Last Czech phone booth to be removed

The last telephone booth in the entire Czech Republic is being dismantled Thursday. The first appeared 110 years ago. The last one standing was near Příbram in central Bohemia.

The Council of the Czech Telecommunications Office decided last year to end state subsidies for small telephone booths. As a result, mobile operator O2 also lost interest in operating them.

In addition to the dwindling number of fixed-line calls in the network, high maintenance costs and constant vandalism were further factors.

At the turn of the century, there were over 30,000 phone booths in operation. Since then, their number had gradually decreased with the rise of cellular technology. Last year, there were 1,150 telephone booths in the country.