PHILADELPHIA — A group of about 20 tech-savvy engineers and programmers gathered at a Philadelphia bookstore last month to celebrate the installation of an...
Organizers want to help restore the public communications infrastructure that has been eroded by cellphones carried by most Americans.
But there’s more to PhilTel, the project launched this year by Mike Dank, a 31-year-old software engineer who lives in Springfield, Delaware County, and Naveen Albert, 21, a senior computer engineering major at the University of Pennsylvania. Somkuti, 25, is a regular at Iffy Books, which is on the third floor of a mixed-use building at 319 N. 11th St. and where the phone was installed in a hallway right outside the store. Iffy Books opened in July 2021 and specializes in books and events on hacking, gardening and generally “empowering people to be less reliant on big tech companies,” its website says.
Dank said in an interview that the first PhilTel telephone is a chance to show that PhilTel can successfully install a phone and keep the hardware that connects the phone to the internet working. Dank bought the phone installed at Iffy Books 15 years ago for $20 at the Leesport Farmers Market, which is north of Reading. It came from a high school in Mechanicsburg, Pa., he said.
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