BT To Scrap 20,000 Phone Boxes Across The UK By 2022

(RTTNews) - BT plans to scrap 20,000 unused phone boxes across the UK over the next five years, citing falling demand and high maintenance costs, BBC reported. The move will help the company to focus on the units that people actually use.

Out of the remaining 40,000 public phone boxes, the telecom giant plans to remove 13,400 over the next three years, while a further 6,600 will be scrapped by 2022.

The telephone boxes still handle 33,000 calls a day, but many are never used to make a call. BT said many boxes had become a burden and were expensive to repair and maintain.

As per the report, the number of calls has been dropping by 20% a year, while the cost of maintaining these has reached about 6 million pounds a year.

A BT spokesperson told, "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."

At their peak, before mobile phones became popular, there were 92,000 phone boxes in the UK. 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.

According to BBC, it is estimated that 93% of all people in the UK now own a mobile phone, and 98% of the UK has 3G or 4G mobile internet coverage. But, the booths are still used by people who can't afford mobile phones, and in emergencies.

Under BT's Adopt a Kiosk scheme, many local communities have transformed and preserved phone booths by buying them for 1 pounds. So far, more than 4,000 kiosks have been repurposed as mini-libraries and art galleries, among others.