2020 Year In Review

Futel did well in 2020, considering.

• We slogged through the pandemic, at least that part which has so far been experienced, and adapted to support our users with the development of the sanitation and hygiene programs.
• We deployed one new phone and many new hand washing stations.
• Wildcard Line episode 7 was released. Contribute to the Wildcard Line from any Futel phone.
• We completed the Hold The Phone project in partnership with Open Signal, featuring three contributing artists and funded by a RACC grant.
• We received an Awesome Portland May 2020 People’s Choice grant to support the implementation of the sanitation and hygiene programs.

Most importantly, we continued to provide services to our phones and incoming line. Usage greatly increased in Detroit in the first half of the year when the shit started to hit the fan. Later in the year, a 911 call placed on the Detroit Futel phone to report a house fire was connected to emergency services faster than an attempt from a cellphone that was already in progress. Usage for the year included:

• over 22000 handset pickups
• over 13000 calls received by the incoming line
• 9370 outgoing calls
• 465 calls to the Futel voice conference
• 121 calls to the mayor of Detroit
• 116 calls to a randomly selected American concentration camp
• 92 calls to the Payphone Demultiplexer
• 79 attempts to communicate with the Druids of Sisyphus Gardens
• 45 calls to the mayor of Portland
• 34 calls to the Willamette Valley Dream Survey