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If you are over 40, you will remember those old red GPO telephone
kiosks. Inside was a black box with shiny silver buttons marked ‘A’ and ‘B’ and
a large slot into which we dropped heavy copper pennies with
a satisfying clunk. They were red, rare and respected. How
times have changed!
There are 181 payphones in our constituency. Only 124 are
profitable. What will happen to the other 57?
It seems incredible now that a Minister was directly responsible
for running the nation’s telephones. They were run as
part of the General Post Office until Post Office Telephones
was privatized and became British Telecom, now trading as BT.
It was all about new technology. Royal Mail stage coaches
were replaced by trains and motor vehicles. Post horses gave
way to telegrams, faxes and e-mail. Copper wire now faces stiff
competition from mobile phones with radio links to masts or
satellites. Now, only 1% of households have no access to either
a fixed line or mobile phone. While 93% of us have affixed
line, 79% of us have a fixed line and a mobile phone and 6%
of us have only a mobile phone.
When BT was privatised it took over a legal obligation as
a Universal Service Provider, to maintain unprofitable, largely
rural, telephone lines, exchanges and phone boxes. It has fulfilled
that obligation for twenty years. But BT points out that when
they started, there were no mobile phones. Over the past three
years alone, payphone usage has dropped by 50% with a 40% drop
in revenue as people switch to mobiles. It costs an average
of £1650 each year to maintain a kiosk.
BT wrote to me to say they would retain 34 of those loss-making
57 payphones because they provide an essential community service
and they would remove 23. I went through the list and reckoned
that 7 of the 23 were in areas where there is no reliable mobile
phone signal. They conceded that the payphones at Little Langford,
Chilmark, Chicksgrove Lane, Hatch Lane, and the Cuckoo at Hamptworth
should therefore stay.
For future reference, a District Council objection is as good
as a veto. So is getting your red box ‘listed’.
Earlier this month we debated this in the House. I told the
Minister that BT has a fair point. Technology has moved on
so why should BT incur a loss while mobile phone companies
cream off the profits. Well, Ofcom is reviewing the BT Universal
Service obligation. But if mobile service providers must share
the obligation, they must have more masts in the countryside.
We can’t have it both ways.
There is just one thing though. If you have used your mobile
phone abroad, you’ll know that it automatically tunes
in to the strongest signal from the nearest mast – it
roams. Not so in the UK. Because the Government auctions off
the communications frequencies at vast prices to boost the
Chancellor’s coffers, the companies, not surprisingly,
refuse to roam. Greedy Government again?
Robert Key MP
16 October 2004 |
