Aug 15, 2017
BT to scrap half of the UK's remaining telephone boxes
BT is to scrap half of the UK's remaining 40,000 telephone boxes and focus on the ones in locations where people are more likely to use them. In 1992 at its peak before mobile phones became popular, there were 92,000 phone boxes in the UK. Telephone boxes still handle 33,000 calls a day, but one third of kiosks are never used to make a call. "BT is committed to providing a public payphone service, but with usage declining by over 90% in the last decade, we continue to review and remove payphones which are no longer used," a BT spokesperson told the BBC. BT intends to scrap the 20,000 telephone boxes over the next five years. Out of the 40,000 phone booths still working, 7,000 are the traditional red phone boxes designed in 1935 to commemorate the silver jubilee of King George V. More than half of phone boxes lose money and the number of calls is declining by more than 20% per year. In areas where telephone boxes are not being used, many local communities have transformed and preserved phone booths by buying them for £1 from BT under the Adopt a Kiosk scheme.
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