Payphones

Beginnings of Payphones

nce a common feature in many cities and towns around the world, payphones served as an important means of communication in an era when the mobile phone hadn’t been invented and personal mobile devices were expensive to own. While many payphones were already installed in Western countries like America and Britain by the 1930s, Asia was slower to adopt this mode of communication. Even in countries that have efficient telecommunication systems now, like Singapore, public phones were rare in the 1950s and 1960s. In Singapore, there was only one public phone serving 6,500 residents in Sembawang Hills Estate in the late 1950s. By the early 1960s, there were about 250 public phones in Singapore, which means there were 3.75 phones for every 100 people. This ratio placed Singapore above Hong Kong, Bangkok and Ho Chi Minh City, which