[HN Gopher] Thousands of phone boxes around the UK will be prote...
___________________________________________________________________
Thousands of phone boxes around the UK will be protected from
closure
Author : nixass
Score : 104 points
Date : 2021-11-10 07:55 UTC (15 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.ofcom.org.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.ofcom.org.uk)
| jonplackett wrote:
| If we have to keep these completely pointless relics, how about
| at least forcing them to be reasonably priced and have free wifi
| TrueGeek wrote:
| That's actually what this announcement says.
|
| If the box is still in use (50+ calls made in the last year)
| then it's kept. If it's in an area with low mobile coverage
| it'll be converted to a free wi-fi hotspot. Otherwise it's free
| to be torn down or used by the community (they show a box being
| used as a tiny library).
| II2II wrote:
| Clearly these relics have a point, as outlined by the article,
| but is likely that few (if any) are cost effective from a
| business perspective. Defining what constitutes their purpose
| from a social perspective is certainly valid for determining
| when they should be maintained.
|
| It is all too easy to forget that there are people lead
| different lives from us. Some people don't have access to
| phones, or may need to use a phone where their calls cannot be
| traced by people who are close to them. Children are cited, but
| even adults in an abusive situations should count. While
| accidents are cited, there are also victims of crime (e.g.
| someone who was mugged late at night). Even those who own a
| mobile phone for emergencies or employment purposes may need to
| use phone booths, since a long distance calling card and a
| quarter for a local call is cheaper than a plan with comparable
| "free" local minutes (or it was about 10 years ago).
| fivelessminutes wrote:
| Just wouldn't be the same without the fellow reek of stale urine.
| cm2187 wrote:
| I suspect it will only be displaced and you will still be able
| to enjoy it near you.
| errcorrectcode wrote:
| They're hiding Tardises, right?
| SeanSpearo wrote:
| In Ireland, old phone boxes are being fitted with defibrillators,
| especially in more rural towns and villages. I believe it happens
| in towns in the UK as well. There's plenty boxes here from before
| the eircom and vodafone days that look very traditional with Fon
| painted on, these are the main ones being converted. I don't
| think wifi points happen here.
| klelatti wrote:
| Just seen one converted to a defibrillator in Bath in the UK,
| and painted yellow so very distinctive. Not seen any in London
| though for example.
| femto wrote:
| Australia's Telstra has reversed its position on closing phone
| boxes, as they have now realised the value of the real estate
| they occupy. They are now placing 5G base stations and WiFi
| access points on phone boxes, and have a bonus revenue stream
| from advertising hoardings. It's not worth charging for the calls
| so calls from public phones are now free.
|
| They are probably kicking themselves for previously doing away
| with so many phone boxes, as in the past they had saturation
| coverage of the cities with lots of 1m^2 blocks of real estate:
| perfect for 5G.
| fredoralive wrote:
| In the UK BT has been doing somthing similar in towns and
| cities with phone boxes that are basically advertsting
| hoardings with with a phone attached. ISTR reading some
| grumblings about how they were somewhat misuing favourable
| planning law treatment of phone boxes for these.
|
| This new set of rules is presumably more applicable to rural
| and suburban phone boxed that won't have many favourable
| alternative uses or revenue sources.
| conjectures wrote:
| > had saturation coverage of the cities with lots of 1m^2
| blocks of real estate
|
| Tfw learning a new perspective every day :)
| 0xdeadb00f wrote:
| Where I am Telstra has also made these telephone boxes
| available for use - completely for free. Though I've never seen
| anyone using them, probably because nowadays everyone and their
| dog has mobile phones.
| londons_explore wrote:
| > - completely for free
|
| I guess this is because coin boxes encourage vandalism and
| require someone to go empty them. Upgrading them to credit
| card machines is probably far more expensive than the revenue
| they'll ever earn.
| funnyflamigo wrote:
| My guess is that because relatively few people are
| interested in using them (due to ~90% of Australia's
| population having cell phones) it means if they charged
| money and somebody didn't have a phone they'd likely just
| ask someone to borrow theirs for a second. Plus with VOIP
| calls are nearly free and they already have an internet
| uplink right there for the 5G.
