Payphones still important in 2020 — despite their sorry state in Winnipeg's core
CBC News sampling of payphones downtown, surrounding area finds most not in working order
A Bell MTS payphone in a three-walled booth at the corner of Higgins Avenue and Austin Street sits vandalized and forgotten. A jagged metal hole exposes loose wires where it once held coins. The once blue-lit display screen is now black. The line is dead.
Friends Jamie Kent and Eyan Ballantyne, who are walking by one wintry afternoon, suspect someone busted it up trying to steal change from inside.
Neither of them have cellphones.
"Payphones are important. If you don't have a cellphone, you know, where can you go?" said Ballantyne.
Kent said he's found people passed out in the street in the winter and had to use payphones to call for help out of concern for their safety.
They also rely on these phones to connect with loved ones.
"I used the payphone yesterday to call my mom for my welfare millionaire check," said Ballantyne, laughing.
Smartphones are spreading and payphones are disappearing, but despite the dwindling supply some say the public booths still serve an important role — though you'd be hard pressed to find a working one in and around Winnipeg's core.
CBC News visited 34 payphone locations in downtown and the surrounding neighbourhoods, where Winnipeg's homeless population is concentrated. About 75 per cent of payphone locations had broken or missing phones.
Only eight Bell MTS booths had working phones.
The vast majority weren't working while a few booths had no phones.
Click on icons in map above to view photos of payphone locations around Winnipeg's core.
Kent and Ballantyne believe payphones should be more accessible and treated as a public service. So do advocates who work with people in poverty and experiencing homelessness, but that seems unlikely to happen based on recent trends.
Numbers from the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission show payphones are disappearing: there were nearly 94,000 across the country in 2012, compared to just over 36,000 in 2018.
Payphone use has "declined significantly" over the years due to the growth in wireless services, according to Bell MTS. The telecom service provider still operates about 3,000 such phones in Manitoba, with half of those located in Winnipeg.
Watch an overview of payphones in Winnipeg's core area:
One such payphone on Broadway includes signage boasting about ad space available for rent on the side of booths and suggests there are 4,700 payphones across the province. A Bell MTS spokesperson said that claim is "very out of date."
That same booth, along with all but a few others CBC News visited, exclusively feature MTS branding, despite Bell's takeover of Manitoba Telecom Services three years ago.
'We have a problem'
The CBC News findings come as a surprise to Luke Thiessen, communications manager for Siloam Mission, which helps people experiencing homelessness and people living in poverty.
"If the majority of these phones are broken and if it's because they're not being fixed ... that is a big concern I would say for the people who rely on those phones," he said.
Thiessen said Siloam offers free use of landlines at its headquarters on Princess Street because the organization recognizes many of its clients can't afford cellphones.
He echoed Kent and Ballantyne in saying access to payphones remains important in 2020 and he feels they should be a public service.
"If they're all broken and they have no access then, you know, we really have a problem."
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Payphone revenues plummeting
It's clear based on numbers from the CRTC that the payphone business isn't what it once was for large telecom service providers.
More than a decade of CRTC revenue data from across Canada suggests payphones make a pittance compared to what they used to: the average booth made $1,090 in 2008 compared to $369 in 2018.
A Bell MTS spokesperson twice refused to say how much money payphones in Manitoba pull in annually, or how much the average payphone makes per year in the province.
The company still maintains a page on its website that touts payphones because they "deliver accessibility." The same page encourages local businesses to install Bell MTS payphones on site free of charge.
"Best of all, Bell MTS looks after repairs, maintenance, and coin collection so you don't have to worry about the payphone once it is installed," the webpage reads.
Businesses also receive a commission off every call made.
People 'smash them'
Tebls Mahali said the two payphones outside the corner store she co-owns on Maryland Street near the Health Science Centre earn at least $25 a year — at least they did before one was removed from its booth and another was broken.
"People, they smash them," Mahali said from behind the counter. "The other one, I don't know if it was removed by MTS, I'm not sure, but it's not there."
She said she reported to Bell MTS about five months ago that the lone phone left outside her property was no longer working, but it still hasn't been repaired.
"I don't know what is the case, why they don't want to fix it," she said. "But I can see it hasn't been fixed for quite a while."
A Bell MTS spokesperson said vandalism is a "significant issue" with payphones, and repair times vary depending on the extent of the damage. Payphones that are repeatedly vandalized get removed, the spokesperson said, and business owners can request payphones be removed from their property.
The spokesperson said Bell MTS would be in touch with Mahali "as soon as possible."
'I want them to be gone'
Ever since the last phone outside the store was broken, Mahali said people come in daily asking to use the store business phone. She doesn't allow it, and that creates conflicts.
"Sometimes they will hit the wall because I won't allow them to use my phone, or they will kick the door," Mahali said, adding at this point she doesn't want Bell MTS to fix the faulty payphone.
"I want them to be gone."
That said, Mahali recognizes the need for payphones. So does Ballantyne.
"We all need a phone — not all of us have cellphones," he said.
For anyone who comes across a broken payphone, Bell MTS says to call 204-225-5687.
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