Thousands of phone boxes around the UK will be protected from closure | Hacker News Reader

Thousands of phone boxes around the UK will be protected from closure

ofcom.org.uk

108 pointsnixass99 comments

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.

> had saturation coverage of the cities with lots of 1m^2 blocks of real estate

Tfw learning a new perspective every day :)

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.

> - 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.

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.

...nobody remembers numbers anymore.

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.

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)

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.

Can still remember 911.

867-530_ Course you may need to be Gen X or a Boomer to know that reference.

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.

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

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."

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 £1.09m. 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 1M£ RPIRB isn’t just for red paint!

Other cost centres include: branding consultancy (new logos and such), servicing venture finance (the £4bn 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 £19k, CEO £5m.)

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

> payroll (average employee £19k, CEO £5m.)

Ouch. I’d forgotten just how bad UK incomes could be. Adjusted for inflation, £19k/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.

Even unadjusted it's more than I was making as a graduate in 2012.

There is about £2.5k of income tax and national insurance to pay out of that £19k... then you have council tax and other bills.

Alternative headline: 75% of UK phone boxes to be removed (now=21k, future= 5k)

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.

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...

I guess people who loose their mobile phone and need to contact someone asap.

Your experience of mobile network coverage in the UK maybe doesn't match everyone else's?

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.

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.

Except that ATM’s are also slowly being removed more and more.

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.

Sure, but you do not need a smartphone to make calls. A feature phone can be had for < £20 (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.

10GB could probably give you non-stop online voice calls for a month too!

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.

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.

The "emergencies" they help with most often seem to be of a distinctly local and biological nature...

> 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.

Those 500 minutes don’t last forever. Below 20 minutes per month of use pay phones end up cheaper.

> Who even benefits from payphones still existing?

This is quite clearly outlined in the article.

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).

They still have to consult the local communities for the 75%.

That's in terms of operational payphones. Phone boxes that are decommissioned can be adopted by community groups typically for £1, 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.

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

My favourite use is turning them into coffee shops

https://www.mylondon.news/whats-on/whats-on-news/gallery/lon...

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:6827862...

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 £1 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.

> 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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/

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

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 Fón painted on, these are the main ones being converted. I don't think wifi points happen here.

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.

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...

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...

That story is probably worth its own submission, might even fly ...

Just wouldn't be the same without the fellow reek of stale urine.

I suspect it will only be displaced and you will still be able to enjoy it near you.

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

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.

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.

if i had a garden i'd get a blue phonebox and make it the entrance to my basement...

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!

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?

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.

Reverse charges?

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.

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.

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.

They're still in use in Dublin, mostly by junkies.

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.

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.

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.

Not sure I’d say vital. Don’t think I’ve ever seen one in use. For calling I mean not as a lavatory

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.

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!

That last one is a recent addendum as a result of the murder of Sarah Everard.

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.

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.

The only redeeming grace is that, police being mostly un-armed in the UK, fleeing is still a realistic option.

Cousens was armed.

If the alternative is what Everard had to endure, I would argue fleeing is still preferable.

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.

> 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...

In all honesty, a random bus driver is more likely to help you.

> *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'

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

'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.

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.

> 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?

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.

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.

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.

I had the same thought, but:

> ...while 25,000 calls were made to Childline and 20,000 to Samaritans.

Tom Scott did a segment on alternative use for them as place to store defibrillators:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecVHYg4_vZw

If we have to keep these completely pointless relics, how about at least forcing them to be reasonably priced and have free wifi

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).

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).

They're hiding Tardises, right?

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.

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

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