At the present time, the public phone booth installed in public was not serving people anymore, while mobile phone is popularizing common Cambodian people, especially the young youths. At the end of last moth, I went to Svay Rieng province; I spotted the public phone booth “Telecom Payphone” standing in front of Restaurant without being used for long time.
“Public phone booth, which was no longer used, is standing in front of restaurant in Svay Rieng province”
In 1993, the ministry of post and telecommunication (MPTC) had signed a contract with an Australian Company OTCI to install payphone. Public phone booth stands were installed at important facility throughout the city for serving locals, tourists and foreigners by using debit card for payphone with value ranging from US$2, 5, 20 and 100. Presently, the public booths no longer served the public.
Prime minister said at “The 7th Conference of the ASEAN Telecommunications and Information Technology Ministers Meeting in the Sokha Angkor Hotel in Siem Reap that “Samdech raised the example of Cambodia which has, at the present time, a rate of telephone use of approximately 12% of the population. However, in cities and towns, the rate is up to approximately 45%, which is very different from the rate of the use of telephones in rural areas, where the rate is approximately 1% only.” Rasmei Kampuchea reported.
According to an Australian telecommunications research group, there is more than 1.5 million of Cambodia’s mobile phone usage in 2006, and it is expected to be continuing growing substantially in 2007. The report added that Cambodia needs to put administrative institution and regulation in place to improve the telecommunication market, and the telecom sector remains in need of serious regulatory reform. Cambodia Daily reported.
Popularity: 3% [?]
Thanks for raising this issue. There is not only the service matter, but the privacy rights is not respected. I would like to share that Romeas Hek District’s Kompong Trach commune in Svay Rieng province, the people’s privacy rights are now violated as the authorities threatened the public phone serving businesspeople to keep track and monitoring telephone conversations of all callers. People are now afraid to call out and some businessmen decided to stop serving this service. Read more new on Cambodia Daily today, Sep 21 2007, p.20.