Yushan National Park on Tuesday said a plan to remove the park’s last surviving payphone has been scrapped after park officials persuaded Chunghwa Telecom to keep the machine.
The telecom had previously said the payphone would be removed from the park’s Tataka Visitor Center, as the NT$22 revenue generated by the phone last year was insufficient to justify its upkeep.
The phone was installed in 1994, long before the adoption of mobile devices, the park said on Facebook.
Photo: CNA
However, the payphone’s value cannot be measured in dollar terms, it said, adding that people who forget to take their cellphones with them or charge their devices, as well as foreign travelers without SIM cards, need the coin-operated machine.
“For visitors without a cellphone feeling like they are lost at sea, the payphone could be a great source of joy, especially during that call to the folks at home,” the park said.
“Through the years, [the payphone] has served the public from the age of landline to 5G networks like an old, faithful friend. We urge the public to continue supporting the phone [by using it] so that it will see many more [years of use] at the Tataka Visitor Center,” it added.
Some of the payphones in the county go unused for two months at a time and phones that do not turn a profit are put on a shortlist for removal, the office said.
Exceptions are made for payphones in remote villages and communities, it said, adding that those machines have an added geolocation function for police, firefighters and rescue workers to find the caller in an emergency.
After discussions with the park, the telecom now considers the Tataka Visitor Center payphone as a unit in a remote community that would be maintained regardless of the cost, it said.
Chunghwa Telecom operates 1,000 payphones nationwide, down about 60 percent from a peak of 2,500 payphones, the office said.
Taiwan would benefit from more integrated military strategies and deployments if the US and its allies treat the East China Sea, the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea as a “single theater of operations,” a Taiwanese military expert said yesterday. Shen Ming-shih (沈明室), a researcher at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, said he made the assessment after two Japanese military experts warned of emerging threats from China based on a drill conducted this month by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) Eastern Theater Command. Japan Institute for National Fundamentals researcher Maki Nakagawa said the drill differed from the
‘WORSE THAN COMMUNISTS’: President William Lai has cracked down on his political enemies and has attempted to exterminate all opposition forces, the chairman said The legislature would motion for a presidential recall after May 20, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) said yesterday at a protest themed “against green communists and dictatorship” in Taipei. Taiwan is supposed to be a peaceful homeland where people are united, but President William Lai (賴清德) has been polarizing and tearing apart society since his inauguration, Chu said. Lai must show his commitment to his job, otherwise a referendum could be initiated to recall him, he said. Democracy means the rule of the people, not the rule of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), but Lai has failed to fulfill his
A rally held by opposition parties yesterday demonstrates that Taiwan is a democratic country, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday, adding that if opposition parties really want to fight dictatorship, they should fight it on Tiananmen Square in Beijing. The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) held a protest with the theme “against green communists and dictatorship,” and was joined by the Taiwan People’s Party. Lai said the opposition parties are against what they called the “green communists,” but do not fight against the “Chinese communists,” adding that if they really want to fight dictatorship, they should go to the right place and face
A 79-year-old woman died today after being struck by a train at a level crossing in Taoyuan, police said. The woman, identified by her surname Wang (王), crossed the tracks even though the barriers were down in Jhongli District’s (中壢) Neili (內壢) area, the Taoyuan Branch of the Railway Police Bureau said. Surveillance footage showed that the railway barriers were lowered when Wang entered the crossing, but why she ventured onto the track remains under investigation, the police said. Police said they received a report of an incident at 6:41am involving local train No. 2133 that was heading from Keelung to Chiayi City. Investigators
RSS