Payphone Fights To Survive in Korea

Almost anywhere in the world you travel to, you should be able to locate public payphones fairly easily. In Korea, payphones are still to be found, yet almost without exception they are not being used. They stand almost as if they were monuments or relics, yet without the esthetic quality.

In Korea, given the level of mobile phone use, we find that the public phone industry is in great danger. Being a declining business, Korean telecom giant, KT, spun-off the public pay phone division, which is now KTLINKUS. Public phones are not used by the Korean public, and in its new attempt to garner some business KTlinkus has decided to let users pay for public phone calls with their T-Money (public transportation) card, and there are also plans to make it compatible with other types of cards. This will make it a little more convenient to use, but it is yet to be seen whether a measure like this will ever be enough to save the public phone.