Guy in rural Vermont installing free public pay phones

[thewayne]

(Is rural Vermont redundant? I've never been there.)

Patrick Schlott is an electrical engineer and encounters cellular dead zones regularly while driving through work. So he gave himself a hobby and a calling.

He's buying pay phones from Ebay and Craig's List, restoring them, setting them up to make VOIP calls over the internet, and installing them in towns throughout rural Vermont, letting anyone make free calls to anywhere in the US and most of Canada. And thus far, paying for all of it out of his pocket.

I just now checked Ebay, and a push-button pay phone is running typically $100-300+.

These aren't going just anywhere, but into places like libraries, schools, etc. And they're getting used, and proving useful to drivers who have car breakdowns, students who need to call their parents, etc.

Very cool project!

https://www.npr.org/2025/08/04/nx-s1-5484013/engineer-restores-pay-phones-for-free-public-use

Comments

[murakozi]

I have a refurbished payphone that I got a couple decades back. Aside from being refurbished, it was converted to free use, so you can just pick up the receiver and dial. You can put coins in the slot, but they just drop straight into the vault without doing anything. It just plugs into an RJ11 jack.

It's still got its signage and the phone number on it indicates it was originally in use in San Francisco. The biggest drawback to it (aside from weighing a ton) is the short cord on the receiver means you have to stay in pretty close when on a call.

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

>>Is rural Vermont redundant? I've never been there.<<

It's not redundant. Most of Vermont is rural, but it also has several cities such as Burlington. Rutland, which I write as Terramagne-Rutledge, is a large town or small city. Ironically Montpelier, the capital, is firmly in town size.

>>He's buying pay phones from Ebay and Craig's List, restoring them, setting them up to make VOIP calls over the internet, and installing them in towns throughout rural Vermont, letting anyone make free calls to anywhere in the US and most of Canada. And thus far, paying for all of it out of his pocket.<<

That is so awesome.

[dewline]

A very pleasant shock, this news is!

[disneydream06]

(Is rural Vermont redundant? I've never been there.)
LMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Very nice of that guy. :)
Hugs, Jon

[arlie]

What ysabetwordsmith said - there are several cities. I've been in Burlington, though not since the 1970s.

[thewayne]

My wife has sisters in Maine, and we've visited friends in Taxachussettes, but never quite gotten up there to VT.

[kaishin108]

That is so cool but I am surprised they would work. But I am fairly dense in that department!

[kaishin108]

Oh I see, (now that I read your link), he has an internet connection. But still, what if their isn't one?

[thewayne]

Well, he only sets them up in places that have good internet connectivity.

[kaishin108]

It's a great plan. Now our parks are going to have internet. I think it should be free everywhere though. More important that huge AI data centers IMHO.

[thewayne]

I read recently about, IIRC, Wyoming getting data centers that will consume more power than all the residents of that state!  Absolutely ridiculous.

[kaishin108]

Ick! That reminds me, I just read some wrong information from AI today.

[thewayne]

Wrong information from AI?  Say it isn't so!  ROFL!

[silveradept]

That seems like an excellent thing for someone to do, and to turn those pay phones into free VOIP calling keeps them alive for longer and doing what they do best. I wonder what the connection fees are for the calls, though. There probably isn't any place any where that offers a free connection to POTS from the Internet. Hopefully if donations are needed, the residents where the phones have been installed will be able to help with some of the costs. Or the places where they've been installed will, since they're getting plenty of use.