STD/ISD Phone Booths in Bangalore

About 15 years ago in Bangalore, you would find the STD/ISD pay phone booths almost every 50 meters in the residential and commercial neighborhoods. Over the last 5-6 years, cell phone penetration is so high the the phone booths are phased out. I remember the day after I returned from the USA. I had some urgent official international phone calls to make. It took me more than half an hour to locate a phone booth. It took me couple of days to get my own cell phone with international calling options. While the earlier phone booths are phased out, they are compensated with the "yellow" pay phones for making local phones. These are installed in many groceries, restaurants and public places.

So is the case of internet cafe - with the entry of so many ISP and wireless services, cyber cafes faced the heat and many of them are out of business now.

Update: March 2013: Applies more to India
The way people use their cell phones has changed dramatically since last 3-4 years. Smart phones have literally phased out the home phones in all segments; urban, semi-urban and some rural areas. The person living in a semi-urban place now has a facebook account and there are the subsidized internet packages available on a daily basis!. The most rural areas are better served by cell phone networks than the basic telephone framework. There might come a day when a newborn baby is "assigned" a cell number, just like the social security number and may be used for tracking all the life events from then on :)