I have just noticed that the minimum price for BT payphone calls is now 60p. This has to be inserted as a maximum of 4 coins, i.e. if you want to insert the minimum 60p you can do so in the following ways: 50p + 10p, 3 x 20p, or 2 x 20p + 2 x 10p. You cannot however insert 6 x 10p, or 4 x 10p + 1 x 20p.

Has anyone tried to insert more than 4 coins? What happens if you do? Intriguing!

I have always found payphones interesting. Remember the pay-on-answer phones where you dialled the number then inserted your 10p coin upon hearing rapid pips? They were very difficult to use. These had all disappeared by around 1987.

Should have mentioned btw that your 60p buys a good 30 mins time on a national call, previously (before June 1 2010) you got 20 mins for 40p. So you can have a long conversation without worrying about a queue of people building up outside - I haven't seen any queues for payphones for ages.

Who in their right mind uses a payphone? Most of the doors are missing, they smell of urine and are unhygienic.

Who uses a pay phone for 30 minutes?!

There's currently more mobile phones than people in the UK, so pay phones are becoming more and more pointless.

BT still have to provide public telephones as part of their licence agreement with ofcom.

Must be where you live. Far from the truth around here.


They have their uses if/when the mobile networks collapse (like new years' day and in emergencies).

In my opinion BT have done this to discourage use (I wouldn't have thought many calls from boxes last longer than the time it takes to say 'can I have a taxi from.......') so 60p is excessive.

Callboxes are a big thorn in BT's side (maintenance, vandalism etc) so If they can demonstrate that a callbox isn't being used, they have good grounds to apply for it's removal

Who uses callboxes ??????


Well if you have no landline and use mobiles only then you may go to a payphone to dial an 0800 no.

Who uses callboxes ??????

Me , when I'm in town, pull my mobile from my pocket and discover NO POWER. Happened yesterday, and this restriction on coin combinations meant I ended up sticking a pound coin in just to ask the wife if I was to get potatoes on the way home.

Would have been cheaper just to risk it and buy the spuds!

I have not used a payphone for a good few years now.
Over half the country now dont used payphones as they have mobiles.

Darren

i noticed this to, had to use a payphone on friday night because my mobile went dead 60p minimum charge wtf

Yes out of interest when my battery died I tried 6 x 10p coins and it worked, but other payphones it didnt. Its kind of handy to get a BT chargecard for back up which I have now done. I don't like using coins and Debit cards are not accepted by BT payphones and for some reason I always end up needing to make an important call when my battery is flat!!!

I would suggest using those new infocus kiosks, those big black kiosks, the minimum call charge is 10p, good if you wanna make a 1 minute call. although i've only seen them in london,birmingham and manchester city centres

If I was out near a phone box during the weekday daytime period it is much cheaper for me to use a BT pay phone than my mobile for a landline call. Any call like that would probably be at least five minutes or more which is worth it. Also I get charged for freefone numbers from my mobile.

Remember you can reduce the cost of 0800 calls from your mobile to the same as 01, 02 or 03 calls by using whichever of the two gateway numbers works on your network.

0200 222 0700 or 0200 222 0900

I haven't really come across a dirty phone box yet apart from millions of prostitute cards plastered all over, those people that stick prostitute cards up make me laugh because as soon as they stick them up, a team of people go around collecting them and then forward there numbers to phone companies to block incomming calls.

When I was on pay as you go, I thought it was a waste of time especially when I called landlines and ended up using payphones, back then it was 30p for 15 minutes, that and the new 60p for 30 minutes is equivalent to 2p per minute,I wasn't prepared to pay between 15 and 30p per minute to call a landline,and I got tired of topping up, if they wanna get rid of something, they should get rid of Pay As You Go mobile phone services!

Pay As You Go mobiles:

Makes it easy for fraudsters to communicate
Makes it difficult for police to track criminals
Children as young as 5 carrying Pay As You Go phones!
Unable to prosecute or track down people who download illegal files and who engage in illegal activity online through Pay As You Go Mobile Broadband dongles.

Pay Monthly/Contract phones:

Customers have to go through a credit check and in some cases have to provide evidence of there identity such as show there passport and bank statements. This narrows down who is using the services and is the answer to all of the above problems.

And those who have Mobile TV/BBC iplayer, are so supposed to hold a valid TV Licence, i'm sure if everyone was moved to Pay Monthly would reveal a lot of evaders!

T-Mobile now charge for calls to these numbers.

And so do Orange, the only place to get free calls to Freephone numbers is BT Mobile which is hard to get into since they have shut the doors and only offer mobiles when you take out a particular Broadband Anywhere plan. Although BT Mobile Business is still very much alive.

Apparently giffgaff allow calls to 0800, 0808 and 0500 without charge as mentioned on the mobile phones forum here. Pity they don't do contracts as if the prepay allowances are anything to go by, I'm sure they'd have some pretty good deals!