Back in the day, say ten years ago, phone service was a business based on customer relationships and growth. The better you treated your customers the more loyal they were. Of course, that cost you money, but you could be assured that the pricing structure in the phone business would remain relatively steady.

Today, phone service has become a commodity. From local telcos offering long distance to long distance companies offering local phone service to VOIP vendors offering everything.

You can tell when an industry has reached the commodity stage when the product is given away in lieu of advertising. It's happened in countless industries before and it's now reached the phone business.

Popa Media of New York has become the first company to offer free phone service to anyone on the street. They have rolled out their service and this presentation gives an overview of the free pay phone offering. I guess another term other than pay phone is needed now.

The power is in the advertising as well. Not only does a company get their image out, they can pay to have speed dials installed or changing graphics. According to this story in the New York Daily News, restaurants who have paid for speed dials get calls each day.

I think this has legs, literally, the extra foot traffic it provides should justify a business offering the space.

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