Public Pay Phones to be Brought Back to Life

In Croatia today there are more mobile phones in operation than there are citizens. In the day before mobile phones overtook the world pay phones were popular, and it seems they are set to make a comeback…

In the 1990s there were more than 10,000 public pay phones in Croatia, today there half as many. In 2000 there were 3 million calls made and received from phone booths in the county. Last year there were 350,000, almost ten times less.

T-Hrvatski Telekom (Croatian Telecom), who operate the public pay phones, have plans to bring them back to life. The public pay phones are set to be modernised with touch screens, Wi-Fi for internet surfing and other capabilities, in an attempt to draw people back to them.

“T-Hrvatski Telekom has been considering possible solutions to transform pay phones. Around the world there are a few examples where they have been transformed to offer Wi-Fi, ability to buy tickets for public transport and other services from them, and also serve as advertising space”, the company said in a statement, sighting examples in New York and Baku.

An example of transformed phone booths in New York