Hacker News Reader

Comment by TomWhitwell | Hacker News Reader

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).

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.

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

Reply on news.ycombinator.com