Jinn of Quality and Risk

In Europe, payphones started to evolve 10-15 years ago, from accepting coins to accepting smartcards also, then accepting smartcards only — to the point where in some large cities it was impossible to make a phone call with coins. Now that mobile phones are ubiquitous, public payphones are rarely used and hence being phased out. In the last couple of centuries, many technological innovations that became mass-market products have led to a modified urban landscape due to the complete abandonment of previous infrastructure. Jeffrey Belk, Senior Vice President, Marketing, QUALCOMM Incorporated: Almost ALL of the payphones are gone from the Atlanta Congress Center, leaving blank walls of payphone bank divider slots with only an occasional payphone left on the wall. Please ask yourself why they are gone if traveling to a location to access (voice) data is such a good thing. Maybe analogous to why hitching posts and water troughs are gone from urban streets today. [via Wi-Fi Networking News]