Broken Phone Booths: Tübingen Wants Money from Deutsche Telekom - Tübingen's abandoned phone booths spark feud with Deutsche Telekom over cleanup delays
Why Is Germany Still Removing Its Last Public Phone Booths? Tübingen's Mayor Slams the "Eyesore"
At the start of 2023, Deutsche Telekom decommissioned its final 12,000 public payphones nationwide. Yet the process of dismantling them is still dragging on. Now, Tübingen's city hall chief is furious over what he calls "rubbish" cluttering the streets.
In a dispute over the protracted removal of broken phone booths, the city of Tübingen is considering billing Deutsche Telekom for their continued presence. "We are planning to introduce a special usage fee for the phone booths," a city spokesperson told the German Press Agency (dpa). The spokesperson did not specify how much the fee would be or when it would take effect, but expressed frustration that the company had failed to provide a timeline for clearing the sites despite repeated requests.
Telekom shut down its last public payphones in January 2023, with removal supposed to be completed by the end of 2025. But that deadline has slipped, a company spokesman admitted, blaming delays on lengthy approval procedures with local authorities. Multiple trades and agencies must be coordinated before excavators can roll in and the electronic waste is finally hauled away.
According to the city, Tübingen still has 13 defunct phone booth locations—six of them in the historic old town. "This ruins the cityscape," Tübingen's mayor, Boris Palmer of the Green Party, told SWR in mid-January. "For Telekom, removing a broken phone booth is a task that takes years—typical German pace, if you ask me." He added that the company's only response has been to signal, "Telekom is very busy and unfortunately hasn't gotten around to freeing our old town of this eyesore."
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