Telstra plan to cut pay phones

Telstra will drastically slash the number of public pay phones in country towns and capital cities as it accelerates a cost-cutting drive to offset rapidly declining revenue from traditional businesses. The telco has signed off on plans to remove 5,000 of its 32,000 pay phones over the next seven months. It has also embarked on a secret strategy to defuse the political fallout from the move by marking the phones with stickers indicating the service is being relocated – when it will be made redundant.