Following a change in European Union (EU) law, there should be no more payphones in Lithuania in the coming years, according to the Communications Regulatory Authority.
At the end of last year, the European Electronic Communications Code was adopted, in which the obligation to provide telephone communication services via payphones no longer exists.
The requirements of the new directive must be transposed into the Lithuanian legal system by the end of December 2020 - amendments to the Law on Electronic Communications and its implementing legislation are currently being prepared.
"Among other things, these changes will also update the list of universal services, in which the obligation to provide payphone services is no longer planned," BNS was informed in a comment by the Communications Regulatory Authority.
The number of payphones is periodically reviewed and consistently decreases. Currently, there are 392 payphones operating in Lithuania, a year ago there were more than half a thousand of them.
A population survey commissioned by the Communications Regulatory Authority at the beginning of 2019 showed that less than 1 percent use payphones. respondents.
The communications company Telia takes care of payphones in Lithuania.
"Telia" has been asking the Lithuanian Communications Regulatory Authority (RTA) for permission to refuse the provision of this unprofitable service for several years," the company's press representative Audrius Stasiulaitis told BNS.
According to him, at least 12 EU countries have abandoned payphones as a universal service.
"Our long-term statistics show that one-sixth of payphones are completely unused, that is, they have not made any calls, except for technical calls that control the operation of the payphone. Last year, from more than 200 payphones, between one and ten calls were made," said the Telia press representative.
"In general, the average duration of calls made by payphones is only 52 seconds. Even if we are talking about emergency calls, the General Help Center has informed that at least one minute of conversation time is needed to communicate the necessary information,” he added.
In Lithuania, payphones achieved their greatest popularity more than a decade ago. At that time, there were more than 7,5 thousand of them.
Author Saulius Jakučionis