|
| I figure the only people that would choose to use them
| nowadays are likely in some type of "emergency" and can't
| use their cell - whether it's they left their phone at
| home, battery is dead, etc.
| C19is20 wrote:
| ...nobody remembers numbers anymore.
| funnyflamigo wrote:
| Yeah that's why I figure it'd have to be something fairly
| important - most people should at least know their area's
| emergency number, and hopefully at least one close
| friend/spouse/partner/parents to help you out. In the
| states we carry a paper with our insurance info which
| will include a tow company if you have towing insurance.
| iso1210 wrote:
| I remember plenty of numbers. The ones I dialed in the
| 90s. Friends I haven't seen for 20 years, who no longer
| live in the same country - I know their number. My phone
| number I had from when I was 6-10? Yup.
|
| My landline number now? No idea. I use it a lot (no real
| cell coverage at home)
| rmason wrote:
| 867-530_ Course you may need to be Gen X or a Boomer to
| know that reference.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Can still remember 911.
| epicide wrote:
| I mean, I know enough numbers by heart to get myself out
| of a rough situation and my phone is unusable.
|
| Generally, I would recommend most people at least commit
| one or two to memory. Enough to pass a message along to
| your wider network or to get assistance.
| lostgame wrote:
| I lost my phone recently. Let's just say I'm super glad phone
| boxes exist. I was able to call it and it was returned.
| lordnacho wrote:
| I saw one of these used as a place to swap used books, and
| another as a coffee stand. Seems reasonable. In any case, do
| people even carry coins anymore? How would you operate the phone
| for anything other than a 999 call?
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| The newly built "street hub" public phones offer free calls to
| any UK number, so there is no need for payment.
|
| If there was, NFC payment is ubiquitous in the UK, so a simple
| card reader would suffice.
| goldcd wrote:
| Reverse charges?
| vultour wrote:
| We have a coin-operated vending machine at work. The cafeteria
| closes at 3, so it's the only way to get a drink after that.
| What maniac still carries coins these days?! Needless to say I
| was slightly upset the first time I found out.
| bob229 wrote:
| As always Britain is fully committed to the past
| Havoc wrote:
| Not sure I'd say vital. Don't think I've ever seen one in use.
| For calling I mean not as a lavatory
| dazc wrote:
| The last time I phoned the police in the UK I was told that I
| shouldn't be using the emergency 999 number unless it was a
| life or death situation. I was being threatened with violence
| at the time?
|
| Having the means to make an emergency call doesn't necessarily
| result in getting help, it would seem.
|
| *There is a non-emergency number but this also seems to be just
| a way of frustrating you into giving up.
| corobo wrote:
| I called the non emergency line for a break-in I saw the end
| of. The person on the other end must have had a bad day or
| something, they were _pissed off_
|
| "Well if it's no longer in progress why have you called?"
|
| Well shit, good point. Why am I being a grass? Let the people
| that had their stuff taken from them figure it out
|
| Emergency isn't much better, was actively being mugged and
| managed to get a call out. They were more interested in
| getting my personal details (no, not my location, they had
| that)... I'm actively running from a guy that wants to kick
| my ass, can I maybe give this to the officer I later found
| out was literally round the corner?
|
| Honestly it's a call and hope sort of service. I wouldn't
| rely on it for anything police related anyway. Not had to use
| it for medical/fire luckily
| ben_w wrote:
| I've called once each for fire and ambulance, without
| problems.
|
| The fire call was "the detectors in my building are going
| off, while I can smell smoke it might just be a neighbour's
| cigarettes, there is no visible flame". This produced a
| fire engine, flashing lights but no sirens, and free
| replacement fire alarms.
|
| The ambulance call was "A cyclist bounced off the kerb,
| fell off their bike, then had a grand-mal seizure", which
| produced an ambulance, and as this was during rush hour
| there were also several random nurses who just stopped
| their cars and asked if they could help.
| dazc wrote:
| 'Not had to use it for medical/fire luckily'
|
| Anecdotally, fire service will always attend at speed. For
| an ambulance, unless 'patient is not breathing' you'll have
| to go through the usual call-centre questionnaire process.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Usually they ask you those details after you have described
| the situation and location and they have dispatched someone
| (if they have decided to do that), which sounds reasonable.
