Collections

Outdoor AETE Booth, dated in the 30s, with obvious influences by the Bauhaus architectural movement . Permanent MT OTE Collection. In the telephone booths in Greece, the first coin-operated telephone was installed by AETE in 1936, with the characteristic inscriptions “CALL HERE” and “PUBLIC PHONE ” in order to facilitate the public, since installing a telephone set in every house was a difficult and expensive procedure. The wooden-coated booths were placed in internal public spaces whereas the metal booths were placed outdoors. There were some outdoor booths covered with adverts, in the busiest parts of the cities, in order to facilitate the passing-by citizens. The coin-operated telephones operated with special, telephone tokens. During the 50’s, they were replaced by booths with the OTE logo (year of establishment 1949). The phones were initially few and the waiting queue long, whereas the advise issued by OTE for brevity usually found zero response. The payphones of the telephone booths are categorized as public telephony that serves communication needs in public areas. Moreover, public telephony also includes the coin collectors and billing meters that are present up to 1994, in which time period they were replaced by the booths known nowadays.