About 1 are operating in Lithuania. payphones. Although the company that manages them, Telia Lietuva, says that their popularity is low and the provision of this service is unprofitable, the legal acts oblige them to maintain the payphones.
The Communications Regulatory Authority, for its part, claims that legal acts can be changed.
"Payphones are a loss-making service, but they are required to be provided by the rules for the provision of Universal Electronic Communications Services and other legal acts," Telia Lietuva's press representative Audrius Stasiulaitis told BNS.
The mentioned rules stipulate the obligation to guarantee sufficient geographical coverage of payphones - their density.
According to the publicly available list of payphones, many payphones operate in medical facilities, prisons, and city streets.
"There are currently about a thousand payphones operating in Lithuania. About 300 of them are installed in two big cities - Vilnius and Beautiful. Payphones are usually installed in places where there are the largest flows of people and they are used the most," said A. Stasiulaitis.
He pointed out that payphones are decreasing both in Europe and in the world, and as a universal service it has been decided to abandon them altogether in nine countries of the European Union.
"Payphones in Lithuania are already a complete life, because on a global scale we are one of the most developed countries in the field of telecommunications. (…) In Lithuania, there are already more mobile phones than the population, and in terms of the price of mobile communication, we are one of the most competitive in Europe", explained the representative of Telia Lietuva.
The Communications Regulatory Authority, for its part, states that an important function of payphones is the ability to call for help in an emergency, noting that some of the payphones are adapted to the needs of the disabled. However, the unpopularity of payphones raises thoughts about their abandonment.
"The service is currently deciding on the extent of the obligation to ensure the availability of payphones. In the opinion of the Office, when initiating a change in the currently valid legal regulation, which abolishes the requirement to provide public telephone communication services by payphone, it is necessary to comprehensively (…) evaluate possible legal regulation alternatives, possible positive and negative effects on the social environment, criminogenic situation, etc., measures that should be taken , in order to avoid negative consequences or to eliminate them", the Communications Regulatory Authority told BNS.
According to the data submitted by the company "Telia Lietuva" to the Communications Regulatory Authority, no calls were made to partially functioning payphones last year, other payphones are used very rarely - calls are made only a few times a year.
In Lithuania, payphones reached their greatest popularity about a decade ago. At that time, there were more than 7,5 thousand of them. Since then, the use of payphones has declined tenfold.
Author: Donata Majauskienė