| corobo wrote:
| > I'm actively running from a guy that wants to kick my
| ass, can I maybe give this to the officer I later found
| out was literally round the corner?
| [deleted]
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Well, I think it depends on how you describe "threaten with
| violence" to them. On the face of it, it can be a serious
| situation that perfectly justifies calling 999 (I did it once
| for this reason and a police car was there within minutes) or
| it can be just words thrown around. They will try to assess
| the situation based on what you tell them.
| shapefrog wrote:
| > *There is a non-emergency number but this also seems to be
| just a way of frustrating you into giving up.
|
| I have been there and got the tshirt - litterally 20 minutes
| of automated mesasges. The end result - 'you should call the
| emergency number 999'
| alexchamberlain wrote:
| For reference, this is simply not true. You can ring 999 for
| fires (which generally pose a much greater risk to property),
| you should call 999 after a serious traffic accident
| regardless of whether someone's life is in danger and you can
| even phone 999 if you're alone and have been stopped by a
| lone policeman (I learned this one recently from a
| criminology teacher). I'm sorry to hear you had a bad
| experience; of course, it has to be an emergency, but being
| threatened certainly sounds like that to me!
| toyg wrote:
| _> you can even phone 999 if you 're alone and have been
| stopped by a lone policeman_
|
| Oh no no no, the Metropolitan Police advised to "flag down
| a bus" in that case. And the Prime Minister agrees:
| https://news.sky.com/story/sarah-everard-murder-pm-vows-
| to-s...
| dazc wrote:
| In all honesty, a random bus driver is more likely to
| help you.
| celticninja wrote:
| That last one is a recent addendum as a result of the
| murder of Sarah Everard.
| dazc wrote:
| Indeed, which may be helpful if a serving police officer
| intends to murder you and is also willing to allow you to
| make the call.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Yes, it's just for the show because they know full well
| that if a police officer stops you and says (s)he is
| arresting you then in real life you have two options: to
| comply or to flee/to fight. Obviously they cannot tell
| the public to resist arrest so they came up with this
| slightly ridiculous suggestion.
| toyg wrote:
| The only redeeming grace is that, police being mostly un-
| armed in the UK, fleeing is still a realistic option.
| fmajid wrote:
| Cousens was armed.
| toyg wrote:
| If the alternative is what Everard had to endure, I would
| argue fleeing is still preferable.
| danw1979 wrote:
| He was a psycho but given his motives I doubt he would
| have whipped out his police firearm and shot her in the
| middle of a busy street in south London.
| redis_mlc wrote:
| > you can even phone 999 if you're alone and have been
| stopped by a lone policeman
|
| I believe this is related to the London cop recently
| arresting a woman on some "corona lockdown" pretext,
| kidnapping and killing her.
|
| https://www.npr.org/2021/09/30/1041824561/london-police-
| offi...
| alexellisuk wrote:
| Yuck and.
|
| > So Ofcom is proposing clearer, stronger rules to safeguard a
| phone box against removal, if any of four criteria applies:
|
| >its location is not already covered by all four mobile
| networks; or it is located at an accident or suicide hotspot;
| or >more than 52 calls have been made from it over the past 12
| months; or > exceptional circumstances mean there is a need for
| a public call box.
|
| Seems to be reasonable criteria if accepted.
| zelos wrote:
| I had the same thought, but:
|
| > ...while 25,000 calls were made to Childline and 20,000 to
| Samaritans.
| gorgoiler wrote:
| An interesting business metric I like to track, for companies
| like BT, is revenue per iconic red phone box (RPIRPB.)
|
| For BT, their RPIRPB is PS1.09m. Roughly speaking, for every
| million pounds they rake in, they are obliged to maintain one
| phone box.
|
| BT have other infrastructure of course, as well as many of the
| usual costs involved in running a business that employs 100k
| people. That 1MPS RPIRB isn't just for red paint!
|
| Other cost centres include: branding consultancy (new logos and
| such), servicing venture finance (the PS4bn for premiership
| rights alongside all the other investment into BT Sports channels
| 1, 2, 3, Classic, Free, Europe, Ultimate, BoxNation...); equity
| refreshers for all employees (5/1000ths of a basis point each, 3
| year vesting); payroll (average employee PS19k, CEO PS5m.)
