What bugs me why they scrapped all public phones?
Because installing an maintaining a public phone costs money and with the proliferation of cell phones, few people use them. But if you ask at a customer service desk, I'd be surprised if they wouldn't let you use their phone or at least make a call for you.
My company doesn't even give desk phones to employees (except for a few, like sales people). Everyone else uses a cell.
If you're traveling solo, you should probably carry a backup phone with a cheap pre-paid SIM from a different provider than your main phone (T-Mobile has a $3/month plan). Even if you didn't have this SIM problem, you could have dropped your phone in a puddle or lost it.
When my wife and I travel, between the two of us, we have 2 phones, a wireless hotspot, a couple laptops, a tablet computer and an Amazon Echo, any of these devices can make a phone call with Wifi (which easy to find at coffee shops, etc). Our cell phones and hotspot are on different providers (AT&T, Verizon and Google Fi (sprint/t-mobile)).
When my elderly parents went on a 6 month cross country trip, I sent them a Garmin Satellite communicator (which I usually take on backcountry hiking trips). They're relatively inexpensive these days -- cost is around $400 + $12/month for a basic SMS plan, but they work pretty much anywhere in the world where you have a clear view of the sky. The one I have is also a handheld GPS, so is a backup for phone based GPS's (it doesn't do street routing like a car based GPS, but at least you can see where you are and where the main roads are). This was great since they could send a message even when out of cell phone range like "Fishing is great here - staying another week", and we knew they were safe and could call for help if they needed anything.
Even Satellite phones have really come down in price, last time I used one was over a decade ago and it cost thousands of dollars and several dollars a minute to talk. Now you can get one for around $500 + $50/month for basic plan, good for emergency use).
