It is now estimated that 83% of UK legislation emanate from the EU and no matter what UK politicians say on a subject makes no difference - they have been neutered; EU law takes precedence over UK law.

From The Times  [page 40 in the paper copy]
September 10, 2007

QUOTE start......
Brussels may let BT hang up on public call boxes
Elizabeth Judge, Telecoms Correspondent

Britain’s 60,000 public payphones are under threat because of plans by Brussels to review the law under which BT funds and maintains them.
Under an historic agreement put in place at the time of its 1984 privatisation, BT is responsible for providing and maintaining call boxes around the country - even where it does not make money out of them.

The committment is one of several so-called universal service obligations (USOs) that fall on the group as the country’s main telecoms provider.
Now the European Commission has announced plans to review the system amid lobbying that provision of services such as payphones is no longer relevant in the age of mobile phones and other new technologies.

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The Commission is to publish a Green Paper on the issue aimed at launching a “wide-ranging debate” on all parts of universal service. The move could see USOs scrapped altogether.
There is, the Commission says, a need for a “fundamental reflection on the role and concept of universal service in the 21st century . . .”

The USO was aimed at ensuring that all citizens had access to basic telephone services at an affordable price. Alongside payphones, services such as directory enquiries, special call tariffs for low-income users and itemised billing are included.

However, funding for these services varies between countries. While BT retains sole responsibility for the cost of all USOs in the UK, in some other European countries the cost is met by a levy on all operators.
BT has lobbied for some time for a review. As mobile phone uptake has surged, it argues that payphones no longer provide the vital service that they once did. Virtually no customer, it says, now relies on public payphones as the primary means of making calls. More than one third of its payphones are unprofitable. Nearly 12,000 of them, it says, take less than £100 a year. Sales from its payphones division have declined by nearly 50 per cent in the past three years.

BT has argued for mobile phone operators to share the cost of the provision and upkeep of the call boxes. The group also points out that it competes with commercial call box providers, which can cherrypick the most profitable locations and are not obliged to provide access around the country.

...... QUOTE END

Source: http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/telecoms/article...

It's a bit of a sad state of affairs that you feel you must hope that a person isn't a psychopath or rapist. I think the odds are very much in your favour there.

But yes, I agree if it was part of their obligation for privatisation and profiteering then it should remain so. BT are a shower of sh1ites in my opinion and take whatever opportunity is given them to stick the hand in.

Barbara wrote on Sep 12^th, 2007 at 5:45pm:



I guess the reason you can't get a good signal is because every time a mobile company wants to put a mast up there are howls of protest. People don't want a mast outside their front door. You can not have it both ways.

The original post highlights two issues:

First:  That an attempt is under way to allow BT to pull out of universal public pay phone provision.

Second: The decision about BT pay phones is to be made by the EU and not us; as the EU now has, in the jargon, competence in telecommunications.

Those interested in the workings of the Brussels machine, will be interested to note that the bureaucrats in Brussels, while attempting to tell us what to do, can’t even run their own country.  A post in “The Brussels Journal” foretells the disintegration of Belgium  http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/2433  It may be difficult to complain to them by phone.

Speaking at an ITU conference in West Africa a couple of years ago I learned that mast sharing is viewed as sensible by many operators. Those without masts can buy access; those with masts can sell access. Result - happy suppliers and served customers.
Grow up UK.