Bell’s steep price hike would only accelerate the death of the payphone

In our rush to embrace the astounding technology of cellular phones, one well-serving cultural icon of the Alexander Graham Bell era has become woefully obsolete.

Picture the payphone like the sad lamp in the Ikea commercial. Loyal and hardworking, the payphone was always available at a street corner or a subway platform during a late-night I-need-you-to-pick-me-up-here emergency. Now its numbers have dwindled down to nothing due to lack of demand.

In fact, Statistics Canada revealed in 2010 that 78 per cent of Canadian households contain at least one cell phone — surely a number that has jumped closer the 100 per cent mark in the intervening time.

Of course, lamps and payphones are not human, nor do they share our complex human emotions, so it's likely that the only nostalgia being felt over the prospect of a payphone-free landscape would stem from people who came of age before the late 90s.

But as a last-ditch attempt to keep them alive, CBC reports that Bell Canada and its subsidiary Bell Aliant are considering another price hike, raising the charge to $1 for a local call.

Currently, a local call costs 50 cents.

The cost of a non-cash payment, through a credit card, for example, would also double from $1 to $2.

Bell has appealed to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to approve the new fees, claiming that without the money the payphone could become a relic, appearing only in museums for hordes of future children to gape at in wide-eyed wonder.

Advancements appear to be threatening the payphone from every corner. Part of the price hike, argues Bell, would have to cover "significant capital expenditures" to update all their phones once the Mint rolls out its new, improved loonie.

"[T]he new one-dollar coins will have different characteristics than the current ones and so will not be recognized by the current coin validation systems," reads a section from the company's application.

The swift decline of available payphones has already made life more difficult for those who, whether by choice or by necessity, do not carry phones around in their pocket or handbag.

A host of consumer groups have countered that this uptick will "disproportionately affect" those who choose to go cell-free.

The Public Interest Advocacy Centre has even gone so far as to encourage Canadians to call up the CRTC (using the phone of your preference) to complain about the price hike.

Like all good competitors, Telus has reassured loyal customers that they wouldn't dream of increasing their payphone prices in B.C. and Alberta.

It appears that adorable commercials really are the way to save the things we love.