Actually the era ended a long time ago, but now the door on that era is sealed.
The Ministry of Communications has announced that it is removing all remaining public telephones, aka pay phones, from the streets around Israel. Considering how little use the phones get nowadays, with almost everyone having cellphones, this decision will save them money in the form of maintenance and installations.They say that there are currently 9500 public phones still in the public sphere around Israel. At their height of popularity, there were 27,000 around Israel. Since then, as cellphones became increasingly popular, the number of public telephones has shrunk consistently. According to the ministry, 83% of the phones, that would be about 7885 of them, get used less than 100 minutes each month and many of those dont even get used at all. The ministry is considering requiring the continued installation of public telephones in essential and vital places, however that will be defined.
source: Calcalist
Truly the end of an era.
I think the real cause of the demise was the lack of a phone booth to be enclosed in. Had they had a phone booth, at least Clark Kent would have continued using the phones to become Superman.
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