo@fedia.io to c/phones@lemmy.sdf.org

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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.

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[-] Eeyore_Syndrome@sh.itjust.works 2 points 3 weeks ago

My prepaid Mint Mobile plan is ~$180 a year for unlimited calling so 🫣.

[-] ciferecaNinjo@fedia.io 1 points 3 weeks ago

Can’t reach that link, but sounds good for folks that talk more than 800 min/yr.

But that’s almost like a postpaid scenario.. use-it-or-lose it rather than pay-as-you-go. My consumption would be well below that, and I can’t even be certain I will be in any one given country for whole year. I’d probably be spending over $1/min with that plan.

this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2025

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