So I was reading the paper this morning, and this piece caught my eye:

MOBILE BACKLASH: Pay phone cull hits disabled

The Asahi Shimbun(Newspaper/Press)

A junior high school boy, helped by his teacher, inserts a telephone card in a pay phone at his school in Tokyo's Bunkyo Ward and calls home. His mother answers.``Curry,'' is all he says before hanging up. It is a code between the pair, meaning he's heading home from school.The boy at the School for the Mentally Challenged at Otsuka, attached to the University of Tsukuba, has difficulty talking, so such codes ease the process.The phone is indispensable to students-from kindergarten to senior high school-at the state-run school, but they stand to lose their lifeline if Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. (NTT) goes ahead with its streamlining plan and removes it.NTT East and NTT West are removing 11 percent of their 680,000 pay phones this fiscal year, as the ubiquitous mobile phone makes them increasingly redundant. Their combined loss from the pay phone business was 34 billion yen in fiscal 2001.For a pay phone to be viable, it needs to net NTT at least 4,000 yen a month, but the school's phone has been averaging only 3,240 yen a month, leaving it primed for the cull.According to Motoshi Kanda, the school's vice principal, students usually start coming to school alone when they are in fifth or sixth grade.Teachers then advise children to call home after arriving and before leaving school to ensure their safety and to help them get to grips with simple everyday tasks.The pay phone is easy to handle and accepts telephone cards. Many parents do not want children to carry cash, fearing money could involve them in trouble. They feel similar fears over cellular phones, which can also be hard to use.Defending the need for a pay phone, PTA head Mihoko Kikuchi says: ``If we must let children carry cash, we must teach them its value and how to handle it. People may say they must at least be taught how to use money. They are right, but I hope they will understand even that is beyond some children.''An NTT East official says there will be no exceptions. ``We cannot say our removal work is proceeding smoothly, but we are making efforts to obtain understanding.''According to NTT West, it has also received requests for stays of execution from schools, social welfare facilities and clinics.A public relations official says the company will not eliminate pay phones ``without consent. We will try to leave the minimum necessary units, so we hope people will understand.''(IHT/Asahi: November 26,2002)(11/26)

…And my very first letter to the editor followed about 26 minutes later:

I'm writing in response to the Tuesday, November 26,

2002 article in the IHT, "Mobile Backlash: Pay Phone

Cull Hits Disabled".

I sympathize with Nippon Telegraph and Telephone

Corp., and understand their decision to remove the pay

phone from the School for the Mentally Challenged in

Otsuka. These are extremely difficult times, and the

company is losing a lot of money due to the popularity

of mobile phones, so a phone that is losing an average

of 760 yen per month clearly must go.

Perhaps the lack of revenue at this particular pay

phone can be attributed to the students using

single-word codes to let their parents know that they

are safe. Maybe NTT would like the students to

memorize longer codewords or phrases, to ensure a

higher charge per call, so the phone in this location

remains "viable".

I see in the article that NTT West has received

numerous requests to leave the phones in schools,

clinics and other facilities such as this one in

Otsuka. I also see that an NTT East official has said

that there will be "no exceptions". And, I hope that

the phone discussed in the article appears on the list

of "minimum necessary units" the company is planning

to leave in place.

It's a difficult decision for poor NTT, so I would

like to offer the company some help. I have discussed

this dilemma with my friends, and we think, through

careful budgeting, we can scrape together 761 yen per

month. I ask that NTT would be so kind as to add that

amount to my current NTT bill, and apply it to the

average monthly shortfall of the pay phone at the

School for the Mentally Challenged.

I ask NTT to allow these students to keep their very

"necessary unit", and I urge them to accept my offer,

so they don't have to lose a single yen in their

"efforts to obtain understanding".

Sincerely,

blah blah blah

I wonder if pissing off one of the biggest companies in the world is a good way to get deported? Let's find out…….