In 2002, the two then payphone operators in the country, Telekom Malaysia Berhad (“TM”) and Time Reach Sdn Bhd (“TR”), lost a total of RM48 million to fraud and vandalism. TR and TM operate 42,000 and 80,000 pay phones respectively. This means that for every phone they are making a loss of approximately RM393.
Personally, I think the shareholders of TM and TR should consider giving away handphone (which cost less than RM100 nowadays) to registered foreign workers and tourists. Make sure that everyone in this country owns a handphone. Then there would be no need to service these pay phones and mitigate vandalism and frauds. Instead, TM and TR should set up handphone recharging sites/booths at strategic locations. This will solve the problem of foreigners and tourists not having access to telephones in this country.
Secondly, TM and TR should set up kiosks at convenience stores such as 7-Elevens and petrol kiosks that allow free use of skype as an emergency tool. Without public pay phones, this will allow the other segment of the population to still communicate: those who forgot to bring their phones.
Third and finally, TM and TR should give away phones to lower income families. Using these phones, users will have to listen to a short advertisement before making their free call. This will cater to those who use pay phones because they cannot afford one.
In short, forget the stupid public pay phones, they are mostly eyesores and do not even work. So why bother? Even AT&T, the American telecommunications behemoth is getting out of this stupid business.
