It recently occurred to me that I had to a make an urgent call because I was visiting a area I wasn’t familiar with, On arrival to the location of the meeting, my smartphone reminded me that it doesn’t have a designer label for it battery. My Battery had died and I urgently needed to make a call. I decided to return to the times of my Father and look for a payphone.

My quest for a Payphone begun with shops in the residential area I was, Kisaasi to be precise, My hurt was bounty less and I had to move back to a stage, where there is more trade activity and more advanced shops and grocery stores. I can sure you even the Mobile money agents didn’t have payphones that served that purpose.

Alas I find one and he tell me he only uses it for mobile money transactions since everyone bought a phone, luckily he had a battery charging service which I agreed to use to get enough juice for a phone call.

The point……….

This piece of technology is slowly fading based on the steady decline in phone prices and with counterfeit Chinese phones and tablets that come with TVs, woofers and microwaves *kidding. Almost everyone in urban areas has access to a phone.

I happened to survey a few areas in the city only to find a few almost idol machines those that worked didn’t have quite enough customers and most were temporary store boxes for airtime vendors.

You are definitely in for it the next time you need to make a call using public facilities, it’s even harder to ask a stranger to assist you with their cellphone but it doesn’t mean there is no hope, you just have to walk a little longer to find a payphone.

But wait ……

The technology isn’t dead yet, you will find many payphones at schools and a few hospital and even fewer Payphones on the streets. In slightly semi-urban areas you will find a few shop keepers with them. Some countries will have some on the streets.

Well it’s almost time we say goodbye to a technology that has aided many including criminals.

Let us know when you last used a payphone