Customers complain of broken pay phones
Damar Harsanto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Have you ever been in dire need of a public phone but all the available ones nearby are out of order? Annoying, isn't it?
Be prepared, as it could happen to you anywhere in Jakarta, as many of the payphones are out of order.
Effendy, a newspaper agent, said he was frequently unable to find usable payphones.
"Out-of-order public phones have forced me to look for wartel (telecommunications kiosks) instead," said Effendy, who added that he often used public phones to contact his customers.
"I have to use public phones to inform my customers about the paper being late or remind them of the deadline for paying their subscriptions," said Effendy.
He alleged that 90 percent of public phones were out of order.
Effendy has a phone at home, but the peripatetic nature of his job requires him to use public phones, as a wartel or a cellphone would be too expensive for someone like him, on a low income.
Public phones are still a vital facility, despite the popularity of cellphones with the general public, especially teenagers.
Rommy, an employee of a private firm in West Jakarta, said that he sometimes used a public phone if his cellphone was not working properly or the battery was being recharged.
"After looking around for five minutes for a public phone to call home, I saw a row of five payphone stalls. But to my surprise, all of them were out of order," said Rommy.
Amid mounting dissatisfaction from public phone users over the damaged phones, spokesperson in Jakarta of state-owned telecommunications firm PT Telkom Thomik Armawan played down the accusations.
"We never leave our payphones unrepaired," Thomik said. He also claimed that the damaged lines stood at only 3 percent of a total of 67,839 lines every month. Telkom provides services to more than 2.4 million subscribers.
The out-of-order phones would be immediately repaired by Telkom technicians, who periodically emptied the coinboxes and checked the state of the phones, he added.
However, in contrast to his claim, The Jakarta Post found on Thursday that out of 32 public phones alone in Kemandoran, South Jakarta, only 11 were usable. In Kayu Manis, East Jakarta, most of the public phones were also out of order.
Thomik said most of the damage was mainly caused by vandalism. "About 68 percent of the damage to phones is due to sabotage, while the remaining 32 percent is caused by internal and technical problems," said Thomik.
Thomik said phone handsets were among the sensitive items that were usually vandalized.
He revealed that the coinbox was a popular target for criminals, as it could hold Rp 500,000 to Rp 1 million in cash.
Thomik revealed that Telkom was often forced to relocate its public phones to safer places for fear of vandalism.
"We must be realistic in this business. We don't want to suffer losses because our public phones are damaged," he said.
"If we check the coinbox and find that the amount of money inserted has continued to decrease, we will consider relocating the phone from a quiet place to a busier location," said Thomik.
The transitional period before a line was completely relocated, Thomik said, usually took some time, in order to notify the customers about the change.
Thomik said that if anyone found a phone out of order they should report it to Telkom so that it could be repaired immediately.
However, Hesti, a secondary school student, was skeptical, saying that many public phones had been left unrepaired for months.
"What's the use if they (Telkom) install five phone lines here but only one is usable ?" Hesti queried.
She complained that people often had to queue, as only a single line was available there.