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
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Brussels may let BT hang up on public call boxesElizabeth 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.
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Source:
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/telecoms/article...~ Edited by Dave: Link to source added