BT rolls out new ad-heavy payphones

It looks like the streets of London will soon be getting an extra dash of advertising courtesy of BT, which has begun the roll-out of some fresh new payphones, marking the first redesign the company's done in more than 20 years. Designed in partnership with advertising firm JCDecaux, the so-called Street Talk 6 kiosks boast illuminated scrolling advertisements on the rear and no walls or doors, with only a small plastic hood provided to protect the cellphone-less among you from the elements. Apparently, the payphone's cost BT about £2,000 (or close to $4,000) apiece, although we somehow doubt they'll have much trouble making that back a few times over. Look for the first of the new payphones to hit the Richmond and Ealing boroughs of London this week, with the roll-out presumably set to slowly expand throughout the rest of the U.K. shortly thereafter.

[Via Channel 4]

[me @ Jun 21st 2007 6:02AM]

So these are great for making money, but shit for using to call someone when it's raining?

[Jay @ Jun 21st 2007 6:51AM]

They have hoods or whatever you want to call them to protect you from rain.

[t-bone @ Jun 21st 2007 11:17AM]

@Jay: That hood isn't even big enough to protect the phone from the rain, much less a person.

[Rob @ Jun 21st 2007 6:02AM]

Interesting priorities

[Zorque @ Jun 21st 2007 6:04AM]

They should come up with a system to let you call for free provided you watch an ad or two.

[tiuk @ Jun 21st 2007 10:46AM]

At the university I go to we have two bell phones that allow free local calls. They have a 12" or so LCD that displays adds.

Last I checked both had been out of order for months, but I've used them a couple times when I didn't want to waste daytime minutes on my cell phone.

[Vini @ Jun 21st 2007 6:20AM]

Looks a bit naff. The lack of walls to protect you from rain, privacy and unwanted noise is a poor idea.

[n1tul @ Jun 21st 2007 6:26AM]

no doubt they will put up the minimum call charge aswell!!

[Miker @ Jun 21st 2007 7:03AM]

Installed at 09:00am, vandalised at 09:15am, replaced two weeks later at an exorbitant cost, home land line call charges go up.

[Chris R @ Jun 21st 2007 7:58AM]

I think they look ugly and wonder, like those above, what use they'll be in protecting you from elements when you make a call.

[Architype @ Jun 21st 2007 9:07AM]

It didn't work when they put internet access in their phone boxes and it won't work again. The only people I ever see in London using telephone boxes are drug users in Brixton using them to shoot up out of sight of the CCTV cameras or to nick the change out of them because they've blocked the coin slots.

[tekdroid @ Jun 21st 2007 10:31AM]

most calls made from payphones are untimed, fixed-cost calls, right?

Not protecting you from the elements is probably a design feature; the shorter your call (as it would be if you were in the wind and/or rain), the more customers can be serviced with any given phone and the more revenue per phone.

I'm sure it's all been worked out.

[James @ Jun 21st 2007 11:29AM]

No, you have to pay per the amount of time you spend making a call. I think the minimum used to be 20p for about a minute.

At least by having no windows or doors they won't get constantly broken by vandals, so less money for BT to spend.

[Pedant @ Jun 21st 2007 1:55PM]

"Apparently, the payphone's cost BT about £2,000 (or close to $4,000) apiece"

Errant apostrophe...

[Dom Evans @ Jun 21st 2007 1:57PM]

The lack of cover/walls/roof is to stop people using them as a toilet, homeless people sleeping in them, people having sex in them with hookers, people leaving loads of hookers adverts etc. Standing in the rain for a while is a small price to pay to not have to stand in the hell hole that is a London (or any major cities) phone box. If only for the smell.

Also, there is some kind of law that allows BT to put phone boxes almost anywhere for almost no fee, or just existing sites they can still use. So basically they are now just taking advantage of the fact and they really just are billboards now. They are just billboards that happen to have a phone attach (which no one uses in any profitable way what so ever)

[Josh @ Jun 21st 2007 2:10PM]

What's a payphone? ;)

[E.E. @ Jun 21st 2007 6:08PM]

We've had these in Sydney Australia for about five years or more now, and the trend is to stick them as close to major roads as possible to increase the advertising exposure. An unwanted side-effect is the increase of traffic exposure to the user also. These booths really are the pits. Thanks J.C Decaux, your bus stops and phone booths are a crying shame. (I won't talk about the pay-toilets!)

[ajft @ Jun 22nd 2007 2:41AM]

Great for advertising, shame that you can't actually use the bloody things to make phone calls since they're so exposed to traffic that you can't hear anything.

[James Page @ Jul 2nd 2007 3:29AM]

Actually by the time that article had been written I had already complained to Richmond about two of them:

http://www.say-it-all.com/newsdev/admin/story.php?intro_id=2504

Councils should be charging rent for a start (they are clearly larger than a payphone so no reason why it should be free.)

And this kind of hoarding wouldn't, I think, normally be allowed in conservation and residential areas (the location of many of these.)