pay phone story

Payphone Story – Global History of Payphones and Phone Booths

South African Payphone- Ascom eXANTO (Telecom Namibia 2000)

Introduced around 1999, the eXANTO was a modular electronic payphone supplied worldwide in coin, card and hybrid versions. Telecom Namibia adopted the model for its nationwide public telephone network, where it became common in towns and remote rural areas before mobile phones rendered most installations obsolete.

Name	Ascom eXANTO (used by Telecom Namibia)
Date	c.1999
Manufacturer	Ascom, France
Download link (media)	Advertising manual (Ascom eXANTO, France)

Information and images with special thanks to Mark Van Der Heever and Peter Van Almelo

Ascom eXANTO

Namibia

Telecom Namibia adopted the eXANTO during the late 1990s and early 2000s, replacing older analogue coinphones. They became one of the country’s standard public telephones and were installed in towns, villages and isolated roadside locations across Namibia.

Your photographs are especially interesting because they show them in remote locations where mobile coverage was once poor. Many remained operational well into the 2010s.

Technical features

The eXANTO incorporated:

LCD display
remote diagnostics
modular electronics
electronic coin validator
smart card reader
vandal-resistant construction
programmable tariffs
multilingual software
network management system

It could also be upgraded without replacing the complete telephone.

Historical significance

The eXANTO was one of Ascom’s last major payphone families before the worldwide collapse of the public payphone market caused by mobile phones. It was supplied to operators in Europe, Singapore, Central America, southern Africa and elsewhere, making it one of the more internationally successful European payphone platforms of the late 1990s.

Some background:

Manufacturer: Ascom Payphone Systems, Switzerland
Model: eXANTO
Introduced: c. 1998–1999
Type: Modular electronic payphone platform
Operation: Coin, card, chip card, credit card or hybrid versions depending on customer requirements.
Markets: Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia and South America.

The eXANTO was designed as a universal payphone platform rather than a single telephone. Network operators could specify: