This year we will say goodbye to payphones - they will join many other technologies and devices that have been replaced by more convenient and advanced solutions. It is true that some items can still be found in the homes of many Lithuanians. Telia equipment manager Aurimas Karnejevas invites you to a trip of memories, and for the youth, simply stories.
"The first payphone in the world was introduced more than 130 years ago, and two decades ago it was one of the most popular means of calling in Lithuania. However, with the introduction of mobile communication, payphones were pushed into oblivion. By the way, payphones have been around for a really long time - there are technologies that have disappeared in just a few decades or even faster," notes A. Karnejevs.
"Telia" currently serves 99 payphones in Lithuania, the company is required to do so by legal acts. However, after the amendments to the Law on Electronic Communications came into effect last December, payphones are no longer considered a universal service in Lithuania. If the Communications Regulatory Authority prepares and adopts relevant by-law documents in the near future, Telia will be able to finally abandon payphones.
The company plans to turn off and dismantle the payphones by mid-summer. After the condition of the equipment and booths has been assessed by specialists, some of them are planned to be transferred to interested scientific and technical institutions or museums, others will be sold at a charity auction or sent for recycling.
A. Karneevs invites us to remember other technologies and devices that we said goodbye to not so long ago:
1. Message pagers. Created seven decades ago, pagers were primarily intended for medical professionals, although they later became popular among other professions for a short time. In the landline era, such a device was really useful: it beeped when a message was received, and when you found the nearest phone (or the same payphone) and called the message center, the operator dictated the message left. Later, there were more advanced messaging devices that could also send text messages, but cell phones and SMS have eliminated the need for such devices. True, in some hospitals in the United States and Great Britain, so-called "pagers" can still be found.
2. Floppy disks. Magnetic media has been an indispensable way to store and transfer data for decades. Initially, cassettes were used for this, later they were replaced by thin disks. The most common Floppy format held an impressive amount of data at the time, about 1.4 megabytes. They could hold all kinds of files, documents and even games. However, at the turn of the century, the exponentially growing demand for data forced the search for more capacious and reliable formats, and Floppy was replaced by CDs. True, magnetic disks were not completely forgotten - it was their image that became the standard icon of the "Save" function used in many programs.
3. Video and audio cassettes and players. Magnetic media has long been used to distribute movies and music, and some people would still find a cassette player or VHS video player in their home today, along with the occasional vintage movie or wedding record. The fate of this technology is similar to that of Floppy disks - the cheapness of CDs and their recording equipment simply eliminated the need to use media that took up a lot of space, and data could be corrupted with a simple refrigerator magnet.
4. MP3 players. When Apple introduced the iPod in 2001, it was considered the pinnacle of technological advancement, and music enthusiasts rejoiced at finally being able to carry hundreds of their favorite tracks right in their pocket. MP3 players from other manufacturers also flooded the market, but more than a decade of competition was interrupted by... smartphones and mobile internet. Services such as Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music and others allow you to always have with you and listen to tens of millions of different recordings at any time. And although such players can still be found in stores, the demand for them has remained vanishingly small.
5. Tape cameras. When Kodak introduced an affordable, mass-market camera in the late 19th century, a new era of photography began. It lasted for a century, but at the beginning of the new millennium, cheap digital cameras became popular and did not have to buy film, develop it and print photos. Eventually, amateur photography displaced phones and inexpensive film cameras simply had no place under the sun. The turning point was the bankruptcy of Kodak in 2013, which failed to respond to changes in the market.
6. Dial-up Internet. Readers in their forties and older probably still remember the "chirping" modems that allowed you to connect to the Web over a wired phone line at the dawn of the Internet. Internet speeds were 56Kb/s at best, so waiting often took more time than actual browsing. And where are the connection interruptions when householders pick up the phone... This unreliable, unstable connection was replaced by DSL technology, which was introduced in Lithuania by the then Lietuvos Telekomas (now Telia) in 2001. Today, the Super VDSL technology implemented in Telia's network allows to reach speeds of up to 250 Mb/s on copper lines.
7. Coming soon: 3G connection.3G connection still works in Lithuania, but Telia intends to abandon this technology introduced in our country in 2006 this year. As A. Karneev explains, the 3G connection revealed people's appetite for mobile Internet, but was unable to satisfy it - this was taken care of by the more advanced 4G technology, which is already available up to 100%. Territories of Lithuania. "Both 2G and 3G technologies inefficiently use radio frequencies, which are the most expensive and important resource in our market. Since the 2G connection is still actively used, we will first turn off 3G, and we will transfer the frequencies dedicated to it to the 4G connection, which people actually use, thus further improving its speed and quality," says the Telia expert. 3G technology is gradually being abandoned by other European and global mobile communication operators.
Post a Comment