Victoria’s Chinatown home to one of B.C.’s last payphones
Global News
TELUS said it currently has about 800 active payphones left in B.C., with most in transportation hubs, hospitals, prisons and at some corner stores.
When the Rogers network outage brought everything from banking to government services to a halt Friday, millions of Canadians were left scrambling for ways to connect to cellular service and internet coverage.
While payphones offered one option to make phone calls, there are very few left in B.C.
Global BC legislature reporter Richard Zussman spotted a rare TELUS payphone on Fisgard Street in Victoria’s Chinatown, where, on Saturday, some passersby told Global News it unhooked childhood memories.
“I used to make a phone call for a dime on the end of a fishing line, and you could pull it back out and make repeated phone calls,” recalled one man, who said he wasn’t able to take advantage during the Rogers meltdown because he didn’t have change.
Bell Canada and TELUS payphones have been in decline for decades.
TELUS had 38,000 payphones in B.C. and Alberta in 1999.
By 2011, that number had dropped to 18,000.