Good news for Marylanders on the go who don't have cell phones. (Are there any left besides me?) Verizon, the last major telecom company in the stationary pay-phone business, says it has no intention of exiting. In the wake of news that AT&T (formerly known as Cingular, which was formerly known as SBC Communications) ("which changed it's name from SBC after buying AT&T who also acquired Bell South who owned the other half of Cingular" -- thank you reader Jeff) is trying to sell its pay phone business, I asked Verizon (the former Bell Atlantic) spokesman Harry Mitchell if Verizon would be next.

Although the company has only about 225,000 pay phones in 28 states and D.C. these days -- half what it had in 2000 -- it apparently still likes the business. It gets pay-phone revenue not only from quarters dropped in slots but from phone-booth ads, discounted international calling and a collect-calling number (1-800-USE-THE-VZ), says Mitchell. Naturally, Verizon makes the most money from phones at BWI, bus stations and other transportation hubs, where the pedestrian-to-phone ratio is especially high.

"Pay phones continue to provide an important service for millions of people – the person who prefers to pay as he goes, for example, as opposed to having the fixed monthly payment associated with cell service," says Mitchell. "They can be very valuable in a personal or social crisis; the Sept. 11 attacks and the New York City blackout a couple of years later produced a new appreciation for payphones, when customers lined up 20 deep to use them."

Verizon will, however, keep "managing the inventory" of pay phones and whacking locations that don't perform.