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Playing with payphones: how the ubiquitous orange boxes have been gamified by fans
The Guardian Tech
Thursday 11 June 2026, 15:00 UTC
By Caitlin Cassidy
1 min read
Key Points
Quaint and often overlooked, phone booths continue to provide an essential public service with millions of free calls being placed each yearGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastA man I’ve never met stands at a payphone in Sydney’s CBD.“A serene small park directly to the right of the payphone,” he says poetically into the receiver. “There’s a man with an interesting cap sitting down there, and an ibis. I guess they’ll be immortalised in this phone voicemail forever.”
Quaint and often overlooked, phone booths continue to provide an essential public service with millions of free calls being placed each year
A man I’ve never met stands at a payphone in Sydney’s CBD.
“A serene small park directly to the right of the payphone,” he says poetically into the receiver. “There’s a man with an interesting cap sitting down there, and an ibis. I guess they’ll be immortalised in this phone voicemail forever.”
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Originally published by The Guardian Tech
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