Except you can't quite call them pay phones anymore, because now they're free.

Harold Piltz used to run the Culcairn exchange in a time well before mobile phones and even a wireless landline handset and he sees the announcement as a way forward for the oft forgotten public phone.

"It's quite a good idea, because there would be people who don't have loose change now," he said.

"It's convenient to just walk up and pick up the phone, especially in an emergency.

"They shouldn't get vandalised now, there's no money in them."

IN OTHER NEWS:

Previously Culcairn had five of it's own phone boxes which have now been reduced to the sole handset out front of the post office.

Mr Piltz reflected on the telecom industry and the changes he's seen it undergo over the years.

"I was in charge of the Culcairn exchange where we had eight staff who looked after 20 exchanges around the area," he said.

"A lot of the exchanges were mechanical, so they took a lot of looking after.

"I joined back when it was called the Post-Master General and post offices looked after the exchanges."

In Albury there are still roughly 26 public phones left in operation and 15 on the Wodonga side of the Border.

In the Border region as a whole, excluding Albury-Wodonga, there are around another 80 payphones still running.

Telstra have stated that the move to make their public phones free is to help those in emergency situations or for people who can't afford a phone of their own.

"For many Australians, the availability of a payphone is a vital lifeline, especially for those vulnerable including the homeless, people who are isolated or someone escaping an unsafe situation," said Telstra's chief executive officer Andrew Penn.

"That's why I have taken this decision to make national calls from payphones free, because they play such a critical role in our community, particularly in times of need and for those in need."

The telecom executive stated that making payphones free across the country would cost Telstra approximately $5 million a year.

In 2013, Telstra struck a deal with the federal government in which they were to be paid $40 million per year for 20 years to maintain their payphones.

The once ubiquitous has been in steady decline since the mobile phone became cheaper and more readily available.

Telstra have said that in 2001 there were about 36,000 phone boxes in Australia.

Nationally there are roughly 15,000 remaining Telstra payphones and less than 5000 non-Telstra public phones.