Movistar Chile announces the end of public telephone booths within the framework of its Technological Renewal Plan

By Movistar

This is a machine translation of the original press release issued in Spanish.

February 28, 2024. – Smartphones and mobile devices have become established as the main communication tool for Chileans, which has caused old technologies to lose their preference, as is the case of public telephony.

In this context, Movistar Chile has carried out, within the framework of its Technological Renewal Plan, the removal of this equipment, which in turn allows the copper plants to be turned off and the wiring to be removed, a material that enables the connectivity of the disused cabins, and replace it with fiber optics, a more sustainable technology in terms of energy consumption, space and visual pollution. In fact, in 2023, the company removed more than 7 thousand tons of copper from the streets.

The company reported a resounding reduction in calls from public telephony, going from around 700 calls per month to less than 20 per team, marked by the rise of smartphones. In fact, according to figures from the National Institute of Statistics, in Chile there are more than 33 million cell phones. In this sense, if in September 2022 there were just over 1,200 Movistar public telephones on the streets, at the beginning of 2023 there were less than 900, and the shutdown ended this year.

The company assigned a specialized team, with the objective that these removals are of low impact for people and, additionally, recycle the materials of the metal cabins that will be reused, through the alliance with a specialized company.

As a heritage, two telephone booths will remain available: the first, located in the town of Cachiyuyo, in the Atacama Region, where the iconic landline telephone campaign was carried out by the former CTC, today Movistar. The second will remain in the Movistar corporate building, in Santiago.