The first public telephones were installed outside Shimbashi and Ueno stations, both in Tokyo, in September 1900 (Meiji 33) to allow people to make calls from the street. Both local calls and long distance calls costing less than 25 sen per call (within 100km) could be made. The phones were initially called automatic telephones. However, the name was changed to "public telephone" to avoid confusion when the automatic telephone exchange was adopted on October 1, 1925 (Taisho 14).

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