Anyone who makes calls today takes it for granted that they use their cell phones. In addition, an incredible amount of communication takes place via WhatsApp and other messengers. And video calls are also common today. This ensures that Telekom is now heralding the end of the phone booth.
farewell
Communication has changed fundamentally in recent years. SMS has long been obsolete, video calls via smartphones are a reality. Messengers like WhatsApp or Telegram are installed on almost every cell phone. Instead of lots of words, people today send photos of banal things without thinking about how much data volume they use up. But one thing hasn’t changed for decades: We still make phone calls. However, the way we make calls has changed. Telekom knows that too and tears down the phone booth.
TELEKOM DISMANTLES THE LAST PHONE BOOTH
Anyone who wanted to make a phone call in the 1990s either had to have a few 10-pfennig coins in their pocket or buy a phone card, which they pushed into the public payphone. In 1994 there were over 165,000 telephone booths in Germany. In the meantime, Telekom has made over 90 percent disappear. Today, only 12,000 phone booths remain in service. And Telekom will soon put an end to this too. Telekom finally hangs up and switches off the last telephone booths at the beginning of 2023.
As of today, November 21, coin payment will be switched off on all telephones nationwide, according to WDR . By the beginning of 2023, Telekom also wants to shut down all those who pay by card. But it is possible that you will still come across such a phone booth on a street corner by 2025. Because Telekom wants to gradually dismantle them. The last telephone booth could not completely disappear from the landscape until 2025.
THE REASONS FOR THE END
It should be clear to most people why Telekom is dismantling its remaining telephone booths. After all, who still makes calls using a public payphone these days? Almost every third telephone booth made no sales in the past year. On average, according to WDR, a location only generates a few euros in sales per month. There are also costs for operation and cleaning as well as stand rental. In addition, Telekom repeatedly has to pay for damage caused by vandalism and theft. The end comes as no surprise and was foreseeable. Because mobile phone contracts are likely to be significantly more lucrative for Telekom and Co. than selling a phone card for 15 marks.
