Anyone remember people putting Phonecards in the freezer

[GusB]

Indeed. This was a long time before prepay mobiles, and even when O2 (well BT Cellnet) launched the first UK prepay offering, it didn't have a proper billing system behind it. It was an unlimited SIM with the credit managed on the phone.

And, guess what, the phone was quickly hacked so you could get unlimited credit and call anywhere. Local, national, international, premium - everything!

This was not too dissimilar to the payphone hack to get free calls (actually, pretty much identical), meaning BT clearly didn't learn! Not that Cellnet ever really let on how much money it had lost, as I'm sure it would have been a major scandal.

I was working for BT in Directory Enquiries when pre-pay phones came about. People would call up and ask for Cellnet customer services, when in fact they could be billed by any number of service providers who happened to use the Cellnet network. It was made clear to us to ask exactly who their service provider was before serving up the number. At this point, Orange and, I think 1-2-1, customers were billed by one provider for service on their own networks, but Vodafone and Cellnet network subscribers could still be billed by 3rd parties. This became a bit of a problem when a few years later I worked in an outsourced call-centre which dealt with Vodafone customers. They'd recently acquired Singlepoint, which had customers on both o2 and Vodafone networks, and while we had direct access to the Vodafone systems, we could only ever assist o2 network subscribers with billing issues.

I'll be sorry to see them go (memories of using them to take phone-in competition calls when I briefly worked in the pirate radio industry!). The last time I used one was a couple of years ago in an emergency. Maybe BT could have made a go of them by offering cheaper credit/debit card calls or by installing public WiFi hotspots in the boxes but their only money-spinning idea was those adhesive adverts covering all the glass, the sticky remnants of which remain today making the boxes look even more grubby then they otherwise would.

I would be sorry to see them go completely too, but to be honest I didn't actually notice when the last phone box disappeared from our village. I noticed when the first one disappeared, because it was an old K6. When did the second one go? I've no idea - I never any had any need to use the local boxes. The ones in surrounding hamlets were handy, though, especially for calling the RAC.

 

[najaB]

None of the boxes around me have ever been fitted with WiFi. Maybe it's a big city thing?

It was done with some kiosks in high traffic areas.

 

[Bromley boy]

Because usage is through the floor. There are more than a few that get used for under 20 calls per year.

Indeed. There are a few outside the station at my depot. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone using them, other than as a wind break to light fags and (late at night) as a convenient street urinal/vomit receptacle.

A few weeks back as I was passing one started ringing. There’s something strangely exciting about that (at least there is if you’re a Dirty Harry fan).

I took a deep breath, answered it... and it was a PPI call.

They might as well get rid of them. I assume
there’s some kind of statutory requirement to maintain them or they’d surely have been history long ago.

 

[Cowley]

Indeed. There are a few outside the station at my depot. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone using them, other than as a wind break to light fags and (late at night) as a convenient street urinal/vomit receptacle.

A few weeks back as I was passing one started ringing. There’s something strangely exciting about that (at least there is if you’re a Dirty Harry fan).

I took a deep breath, answered it... and it was a PPI call.

They might as well get rid of them. I assume
there’s some kind of statutory requirement to maintain them or they’d surely have been history long ago.

So er, had you been mis sold PPI?

 

[Bromley boy]

So er, had you been mis sold PPI?

Nope!

I was tempted to vandalise/urinate in the phone box myself after receiving that call!

 

[najaB]

I assume
there’s some kind of statutory requirement to maintain them or they’d surely have been history long ago.

There is, indeed. It's a condition of their license. Removing the last payphone in an area is about as difficult as closing a railway station.

 

[Bromley boy]

There is, indeed. It's a condition of their license. Removing the last payphone in an area is about as difficult as closing a railway station.

https://www.theguardian.com/culture...ks-remaining-phone-boxes-after-usage-falls-90

Some 33,000 calls a day are still made from phone boxes, but about a third are only used once a month, and many are never used at all. Of those in more regular use, many never earn enough money to cover maintenance costs.

