Hong Kong’s public payphones are dying out but still hanging on
MTR stations are doing away with the machines but by law, the city still has to keep some of them
Hong Kong’s love – some might say obsession – with the telephone is the stuff of legend .
At the latest count most of us own at least two smartphones, making Hongkongers among the most mobile-mad populations on the planet.
Throw in the fact that — with the odd exception – we have one of the fastest broadband speeds around and an off-the-scale appetite for the next big digital thing, and it’s hard to imagine a time when making a call didn’t just require a phone, but a handful of small change.
Last week the MTR called time on payphones in its stations and for those of a certain telecommunications vintage, memories flooded back of the reassuringly bright yellow phone boxes that used to festoon the city’s cramped urban sprawl.
But despite the rise of the smartphone , it appears the humble payphone is hanging on in there. While the numbers have dropped hugely from a peak in the 1980s and 1990s when more than 6,000 payphones dotted the streets, telecommunications regulators say the city is still home to 3,000 coin-operated phones.
Exact numbers are hard to pin down due to a complex public private operating regime but one thing is clear, they still be but their takings are slim.
Parkson Fan Wing-yiu, executive director at Shinetown Telecom, the long-time operator of MTR station payphones recalled the glory days of 15 years ago when the company when it operated more than 2,000 payphones, coining in HK$4000 per phone each month.
