Electrical engineer Patrick Schlott was driving to work through the picturesque, rolling hills of Orange County, Vermont, when he first spotted it: a derelict, unused payphone placed outside a general store, seemingly lost in time. The phone happened to be located in a part of his commute where cellular connectivity was spotty at best, and in a dead zone where one could travel 10 miles in any direction without picking up a signal. A longtime tinkerer, the wheels in Schlott’s head began turning: What if he could use modern technology to revive the relic, while simultaneously adding a new layer of connectivity to his community?
All in all, it seemed like a relatively simple job from a technical standpoint. Schlott told Popular Science (from his cell phone) that the trickier challenge was getting a general store’s owner on board. He pitched the idea to several locations before eventually floating it to the skeptical owner of the North Tunbridge General Store.
“He was a little concerned,” Schlott said. Owner Mike Gross, was worried a working phone could attract unwanted attention and might lead to people “messing around his porch” after business hours. Still, he told Schlott he’d give the idea some thought.
Schlott says that the turning point came about a month later. Gross’s decision to approve the pay phone project seemed to stem from a frightening incident. While fleeing a dispute with her partner, a young woman had walked nearly 20 miles without her phone from a campsite in the woods to a church across the street from the store. Gross and his wife eventually found her sleeping on a picnic table. An active pay phone, they thought, could have allowed her to call someone for help.
“Maybe she could have used a phone and maybe people in similar situations could use a way to reach out that isn’t really available anymore,” Schlott added.Â
Schlott got to work. He began by sourcing used pay phones and parts from flea markets and the internet to fix up in his home workshop. Schlott makes any necessary repairs and in the case of the general store phone, retrofits them with VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) technology to enable calls. However, he still needs some assistance from the location owner. The pay phone host provides power, an internet connection, and a place to install the unit. Schlott then uses an analog telephone adapter to convert the analog signals into digital ones that can travel over the internet.Â
[ Related: Illinois man has spent 40 years rebuilding a WWII-era B-17 bomber. ]
The entire process is free for users—no coins needed. Schlott even has a name for his DIY public pay phone network: the Randolph Public Telephone Operating Company, or just Randtel for short.
Nearly two years after the initial installation, Schlott has added pay phones in two more locations in the Green Mountain State: the Latham Library in Thetford and outside an information kiosk near Interstate 89 in Randolph. Both sites were selected following an outpouring of support from local community members. So far, the refurbished pay phones have facilitated over 300 calls in the past few months. Â
And he’s not done yet. Schlott says he’s nearly finished putting the final touches on a fourth phone, located at a school. A fifth, still-undisclosed location is also in the works. While he’s received some requests to upgrade the phones with more modern features like Wi-Fi, Schlott says that would miss the point of his simple solution.
“I have no plans to change the features or change the scope of this,” Schlott said. “It needs to be simple and accessible by all.”
Bringing payphones into the internet ageÂ
Schlott is currently funding RandTel out of his own pocket. Used pay phones can cost several hundred dollars, though he says he’s frugal and usually waits for listings to drop in price. They can also vary widely in appearance and functionality, but Schlott typically prefers the models made by Western Electric or GTE between the 1970s and 1990s.Â
Broadly, pay phones fall into two categories: coin-first (where a user must insert money before hearing a dial tone) and dial-tone-first. Schlott says the dial-tone-first model is “basically identical” to modern landlines. And aside from occasionally replacing or repairing a part, the restoration process isn’t all that labor-intensive.
“Other than repairing common wear items or pieces that may have gotten broken over the years, the phones don’t need a ton of work to work like a regular phone, which is really nice.”
Schlott said it was a top priority that the phones reliably connect to 911. Users who approach a RandTel pay phone will see a blue-and-white card that briefly explains the project’s mission. It also includes a list of helpful phone numbers, reportedly including the local fire and police departments, a suicide prevention hotline, and the governor’s office. Pressing 0 for the operator connects callers directly to Schlott himself.Â
Most calls on RandTel last between 30 and 60 seconds, though Schlott has also seen occasional 10or even 20 minute conversations. In one case, a grateful community member requested the operator just to thank Schlott personally.
“People are remembering what we used to have,” Schlott said. “If you’re old enough, you recognize a payphone as something that is for you.”
Video killed the radio star. Smartphones killed the pay phone.
Though younger readers may not realize it, it wasn’t that long ago when pay phones were a common fixture in most U.S. cities. They saw a surge in adoption in the 1980s and 1990s, peaking at around 2.6 million installations nationwide. But the introduction and rapid adoption of mobile phones dealt a death blow to their usage—seemingly in the blink of an eye. AT&T officially exited the space in 2007, with Verizon following suit in 2011. While many cities still have physical pay phones scattered around, most are no longer connected to an active telephone line.Â
Additionally, Scholott isn’t the only one bringing some of these communication ghosts back to life. At least two other projects are also providing access to public payphones: PhilTel in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and FuTel in Portland, Oregon.
RandTel as a concept is also playing at least a small role in closing a connectivity gap that isn’t unique to this part of Vermont. Rural Americans are still far less likely to have access to broadband than those living in urban and suburban areas, an issue policymakers refer to as the digital divide. Cellular dead zones, which result from a lack of towers or interference from natural barriers like mountains or dense foliage, follow a similar pattern. Under former President Joe Biden, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC),, advanced a plan to spend $9 billion to expand 5G cellular connectivity in rural areas. However, the future of that proposal remains uncertain under the current administration.
[ Related: FCC bans AI-generated robocalls. ]
Public pay phones: a solution to school smartphones ban?Â
While Schlott initially launched the pay phone project to connect rural areas in cellular dead zones, the phones have quickly found another, unexpected use case. As schools begin to ban smartphones, the pay phones are helping parents stay in touch with their children. As of August 2025, dozens of states have either enacted or proposed legislation to limit students’ use of smart devices during school hours. Parents and groups critical of those efforts argue that such restrictions make it harder to coordinate pick ups, make plans, or communicate in emergencies. Public pay phones could offer an elegant solution to that problem.
Schlott says community members requested the library pay phone in part for this reason. The same goes for the one that’s about to be installed at a nearby school.
All of that potential demand means that Schlott, who still runs the entire operation himself, might be getting t stretched thin. With a slightly nervous laugh over the phone, he said it might be time to start recruiting some volunteers.Â
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