|
| It's all about balancing priorities -- upkeep of a national icon
| with which you have been entrusted vs ongoing return on
| investment for private capital / shareholders.
|
| _Upsy downsies_
| ben_w wrote:
| > payroll (average employee PS19k, CEO PS5m.)
|
| Ouch. I'd forgotten just how bad UK incomes could be. Adjusted
| for inflation, PS19k/year today is only a quibble more than the
| rate of pay I got in my pre-degree summer holiday job in 2003
| making HVAC units in a factory.
| aigo wrote:
| Even unadjusted it's more than I was making as a graduate in
| 2012.
| intricatedetail wrote:
| There is about PS2.5k of income tax and national insurance to
| pay out of that PS19k... then you have council tax and other
| bills.
| [deleted]
| pndy wrote:
| The phone boxes were successfully killed off here in Poland in
| last 15 years; most likely because mobile networks become more
| reliable, dense and cheaper. Devices in particular places like
| hospitals or prisons should be still running and supported, as
| acc. to wikipedia article it's required by law but since the
| national telecom was privatized (now mainly owned by Orange) no
| official service provider was designated for the task.
|
| Last time I had chance to use a phone box I didn't even call - I
| had to text someone to actually call me on my prepaid phone.
| karlkloss wrote:
| Hospitals and Prisons wouldn't even need payphones. They all
| have Internet, and could just screw IP phones to the walls.
| Would cost them next to nothing.
| m_eiman wrote:
| Sweden's last phone box was demolished in 2016, which is
| surprisingly late! In the early 80s there were 44000 boxes in
| operation, apparently.
|
| https://blogg.tekniskamuseet.se/minns-du-telefonkiosken/
| fmajid wrote:
| The ones in my neighborhood of London were only taken out a
| few months ago. Some of the photogenic traditional red boxes
| have been turned into:
|
| - a coffee stall
|
| - a flower shop
|
| - a free library
| henvic wrote:
| I bet there is a market for creating vending machines out of UK's
| phone boxes, and/or perhaps ship them as decoration items all
| over the world.
|
| In London, they could even be set up to sell miniature phone
| boxes in the most central locations.
| mattowen_uk wrote:
| The cost of a removed phone box in poor condition is a few
| thousand pounds, and good condition ones are over 10k GBP. Not
| a cheap option for something that s just decorative. That said,
| many people do buy them and put them in their gardens.
| em-bee wrote:
| if i had a garden i'd get a blue phonebox and make it the
| entrance to my basement...
| drewzero1 wrote:
| Somebody in my town (rural Wisconsin, US) had one (or a
| reproduction) in their front yard when I was growing up. They
| had integrated it into a very nice flower garden and iirc it
| lit up at night with their house number. It certainly made an
| impression!
| tomxor wrote:
| I've encountered a bunch of the old red telephone boxes in
| villages being used as mini-libraries/book-exchange these days,
| which I thought was a pretty neat idea.
|
| https://minitravellers.co.uk/phone-box-libraries-in-the-uk/
|
| ... although I've yet to find any interesting books in them yet
| :D maybe I should make a deposit.
| klondike_klive wrote:
| We've got two in my village - one is a book exchange and the
| other is a general exchange for unwanted stuff including
| groceries. Every so often some scrotes come along and clean
| them out with a van, but they're a great place to get rid of
| unwanted children's books and stumble on some interesting stuff
| you didn't know you might like.
| [deleted]
| m4rtink wrote:
| The last phone booth has been taken out of service years ago here
| in the Czech Republic - but we now have a nice statue to
| commemorate them:
|
| https://znojemsky.denik.cz/zpravy_region/zvoni-a-provokuje-z...
| notauser wrote:
| In the UK, the statue came first - phone boxes were modelled on
| Soane's tomb in a London graveyard near St Pancras station:
|
| https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/the-tomb-and-the-t...
| ableal wrote:
| That story is probably worth its own submission, might even
| fly ...
| TomWhitwell wrote:
| Alternative headline: 75% of UK phone boxes to be removed
| (now=21k, future= 5k)
| josefx wrote:
| They still have to consult the local communities for the 75%.
