Public telephone booths are a memory of a generation for Chinese. The post-70s, post-80s and some post-90s have used public telephones and need to buy communication cards or coin-operated coins to be able to use them. In the streets of China, many public telephone booths can also be seen. But with the popularity of mobile phones, the figure of public telephones has gradually disappeared from people's sights, because people no longer need it.
However, on the streets of Japan, many public telephone booths can be seen. Now that everyone has a mobile phone, why does Japan still have public telephone booths that are behind the times? What kind of story is behind this? In this article, we will talk about public telephone booths in Japan.
When telephone equipment was first invented, it was a very high-priced product, and it was difficult for ordinary people to reach. In order to facilitate the use of telephones, public telephones began to be set up in some European countries in the 19th century, and then gradually became popular in North America and Asia. Considering its publicity and convenience, it is generally set up in places with more people. The introduction of public telephones in Japan was in December 1890, when telephone offices were set up in Tokyo and Yokohama, with a total of 16 public telephones. However, the use of users at that time was limited, and the average phone call was only about 8 times a year.
Japan originally called this type of telephone "automatic telephone", and it was only in 1925 that it began to be officially named public telephone, which translates into Chinese called public telephone. Before World War II, there were 5,222 public telephones in Japan, but after the war, public telephones decreased to 623, and most of the telephones were destroyed during the war. In 1951, the Nippon Electric Corporation officially operated a public telephone business in stores and other places, and the number of public and the use of group telephones expanded rapidly in Japan.
The peak of the number of public telephones in Japan was in 1984, and at the end of that year, there were 934903 public telephones in Japan. Since then, it has gradually decreased, and according to 2020 Statistics, at the end of 2019, Japan still retained more than 150,000 public telephones.
The decline in public telephones is due to the change of times. In the 1980s, Motorola released the world's first handheld mobile phone, which is what we call "Big Brother". In the 1990s, the advent of 2G communication methods brought mobile phones equipped with LCD screens into the japanese field of vision. By the end of the 1990s, mobile networks in Japan had become increasingly popular. After 2000, Japan took the lead in entering the 3G era, and mobile phones also exploded. The increase in mobile phone clients has led to a decrease in the number of public phones.
This statistical chart clearly shows the trend of the decline in the number of public telephones in Japan, which is inversely proportional to the number of mobile phone clients. Even so, Japan's public telephone booths still exist in people's field of vision, and they have not been rapidly reduced to nothing.
There are three types of public telephones in Japan:
The first type of public telephone
The second type of public telephone
Public telephones for disasters
The first type of public telephone has a standard, which needs to be set up in the 500-meter range of the city street and one in other areas within 1 kilometer. Such telephones belong to the basic telecommunications facilities of Japan and are obligated to communicate;
The second type of public telephone is more commercial, mainly NTT East and NTT West, and will be located in places with large populations. There are no restrictions, and no additional application is required for removal, and this is the case that has drastically decreased in Japan;
Public telephones for disasters are the type of public telephones introduced in Japan after 1995, and many public telephones were unusable due to power outages during the Great Hanshin Earthquake. Such calls are set up in accordance with Japan's Disaster Relief Law. However, all public telephones in Japan can now be used as "emergency telephones" in the event of a disaster.
So, from this point of view, the japanese public telephone has become not only used as a commercial device, but has become a "disaster prevention" device. From this point of view, it is natural to retain a part of the public telephone. The above three types of public telephones are actually complementary, because the second type of public telephone coverage is mostly a large number of people, and the sparsely populated places can only be filled by the first and disaster public telephones.
However, the frequency of public telephone use in Japan is very low, and according to an internal survey by NTT, the average monthly usage fee of more than 90% of public telephones does not exceed 4,000 yen, and even the most basic maintenance costs are not enough. According to NTT's internal standards, these calls are removed objects.
But Japan cannot eliminate public telephones on such a large scale, for the reasons that have just been shown that these public telephones bear the responsibility of "emergency telephones". So what about these losses? Japan's NTT negotiated with the relevant Japanese authorities to allocate this part of the cost to the cost of mobile phones, and the burden is 3 yen a month for one number. Although the cost is not high, the mobile phone base is large, which is enough to maintain the maintenance of public telephones.
However, NTT is a company after all, and it is not a solution to continue to consume it like this. Nowadays, the use of public telephones in the event of disasters in Japan is increasing rapidly. In particular, public telephones have become standard at Japan's city halls and various shelters, with only about 9,000 in 2011. At the end of 2019, it had reached 82,000 units.
With the development of the times, the figure of the public telephone is no longer there. But I don't think the mission of public telephone is over. Japan's large-scale application of public telephones to disaster relief is a very good example. Although the public telephone may seem old and backward, when the real disaster strikes, a phone call is a life-saving channel.