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Purpose – This paper aims to examine whether mobiles are replacing the use of public access telephones (mobile or fixed) in Africa.

Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses data from nationally representative household surveys from 17 African countries to explain public phone usage.

Findings – Mobile use is often in conjunction with public phone use for some sections of the population. At lower levels of income, increases in income are associated with a higher likelihood of payphone use due to income related barriers such as the inability to afford a mobile handset and the minimum recharge amounts for mobile minutes. At higher levels of income use of public phones tends to decline, while high-income users do not use public phones at all. The latter is in keeping with the expectation of a gradual switch to mobile use with rising incomes.

Practical implications – The main policy recommendation that follows from the study is the need to ensure that public pay phones continue to exist as a communication safety net.

Originality/value – The empirical research explains public phone usage in terms of individual characteristics like income, age, gender representation for 17 African countries.