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