Pay phone Story

Name	Various Green Public Phones
Date	1982- present. Mainly supervised areas.
Manufacturer	Tamura Electric Works and others for NTT

Below- the most common type of green payphone currently in use in Japan, with the black fascia plate. It accepts cards and coins. Telephone cards are still supported on Japanese public payphones operated by NTT East and NTT West. Modern green payphones generally accept both coins and magnetic telephone cards. IC-card public phones were discontinued in 2006.
The telephone shown is the NTT MC-D8 analogue public telephone, one of the standard modern Japanese “green phones” introduced during the 1990s and still widely used across Japan today. The MC-D8 was developed for NTT East and NTT West as a durable outdoor public payphone capable of operating continuously in railway stations, streets, hospitals and convenience stores.
The MC-D8 is often confused with the DMC-7 digital public telephone. The DMC-7 incorporated ISDN digital communication capability and could connect laptops or terminals for data transmission, while the MC-D8 was a more conventional analogue voice model. Both became iconic elements of the Japanese urban landscape during the 1990s and 2000s.

Below- various other models of Green Phone. These photographs show several generations of modern Japanese NTT public telephones introduced from the late 1980s through the 2000s. The silver-and-green model is the DMC-7 ISDN Digital Public Telephone, introduced around 1990 for voice and data communication, including laptop modem connections. It was manufactured for NTT by companies including Oki Electric and Hitachi.

The compact green model with the red SOS button is a card-only emergency public telephone used in railway stations and Shinkansen trains during the 1990s and 2000s. The larger black-panel models are MC-series analogue public telephones, including MC-D8 types, used nationwide for coin and telephone-card calls. Manufacturers included Tamura, Anritsu, Iwatsu and Oki Electric. All models supported emergency calling to 110 and 119 without coins or cards.

Below- interesting dual receiver model

Development of the Green Public Phones

Over the last thirty years, Japan’s green public telephones evolved through several distinct generations of increasingly advanced NTT payphones, combining rugged industrial design with sophisticated communications technology. Manufactured primarily by companies such as Tamura, Anritsu, Hitachi and Oki Electric, these green telephones became one of the most recognizable elements of the Japanese streetscape. The standard outdoor green payphone introduced during the 1970s remained common into the 1990s. Models such as the Tamura 675-series and related NTT Type MC-3 public telephones were designed for continuous unattended outdoor use in railway stations, shopping streets and public telephone booths. Unlike earlier red indoor phones, the green models accepted both local and long-distance calls and operated day and night. Their heavy steel bodies, illuminated instruction panels and highly reliable coin mechanisms reflected Japan’s emphasis on durability and user-friendly public infrastructure. During the 1980s, telephone-card compatible green phones became widespread as NTT promoted prepaid magnetic phone cards across Japan. Many of these phones were manufactured by Anritsu and Tamura and included dual coin-and-card operation. The card system proved enormously successful, leading to the famous collectible Japanese phone-card culture of the late bubble economy period. A major technological advance arrived in March 1990 with the introduction of the ISDN-compatible Digital Public Phone, often referred to as the “Digital Green Phone.” Produced in variants by manufacturers including Oki Electric and Hitachi, these telephones could handle voice and digital data communications when connected to laptop computers or terminals. Features included on-hook dialing, time-remaining displays, toll-free and collect-call functions, operating guidance displays and cashless calling using telephone cards. At a time when home internet access was still rare, these phones provided remarkably advanced public data communication facilities. By the late 1990s and 2000s, specialised green payphones appeared, including barrier-free models for wheelchair users, Silver Phones for elderly and hearing-impaired users, and emergency-priority disaster telephones. Although mobile phones reduced daily use, Japan retained large numbers of green public telephones because they remained highly reliable during earthquakes and major disasters when cellular networks failed.