Telstra will soon allow publicly-accessible payphones to receive incoming calls.

The company has announced changes to the way its 15,500 public payphones operate and are priced.

It will cut the prices charged to use payphones and introduce the incoming call acceptance feature.

“For the first time nationwide, our publicly accessible payphones will be able to receive incoming telephone calls,” Telstra said.

“This will be of particular benefit to those communities where mobile phone usage isn’t as popular, allowing them to remain connected without a cost to them.”

There are still very few details on how the incoming call feature will operate.

The telco has scrapped distance-based pricing for national calls from payphones, and now charges a flat fee of 50 cents for untimed calls to standard fixed lines in Australia.

The cost for calls to Australian mobiles have been cut from 50 cents per 35 seconds to 50 cents for 10 minutes.