The number of calls has been dropping by 20% a year, while the cost of cleaning, replacing broken glass panels, repairing vandalised receivers and removing graffiti and rubbish has risen steadily to about £6m a year.

The big surprise for me from that article was the fact 33,000 calls per day are still made from boxes. Who in their right mind is doing that, at a 60p minimum charge?!

Even if I lost my mobile there are very few numbers I would remember in order to call from a phone box.

I guess I’d be sad to see the red boxes go (the few of them that are left), but surely the network should now be decommissioned.

 

[bnm]

https://www.theguardian.com/culture...ks-remaining-phone-boxes-after-usage-falls-90




The big surprise for me from that article was the fact 33,000 calls per day are still made from boxes. Who in their right mind is doing that, at a 60p minimum charge?!

Even if I lost my mobile there are very few numbers I would remember in order to call from a phone box.

I guess I’d be sad to see the red boxes go (the few of them that are left), but surely the network should now be decommissioned.

The article doesn't say it's 33,000 chargeable calls. A fair proportion will, I suspect, be calls to the emergency services, the operator, 080x calls, reverse charge...

 

[EbbwJunction1]

Slightly off topic, many years ago our work phone system used to allow outgoing calls to be transferred to an internal number, i.e. you could use your phone to ring a number and then transfer it to someone else.

Unsuspecting colleagues often answered their phone to find that someone (not me, of course!) had transferred "Dial a Prayer" (other services were available) to them. Everybody else, who were in on what had happened, was trying hard not to laugh ... and often failing!

 

[DavidGrain]

Going back to the original question about putting phone cards in the freezer. I did once put a computer hard drive in the office fridge because we suspected that a fault only developed as the drive warmed up and we had to extract some files from it.

 

[Darandio]

Indeed. This was a long time before prepay mobiles, and even when O2 (well BT Cellnet) launched the first UK prepay offering, it didn't have a proper billing system behind it. It was an unlimited SIM with the credit managed on the phone.

And, guess what, the phone was quickly hacked so you could get unlimited credit and call anywhere. Local, national, international, premium - everything!

This was not too dissimilar to the payphone hack to get free calls (actually, pretty much identical), meaning BT clearly didn't learn! Not that Cellnet ever really let on how much money it had lost, as I'm sure it would have been a major scandal.

I remember them well, black handset with the BT Cellnet logo.

I'm not sure if all were the same but the ones I encountered allowed you to use them and they had £10 worth of calls on them. You made your call, hung up, restarted the phone and the £10 was restored.

 

[Clip]

Indeed. This was a long time before prepay mobiles, and even when O2 (well BT Cellnet) launched the first UK prepay offering, it didn't have a proper billing system behind it. It was an unlimited SIM with the credit managed on the phone.

And, guess what, the phone was quickly hacked so you could get unlimited credit and call anywhere. Local, national, international, premium - everything!

This was not too dissimilar to the payphone hack to get free calls (actually, pretty much identical), meaning BT clearly didn't learn! Not that Cellnet ever really let on how much money it had lost, as I'm sure it would have been a major scandal.

Ahh yes i remember them phones - they were Philips or Genie or something with the rounded top - best few quid you could ever spend on one of them

 

[dgl]

This reminds me of my first mobile phone, it was Vodafone's first attempt to do PAYG.
It was still on the AMPS analog network and required that you topped up £15 per month half of that being line rental and the rest on calls.
Still being quite young and not having any money it was only used for about a month with the free credit included.

The phone itself was a telital PV129 iirc.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Going back to the original question about putting phone cards in the freezer. I did once put a computer hard drive in the office fridge because we suspected that a fault only developed as the drive warmed up and we had to extract some files from it.

Did it work?

 

[fowler9]

I have at least ten public phone boxes within a ten minute walk of my house in Penzance, in three different locations, all theoretically still working. Is this unusual now? I can only think of a couple that have been removed in the last fifteen years or so. Still, we are so behind the times down here that the opening of a KFC a few years ago brought traffic chaos!

Blimey, up her in Liverpool I couldn't direct you to a single phone box. Ha ha.