Peru, 1992

At the beginning of 90’s, the telephone card system in Peru was operated by three different telcos, one private and two government: TELE 2000, Entel Peru and CPT. Coincidently the three launched their system at the same time. mid 1992.

The first cardphone system was introduced in April 1992 by private company Tele 2000. Five public cardphones were installed in community centres in Lima. These were manufactured by Tamura Electric Works from Japan, who also provided a first delivery of 10,000 magnetic phonecards in 3 values in New Soles: S/. 5.00, S/. 10.00 and S/. 20.00, all depicting the same design, an unidentified snowy mountain and the logo “Telemovil”.  The cards do not have any control number, only the indication “First Issue 92” in the bottom left corner on the card back side.

After a limited trial period, TELE 2000 decided to change the system and in May 1992 installed cardphones with chip-cards. Some months later, also Entel Peru and CPT introduced their cardphone systems.