Telstra is making wi-fi free at 3,000 of its payphones. 

Telstra group executive for consumer and small business Michael Ackland says the company is building on earlier moves to make standard calls and SMS free from payphones in August last year.

It is now seeking to provide free wi-fi at phone booths across the country, including enhanced power resilience and wi-fi capability for 1,000 payphones in disaster-prone regional areas. 

The company says it intends to upgrade its entire network of phones to support free wi-fi “over the coming years”.

In the year since it began offering free calls from former payphones, almost 19 million free calls were made, including “more than 250,000 calls made to critical services like Triple Zero (000) and Lifeline.”

“Centrelink was the most dialled service from payphones in the past year,” the company said.

The closest Telstra wi-fi enabled payphone can be found on the company’s Find Us page.