Telephone booths

Last fall, the Slovak Spectator reported that the Slovak government requires all mobile phone providers to install telephone booths. The providers object that almost nobody uses telephone booths anymore. It appears that all of my students and colleagues, as well as most of the people I see on the streets of Bratislava, do have their own mobile phones (as they are called here, not "cell phones," as we say in the U.S.).

I decided to start paying attention to telephone booths. After almost five months here, I have never seen anyone in central Europe using one. But I did notice that they add an interesting design element to the city streets and started collecting photos. Here's a sampling.

T-Mobile Slovakia has saturation advertising all over Bratislava. Here they are installing their mandatory phone booths outside a branch office of the post office.

Clunkier ones are under the New Bridge by a major bus transfer point in Bratislava.

It's hard to miss the bold colors on phone booths in Budapest.

Nobody uses phone booths in Salzburg either, but here are two in the tourist area, just in case.

This airy design is on a shopping street in Vienna.

Prague has rather boring phone booths. It's a good thing nobody seems to need them there either.

Perhaps the mandatory phone booths don't make sense, as the providers contend. At least Europe had the good sense to adopt a uniform signal system (GMS) for all mobile phone providers. The U.S. ended up with two incompatible systems, depending on which provider you select. My Sprint phone doesn't work in Europe; fortunately my T-Mobile Dash does.

NOTE: Click on any image in this blog to see it full-size.