telephone card

The telephone card is used for cashless telephoning from public telephone facilities. It is a magnetic card or a chip card that is inserted into the telephone set when making a call and on which the telephone charges are billed.

A distinction is made between telephone cards with a certain credit amount, which is stored when the telephone card is purchased, and personal telephone cards, which are assigned to a user.

Telephone card, photo: Telekom

In the case of credit cards, the call costs are debited directly from the stored credit amount, shown on the display of the public telephone and the respective remaining credit is stored again on the telephone card until the card no longer has any credit. In addition, the validity period of the phone card is displayed.

In the case of the personal phone card, the card provider has a corresponding user file on which the call charges are listed. These phone cards work with a personal identification number, which must be entered when establishing a connection and protects against misuse.