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AT&T Quitting Pay Phone Business

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Dec 3, 2007 11:53 am US/Central

AT&T Quitting Pay Phone Business

SAN ANTONIO (AP) ― AT&T says it'll quit the rapidly shrinking pay phone business by the end of next year.

   The San Antonio-based phone company says it'll depart the field before it becomes unprofitable.

   AT&T says it expects independent operators to buy its 65,000 pay phones in prisons and in public places in it's original 13-state area. Spokesman Michael Coe says pay phones are a tiny part of AT&T's overall business.

   The pool of pay phones nationwide has shrunk from 2.6 million to one million in the past decade. AT&T, alone, has 67.3 million wireless subscribers.

   BellSouth, which AT&T acquired at the end of 2006, had already exited the pay phone business. So had Denver-based Qwest Communications International.

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