Public telephones: electronic waste on the side of the road: telephone booth dismantling is still ongoing

Deutsche Telekom is still not finished dismantling 12,000 telephone booths and other public telephones that were decommissioned in January 2023. The company said it expects to be able to complete the dismantling later this year.

Two years ago, Telekom switched off telephones and justified this with a sharp decline in demand – in the age of cell phones, a telephone booth is no longer necessary to call someone on the go. According to Telekom, their operation is not economical, they are outdated and consume large amounts of energy.

There were once as many as 160,000 public telephones in Germany, but this number has fallen over the years. The last yellow houses that dated back to the Federal Postal era disappeared in 2018. In many cities, the magenta-colored steles, telephone booths and other devices can still be seen, although they no longer have any function.

Some passers-by are surprised

At Bochum main station, for example, two such telephones hang next to each other on a wall. This leads to strange everyday scenes: a young man walks past, stops and looks at the ad, perplexed. He picks up the phone, reads an explanatory text, shakes his head and hooks the receiver back up. For the young man, this is probably a kind of look into the past. As he walks away, he pulls out his cell phone.

The explanatory text on the wall telephone tells you how to make a phone call: “Pick up the handset – add means of payment – dial the phone number and make the call – after the end of the conversation, hang up the handset – remove the means of payment”. Domestic information can be reached on 11 8 33. All of these are almost museum relics: the telephone is deactivated and the information is stopped. There is still electricity on the phone, the digital display says: “Sorry, currently out of order”.

Still present in the cityscape

It looks similar elsewhere – for example in the city center of Rottweil, where a magenta stele was still standing at least in the summer of 2024. “Tell her you love her,” a prankster had written in English on the telephone receiver. But the declaration of love would no longer work from this phone; that is also switched off.

In the NRW state capital of Düsseldorf and Lüneburg in Lower Saxony, as well as numerous other cities, the Telekom technology that has been taken out of service is also still lying around. The condition is sometimes desolate – in some places the telephone receiver has been torn off and the glass panes are broken. At least Telekom no longer has to repair it.

Why dismantling takes so long

But why are the deactivated telephone systems still there? According to Telekom, this is also due to the bureaucracy. “The locations are being dismantled step by step,” says a company spokeswoman. The company cannot do this alone, but is dependent on cooperation with other companies and authorities. “From the regional energy supplier to the building authorities, construction companies and recycling companies, many people, companies and offices are involved in the dismantling.”

The coordination is complex and will take some time. It could take months for the energy supplier to implement an order to turn off electricity. “Building authorities have to create their own traffic regulations for each civil engineering project, and construction companies have to wait for both the power-off and the necessary permits.”

Dismantling also involves civil engineering, as concrete foundations are embedded in the ground. They have to be dug up. For this you need “digging and cordoning permits”. When it comes to civil engineering, local and regional peculiarities must be taken into account; in some cities, for example, you need a “certificate of freedom from explosive ordnance” – i.e. proof that there are no aerial bombs underground. In other cities, the necessary paving work can only be carried out by a company specified by the city. All in all, dismantling the 12,000 telestations is “very complex”. Unfortunately, it will still take “some time”.

Progress in dismantling – at least something

The topic is known in the city administrations. A spokesman for the city of Bochum reports that Telekom applied to the municipal utilities to switch off the power to 43 public telephones in August 2024. This has now happened at almost half of these locations, and this will happen at the other half by the end of the first quarter. The city of Düsseldorf says that Telekom is responsible. But they support the dismantling.

Progress in dismantling can be seen at Düsseldorf main station. There are four metal pillars on which the telephones hung. Telekom has now unscrewed the telephones, but the metal pillars are still there – their openings at the top and in the middle have been sealed with adhesive tape. It seems like junk that no one has cleaned up.