Italy hangs up its final public pay telephones

Pay telephones to stay in Italy’s hospitals and prisons.

Public pay telephones on the streets of Italy will quickly develop into a factor of the previous after a choice was taken to start the method of eradicating the greater than 16,000 telephone cubicles nonetheless discovered across the nation.

Italy’s Communications Regulatory Authority (AgCom) on Friday established that the telecommunications firm TIM is now not required to ensure the general public service.

The choice, taken after a public session, will result in the gradual decommissioning of telephone containers and pay telephones from streets throughout the nation, in accordance with Italian media reviews.

The one locations the place public pay telephones will stay is in hospitals, barracks and prisons in addition to in distant mountain shelters the place there is no such thing as a cellular mobile phone protection.

Italy’s first phone sales space was put in in Piazza S. Babila in Milan on 10 February 1952, paving the way in which for pay telephones throughout the nation over the following many years.

Nonetheless their use has decreased dramatically lately with the arrival of cell phones, resulting in classic pay telephone tokens and phone playing cards changing into collectors’ objects.

In 2019 telephone cubicles in Italy registered a median of 277 calls per cabin, with this quantity down to simply 118 calls per cabin two years later.