In the year since the Spanish Government liberalised the installation of payphones in commercial establishments, previously under the exclusive control of Telefonica de Espana SA, Spanish company Ecuphone SL has sold 7,000 telephones throughout Spain, and sales of 10,000 more by the end of this year are predicted. In July last year the laws were changed so that any company may now offer the installation of public payphones in commercial settings, provided the equipment has been approved by the Ministry of Public Works, Transport & Urban Development, although Telefonica still maintains its monopoly of the phone boxes and open-plan phonepoints on the street. This change in legislation enabled Ecuphone to install telephones at prices that it claims are more attractive than those of Telefonica, still its only competitor.
Ubiquitous green
The company sells and installs its phones for $702, payable over a year in 12 interest-free instalments. In contrast, Telefonica charges $578 for its ubiquitous green payphones – there’s usually one in every bar – and the equipment is rented at $17 a month. Although the client may already have a telephone line, another charge of $16 is made for the pulse line that enables the metered units to be counted, and then the line itself costs $7 a month. Furthermore, Ecuphone’s telephone is more user-friendly than Telefonica’s, since coins do not have to be inserted until the person at the other end answers. Hence it doesn’t cost anything to discover there’s no one home except the answerphone. Only Ecuphone can vary the rates, which are liberalised. This prevents our clients bumping the rates up and making our telephones look expensive, explained one of Ecuphone’s directors, Jose Arroyo. The company also offers a second option, whereby the client makes a returnable deposit of $165. The company pays the bill, collects the money from the client and gives back 10%. Charging each unit at the public telephone box rate, 30% more than the domestic rate, and with the inevitable unused time at the end of the call, we are able to operate this option profitably, he said.
