Jakarta needs more pay phones that work

M. Taufiqurrahman, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Pedestrians often come to Anen's stall on Jl. K.S. Tubun, Slipi, Central Jakarta, merely to exchange bills for coins to make phone calls from a public phone next to his kiosk.

"Some of them alight from public minivans, and head for my stall to get some change and try to make calls from the public phone," he told The Jakarta Post last week.

But the phone users find nothing but frustration, as they later find out that the phone is out of order right after a coin or two is inserted.

A recent report from the state telecommunications company PT Telkom showed that 40 percent of the 20,000 public phones in the city were out of order, mostly because of vandalism.

Decreasing revenues from public phones, has recently motivated Telkom to transfer the management of the phones to the private sector. Telkom also believes that the use of cellular phones has contributed to the dwindling revenues from public phone usage.

Wati, not her real name, told the Post that although she had a cellular phone, public phones were still very helpful as they offered a cheap alternative.

"I can make a local phone call as long as I want, without thinking that it will cost me a lot," she said.

She said that she used pay phones often when the credit for her cell phone ran out.

According to her, it was far cheaper to make a call from a public phone than from a privately-run telecommunications outlet or wartel.

"I would be happier if the public pay phones were easily accessible and actually worked," she said.

From a public phone, one can make a phone call for up to three minutes, depending on the distance, for just Rp 100. The cost offered at the wartel may be several times higher, and higher still for cell phone call.

On Jl. K.S. Tubun which leads to Tanah Abang, Central Jakarta, there are only a few public phones that work. One of them is sheltered by a makeshift stall, so that to make a phone call, one has to go inside it.

Anen noticed that users for public phones are mostly teenagers. "Maybe because they don't have their own cellular phones or do not have enough money to go to a wartel," he said.

Inside the compound of nearby Tresna Pangastuti hospital, where almost all the pay phones still work, the demand for public phones is high.

Nedi, a staffer at the hospital said that family members of patients were those who used the public phones as their means of communication.

"A number of the hospital staffers also make calls on the public phones here," he said.

He said that the pay phones at the hospital were left untouched by vandals because they were installed inside the hospital compound.

A number of technicians from Telkom regularly collect coins from their boxes and do some maintenance work.

Telkom probably generates a considerable amount of revenue from well-maintained public phones, Nedi surmised.