Bhutan, 2003

Bhutan Telecom, founded in 2000, installed the first autonomous public telephone booths in 2003. Previously, in fact, you could only call from public telephone offices, during opening hours and with the assistance of an operator. For the occasion, four remote memory cards were printed (100, 300, 500 and 1,000 Ngultrum, the local currency) that allowed the user to call independently, saving 30% on the cost of the call. But the acts of vandalism in unsupervised booths, and the spread of mobile telephony, launched almost simultaneously, caused the end of the experimentation and no other card was issued.