Filip Norrgård’s blog @ filips.net
Filip’s blog about mobile technology, tech itself and other stuff

Public Phones Soon a Shadow of the Past in Finland?
19 April 2005 in Phones | Comments enabled

Finnish Broadcasting Service reported today that all Finnish public phone carriers TeliaSonera and Elisa will start to phase out all remaining public phones and (wired) phone lines. TeliaSonera will cut the cord to the public phones as soon as by the end of this year, and Elisa by the end of this decade.

I’ve been noticing the disappearance of public phones around me ever since the start of the IT boom at the end of the last century. I guess this move was inevitable, but I can’t help but wonder how tourists will relate to our lack of public phones. No wait, I can already see it before my eyes in CIA’s World-book: Finland lacks public phones and as such travelers to Finland should bring their own cell-phone, or buy an used, unlocked cell-phone in Finland for a few euros, and additionally buy a pre-paid GSM subscription for their time in Finland.

Well, we’ll have to see how things will turn out later, I guess. I hope that someone of our operators will get inspired by the US operators (was it Verizon, maybe) that turned old public phones into WiFi hotspots. Are you listening Finnet, TeliaSonera and Elisa?