{"id":16544,"date":"2017-09-01T16:45:52","date_gmt":"2017-09-01T15:45:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ihbconline.co.uk\/newsachive\/?p=16544"},"modified":"2017-09-01T16:45:52","modified_gmt":"2017-09-01T15:45:52","slug":"public-phone-boxes-nearing-end-of-line","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/?p=16544","title":{"rendered":"Public phone boxes: nearing end of line"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><a href=\"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/Tel_box_010917.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-16545\" src=\"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/Tel_box_010917-225x300.png\" alt=\"Telephone Box\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a>About 20,000 little-used red phone booths to be axed as mobiles reduce their relevance.<\/h3>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The Financial Times writes:<\/p>\n<p>About half of Britain\u2019s 40,000 public telephone boxes are set to disappear from the streets as BT scraps kiosks that attract more visitors wanting to \u2018spend a penny\u2019 than make a 60p phone call. The telecoms company\u2019s phone booths, including 7,000 traditional red phone boxes, still handle about 33,000 calls a day, despite universal mobile phone ownership. Yet more than half the boxes lose money and about a third do not handle a single phone call in any given month.<\/p>\n<p>Gerry McQuade, head of BT\u2019s wholesale unit which runs the pay phones business, said he has speeded up plans to cull 20,000 phone boxes and focus on profitable locations. \u2018Very few of them make any money as it stands. In aggregate, it costs us more to collect the money than the phone boxes generate,\u2019 he said\u2026<\/p>\n<p>Around 2,400 phone boxes have heritage listing. The classic K6, designed by the architect Sir Giles Gilbert Scott in 1936, has also proved a hit in the second-hand market as collectors around the world have rushed to own their own red phone box. Specialist companies recondition and sell the old phone boxes, which stand more than 8ft tall and weigh 750kg.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/bc6bfc60-80fc-11e7-a4ce-15b2513cb3ff\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read more&#8230;.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>About 20,000 little-used red phone booths to be axed as mobiles reduce their relevance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sector-newsblog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16544"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16544\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16546,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16544\/revisions\/16546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}