| Name | AMPER MPP coin payphone |
| Date | c. 2003 |
| Manufacturer | Amper Programas Electrónicos S.A., Spain |
| Link | Also used in Australia, Germany. |
Information and images with special thanks to Mark Van Der Heever and Peter Van Almelo
AMPER MPP coin payphone (c. 2003)
Introduced in South Africa around 2003, the Amper MPP became Telkom’s final standard public coin-operated payphone and replaced many earlier Rotor and Plessey installations. Manufactured in Spain, the vandal-resistant telephone featured a reinforced stainless-steel front panel, modular electronic construction and remote management capabilities. Although the MPP platform was originally designed to operate with both coins and prepaid smart cards, Telkom generally configured South African examples as coin-only telephones. The model was widely installed in shopping centres, transport terminals, airports and on streets throughout the country.
The Amper MPP formed part of an international family of intelligent public telephones. Closely related versions were trialled in Australia by Telstra as the Smart Payphone and later adopted by private payphone operators in Germany, Russia and several other countries. Its robust construction, programmable tariffs and digital electronics reflected the final stage of public payphone development before mobile telephony caused a rapid decline in public telephone use. Many units remained in service into the 2010s, making them among the last traditional payphones encountered across South Africa.
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