BT Phone Boxes

[LeeUK]

BT have been removing a lot of phone boxes recently. Part of the blurb they publish as a reason to remove a phone box is that there is another one 100 yards up the road so all is good. But then a few months later they then remove that phone box also and so on. My town has gone from around 100 phone boxes to about 5 in the last few years.

Not good if you need one in an emergency.

/rant

 

[~Divine~Wind~]

mobile?

I think they get refurbed then sold for thousands lol

EDIT:
http://www.x2connect.com/RedPhonebox/Telephone-Box-Pricing



but also:
https://business.bt.com/campaigns/communities/adopt-a-kiosk/

 

[LeeUK]

I suppose no one wants to adopt them round here.

 

[FoxEye]

I haven't seen anyone use one in more than a decade.

 

[[FnG]magnolia]

I suppose no one wants to adopt them round here.

Where do you live? The nineteen fifties?

 

[jsmoke]

People used to hang around them in the 90s also vaguely remember cursing away under my breath if someone was using it and you desperately needed to use it also.

The young nowadays will never understand the hardships.

 

[Rroff]

They've cut down the number here to around 10% of what there used to be but I'm surprised they still exist they are endlessly vandalised by small minded muppets resulting in them spending more time non-functional than working and must cost a lot to maintain and fix.

 

[--Mike--]

I've seen them more recently with the phones removed and had heart defibrillators installed instead. Seems more useful to me.

 

[Dis86]

I haven't seen anyone use one in more than a decade.

Druggies.

 

[Resident]

There was one at the bottom of my old street. It was constantly getting vandalised and the cash safe being broken into.

I'd like to see BT do similar to a US phone company.

They've started a project, being with the poorer areas where there were a large number of public payphones.

They're removing a lot of the phones but at the same time installing WiFi hubs providing free WiFi for the neighbourhood

 

[Yaayuh!]

Where do you live? The nineteen fifties?

*chortle*

 

[ubersonic]

I haven't seen anyone use one in more than a decade.

When you walk past any they're steamed up and you can hear a banging noise, they're in use.

 

[Orionaut]

I've seen them more recently with the phones removed and had heart defibrillators installed instead. Seems more useful to me.

Do any of the de-fib boxes actually have a phone link built in?

There is an over reliance on the assumption that everybody carries a mobile these days and it simply isn't true!

 

[[FnG]magnolia]

Also:

My town has gone from around 100 phone boxes to about 5 in the last few years.

100 phone boxes in your undisclosed town? Sounds like a mod challenge to me

 

[MasterPlan1]

The ones in London, no matter how hard they try are still in use by calling cards... So I guess they serve a purpose down here.

Oh, and tourists. Tourists love them, don't use them though.

 

[Fourstar]

I'd like to see BT do similar to a US phone company.
...
They're removing a lot of the phones but at the same time installing WiFi hubs providing free WiFi for the neighbourhood

BT have a similar scheme though it doesn't seem to have rolled out very far. This march BT were congratulating themselves on having installed 100 of them.

They provide a big advertising panel, free wifi (with the "all your usage data are belong to our advertising partners" caveat), free phone calls and I think you can access the internet from the device itself.

Whether they have plans to roll this out in poor neighbourhoods like your US example I don't know.

http://home.bt.com/tech-gadgets/tec...ifi-kiosks-street-london-leeds-11364260837104

 

[Semple]

Do any of the de-fib boxes actually have a phone link built in?

There is an over reliance on the assumption that everybody carries a mobile these days and it simply isn't true!

Whilst that maybe true, as has been said above, the costs of running these things not to mention repair costs when they get vandalised etc, must outweigh any sort of returns from running the service. So it's no real wonder that there's less and less of them about.

I suspect eventually a similar thing will happen with household landlines. I mean we don't even have a phone plugged in in our flat. And it's very rare that I ever need to phone someone on their landline number.

 

[wildman]

I haven't seen anyone use one in more than a decade.

I saw a tramp taking a dump in one near Farringdon last month

 

[PapaLazaru]

One of my local ones is now a book swap shop.

 

[Dup]

The street I grew up on (16 houses surrounded by fields on the edge of a village) had a phone box at the end. Last year the put a notice on it for anyone to object to it being removed. About 6 months later it was gone.

Pretty weird as it was a landmark to even find the street to guests who had never been before, but time and technology has moved on. I used to sit on top it waiting for my school bus and prank call people from it. Those were the days.