| timthorn wrote:
| That's in terms of operational payphones. Phone boxes that are
| decommissioned can be adopted by community groups typically for
| PS1, to turn into eg a defibrillator station, mini library,
| etc. so of those 75% a good number will remain in place, just
| without the phone.
| snowwolf wrote:
| My favourite use is turning them into coffee shops
|
| https://www.mylondon.news/whats-on/whats-on-
| news/gallery/lon...
| mino wrote:
| Friends up in a forgotten corner of the Western Highlands
| turned one into a passive fibre termination box. Pics:
|
| https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:682786
| 2...
| jordanwallwork wrote:
| The Community Heartbeat Trust are helping to convert phone
| booths into defib stations. Great idea in my opinion
|
| https://www.communityheartbeat.org.uk/convert-phone-box
| bmsleight_ wrote:
| Of which some have not be used for 2 years. There is a balance
| in providing the public regulated service and providing
| something that nobody uses day to day. The criteria appears
| sensible.
| Aeolun wrote:
| They're a form of landscaping. When the closest box to my
| house was removed the view changed for the worse (it was
| replaced by a huge box full of advertisements).
| scoopertrooper wrote:
| Who even benefits from payphones still existing?
|
| The cheapest PAYG contract offered by BT's subsidiary EE gets
| you 500 minutes of phone calls for 10 pounds. Which also buys
| you 10GB of internet and unlimited texts.
|
| Meanwhile, 500 minutes of phone calls from a BT payphone
| would set you back 250 pounds!
|
| So, it's obviously not the poor who benefits from pay phones.
| Except maybe a subset of homeless people who can't commit to
| a PAYG contract. Seems like it'd be more economical for BT/EE
| to just handout phones at homeless shelters and shutdown this
| ridiculous relic.
|
| https://shop.ee.co.uk/sim-only/pay-as-you-go-phones
|
| https://www.bt.com/pricing/current/Call_Charges_boo/3545_d0e.
| ..
| dt123 wrote:
| 10GB could probably give you non-stop online voice calls
| for a month too!
| msh wrote:
| I guess people who loose their mobile phone and need to
| contact someone asap.
| justinlloyd wrote:
| In an emergency situation, an actual emergency, not "I
| forgot to charge my phone and I've got a flat tire" but
| more "there is a major power outage and all the cell
| networks are down" or "there is a major crisis and the cell
| network is congested" the landlines will keep running and
| placing calls just as they always have. I don't know if it
| is still required, but it used to be a regulation that
| landlines in the US and the UK were carried on separate
| power systems and cabling systems so that they would remain
| operational in the event of a national emergency. There is
| also a lot of areas where cell phone coverage is just not
| reliable. And so payphones do still have their place.
| michaelt wrote:
| In an emergency where the cell networks are down, you can
| go to your nearest BT phone box and discover someone
| smashed the plastic handset five years ago, and nobody
| noticed because zero calls in five years is the norm.
|
| Anyone who thinks public phone boxes will play a role in
| a national emergency is fooling themselves.
| xyzzy123 wrote:
| The "emergencies" they help with most often seem to be of
| a distinctly local and biological nature...
| toast0 wrote:
| > there is a major crisis and the cell network is
| congested" the landlines will keep running and placing
| calls just as they always have
|
| This is pretty optimistic, landlines get congested during
| major crises too. do-do-dee all circuits are busy now,
| please try your call again later.
| dazc wrote:
| Your experience of mobile network coverage in the UK maybe
| doesn't match everyone else's?
| sohkamyung wrote:
| From the Ofcom release:
|
| > Some of the call boxes we plan to protect are used to
| make relatively low numbers of calls. But if one of those
| calls is from a distressed child, an accident victim or
| someone contemplating suicide, that public phone line can
| be a lifeline at a time of great need.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Seems like they could just mandate ATMs or other public
| computers (London's Santander Bike rental terminals for
| example) to double as emergency call points and solve
| this problem.
| Aeolun wrote:
| Except that ATM's are also slowly being removed more and
| more.
| dbbk wrote:
| > Who even benefits from payphones still existing?
|
| This is quite clearly outlined in the article.
