September 17, 2024, 7:55 am | Read time: 4 minutes
The small French community of Murbach has recently added a new attraction: a telephone box. The special thing about this particular phone booth is that it now rings constantly. TECHBOOK explains why this is the case and how it came about.
For some, phone booths are nostalgic artifacts that build a bridge to a past when not everyone had their own phone – let alone a smartphone. For others, however, they are, at best, useless and, at worst, annoying relics that nobody needs anymore. Either way, phone booths are being increasingly deactivated and dismantled in most countries, including France. There is just one exception, a phone booth in France, which has recently caused quite a stir.
The past sends its regards
Since a report in the French magazine Paris Match at the beginning of July, the telephone has hardly been left idle. The phone booth in Alsace is the last operational one in all of France. This was also confirmed by Orange, the successor to the former national telecommunications company when asked by the German Press Agency (dpa). In fact, there are two other public telephones in France that still function – but they are not phone booths. In the meantime, the model with the serial number 468 has achieved more than national fame.
Since then, people from all over the country have been calling the phone booth. If someone picks up the phone, the person in question makes a note in a booklet that is displayed in the booth. According to a dpa report, there are now a number of names there. These are often of tourists who wanted to visit the last telephone box in France on their trip.
The last working telephone box in France
Incidentally, the fact that the booth rings constantly is also because only calls can be received. Since payment on the phone is no longer possible, outgoing calls to numbers that require payment are impossible. The old black-and-white liquid crystal display also no longer functions. And time has also left its mark on the telephone box. Even the doors have been dismantled.
This hasn’t dampened the enthusiasm of many tourists, as there shouldn’t have been any more public phone booths in France since 2018 – at least none that still work. At the time, protests were particularly strong in rural areas, where the mobile network was inadequate in some places. Nevertheless, due to the high costs and comparatively infrequent use, the state-owned company Orange decided to stop operating the 1,500 telephone boxes still remaining in France at the time and to dismantle them gradually. Apparently, telephone box 468 was overlooked in the process.
Practical when traveling You definitely didn’t know this iPhone Wallet hack yet
Production, transportation, payments, … How much does cash cost?
End of December Well-known online payment method to be discontinued! What customers need to know
Telephone boxes still popular today
The almost 170 inhabitants of Murbach, France, are now aware of the prominence of their telephone booth, which stands in the corner of a public parking lot. As a stop on the “Romanesque Road” in Alsace, many tourists come to the town of Murbach anyway. Now, the town has one more sight to offer in addition to its architecture and Romanesque monastery churches.
While the telephone booth is causing a sensation in France as the last representative of its kind, the situation in Germany is a little different. At the end of 2021, the supply contract for telephone boxes in this country was discontinued. In November 2022, the payment option with coins was also discontinued at the remaining booths. At the end of January 2023, using a phone card also became impossible – the remaining credit could be paid out.
All phone booths are now expected to be dismantled by 2025. However, as the magazine Stern reported just a few weeks ago, the dismantling process has not even begun in many places. Moreover, this is despite the fact that most of the telephone boxes already have new owners. This is because a veritable run on the old telephone boxes began after the news of the end of telephone boxes in Germany. The iconic yellow booths are particularly popular, but the silver pillars are also selling extremely well. Some internet portals offer prices of up to 3000 euros despite the poor condition of some of the models.
If you still want to see well-preserved booths, you can do so in some museums. However, these no longer work, of course. So, if you want to see a real telephone box in operation, you will probably have to go to France.