Public Phone Booths

[Anchor Lead]

With the omnipresent use of cell phones, people rarely use public phones anymore. Abandoned public phone booths are now being refurbished for surprising new uses. Let’s take a look.

[Pkg]

A long line is formed in front of a public phone. It was quite a common sight in the early 1990s when the age of mobile phones did not yet arrive in full swing. It is unimaginable these days, as smartphones are regarded as a necessity.

[Soundbite] Won Mi-hwa(Seoul Citizen) : "We rarely use public phones, because we have smartphones. It is also hard to find a public phone on the street."

So public phone booths have been abandoned and considered useless. However, they are now being transformed for new purposes. It is an emergency, as a woman is targeted and pursued by a stranger. She takes shelter in a public phone booth and locks the door, setting off an alarm. The face of the pursuer is recorded by a surveillance camera installed in the booth The booth is also equipped with a cardiac defibrillator. Recently, it was used to save the life of a patient who was not breathing. Some 69,000 public phone booths around the nation could also be a useful alternative for the electric car project, which has come to a standstill over the issue of how to secure charging stations. Abandoned public phone booths are being transformed into convenience facilities with new functions.