| mofosyne wrote:
| These phone station can be used as wifi or short range 5g
| base station.
|
| Plus not everyone have smartphone and these maybe the only
| way those on the street especially the homeless can call
| others.
| gpderetta wrote:
| Sure, but you do not need a smartphone to make calls. A
| feature phone can be had for < PS20 (and the battery will
| last a looong time). I wouldn't be surprised if charities
| were already giving them away and many homeless already
| had one.
| Retric wrote:
| Those 500 minutes don't last forever. Below 20 minutes per
| month of use pay phones end up cheaper.
| quitit wrote:
| That would be a misleading and sensationalist title fitting for
| a tabloid.
|
| It seems entirely reasonable that most, perhaps nearly all,
| boxes will remain.
|
| The consultation process and negligible transfer fee of PS1
| heavily skew in favour of keeping the iconic phone boxes.
|
| The review criteria are also the least controversial I have
| read in years, it seems any boxes to be removed are very much
| unwanted.
| towhomsoever wrote:
| The fact that a phone-box qualifies for saving if "more than 52
| calls have been made from it over the past 12 months" kind of
| says everything that needs to be said about how rarely the things
| are now used.
| quitit wrote:
| Almost certainly used for tourist photo ops above every other
| use.
|
| This seems to be why Malta still have theirs. (You can find the
| iconic british phone boxes in the streets of Valetta.)
|
| All of that said - it's respectable that they're looking out
| for those in need prior to decommissioning the telephone
| functions within.
| throw0101a wrote:
| Tom Scott did a video on what some are being used for:
|
| > _Automated external defibrillators, or AEDs, help save lives:
| but they need to be in an obvious, easy-to-access, public place
| that 's protected from the elements. Conveniently, it turns out
| there's a disused red telephone box sitting in the middle of a
| lot of British villages..._
|
| * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecVHYg4_vZw
| iso1210 wrote:
| And Libraries
|
| https://www.itv.com/news/meridian/2021-03-12/parish-council-...
|
| "A community library in a small Hampshire village has caused a
| stir after a number of adult fiction books were discovered."
| danw1979 wrote:
| > Almost 150,000 calls were made to emergency services from phone
| boxes in the year to May 2020, while 25,000 calls were made to
| Childline and 20,000 to Samaritans.
|
| Of course, there's no way to know which of the boxes that are
| about to close _would_ have been used to make a call to childline
| if only it hadn't been disconnected.
|
| Fuck how much it costs to maintain these, just keep them open.
| aaron695 wrote:
| They are all (15,000 payphones) now free in Australia
|
| https://exchange.telstra.com.au/why-were-making-payphones-fr...
|
| Are these free? The cost of collecting money certainly not worth
| it, electronic systems to collect money probably not worth it,
| but there is the risk of going over the 52 calls / year if it's
| free.
| monkeycantype wrote:
| It's almost certainly worth it for Telstra to continue to hold
| onto control of that small piece of Real estate for signage and
| branding and wifi points , Telstra charges a premium over other
| phone companies because of the perception their network has
| significantly better coverage
| nixass wrote:
| They're still in use in Dublin, mostly by junkies.
| dghughes wrote:
| Or elderly people who do not have mobile phones, or have one
| but never use it, or forget to take it, or shut it off.
|
| It is strange to get rid of them they are still working phones.
|
| My mother finds phone screens hard to see, the phone hard to
| hear. She can't hear it ring or assumes it's something else. If
| it is near her the sound startles her and makes her jump.
|
| To our generation it's like telling us mobile phones will be
| discontinued in favour of the a technology.
| tgraham wrote:
| I don't doubt many legit uses, but similar subjective
| observation in London. Frequently vandalised, message board for
| sex workers, or defacto public urinals. It was surprisingly
| easy to get one removed from a nearby street given minimal
| usage and general abuse.
| Kosirich wrote:
| Tom Scott did a segment on alternative use for them as place to
| store defibrillators:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecVHYg4_vZw
| toyg wrote:
| I wonder if this little gem [0] I found, on my way back from the
| Lake District, will be one of the victims. It's legit a potential
| film set for wartime movies.
|
| [0] https://photos.app.goo.gl/puj8MHhe7nuVk6L39
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