Society Still Needs, Telecommunications Regulators Want To Protect Thousands Of British Red Public Telephone Boxes

British red payphone box illustration. (Pexels/Mike)

JAKARTA - Thousands of UK red payphone boxes need to be protected from deletion under new rules, Britain's telecommunications regulator said Tuesday.

Payphones may seem like an outdated relic of the smartphone age. But regulator Ofcom says they can still be a "lifeline" for people in need.

The regulator proposed rules to prevent 5,000 call boxes in areas with poor cellular coverage from being closed.

In addition, about 52 phone calls from locations that are considered accident and suicide-prone areas in the past 12 months, came from this red telephone booth.

Ofcom said there were still around 21,000 phone boxes across the country, and nearly 150,000 calls to emergency services were made on them from May 2019 to May 2020.

Not only that, about 45,000 calls were also made to other helplines, such as Samaritans.

"Some of the calling boxes we plan to protect are used to make relatively low numbers of calls," said Selina Chadha, Ofcom's director of connectivity, citing The National News Nov. 10.

"But if any of those calls are from a distressed child, accident victim or someone who is suicidal, a payphone line can be a lifesaver in times of need."

"We also want to ensure that people without cellular coverage, often in rural areas, can still make calls."

BT Group, formerly British Telecom, said nearly half of telephone boxes in the UK had been removed due to growth in the number of mobile phones.

It said more than 6,500 unused call boxes have so far been turned into mini community libraries, art galleries or storage units for public defibrillators under a plan called "Adopt a Kiosk".

This program allows local organizations to buy a red telephone box for £1 or about US$1.4 and turn it into something useful.