back to article InLink Limited limited: Firm that puts up UK's ad-supported phone booths enters administration

When Intersection first announced it was bringing LinkNYC's smart billboard technology to the UK in 2016, it promised to drag the humble telephone booth into the 21st century. Now a fairly common sight on London's streets, InLink booths include free phone calls, USB charging, and fast Wi-Fi access. This is supported by dynamic …

  1. werdsmith Silver badge

    Traditional phone boxes retain their importance in British society due to the reduced number of public conveniences that are open at night and the lack of approved advertising space for the world’s oldest profession.

    1. Flak

      Traditional phone boxes look better!

      Bring back the red phone box! Never mind those modern contraptions...

    2. katrinab Silver badge
      Flame

      But these things are advertising billboards with a phone stuck on the side. No space for sex workers to place their cards. Only suitable for dogs to pee on, and they already have a wide selection of lamp posts for their convenience.

      1. OssianScotland
        Pint

        Hey! I'll have you know that I self-identify as a bearded collie, and these modern phone contraptions are much more convenient than a mere lamp-post!

      2. Rich 11

        I think it's disgraceful, reducing sex workers to the level of using lampposts. It takes all the class out of the encounter.

  2. Warm Braw

    Ideally suited for those wishing to make drug deals

    I would have thought this applied equally to the traditional phone box. Or is your average crackhead unable to coordinate the activities of inserting 4d and pressing button A?

    1. phuzz Silver badge

      Re: Ideally suited for those wishing to make drug deals

      I assume that either there wasn't a phone box in those locations before InLink came along, or the phone was inoperable.

      (Or possibly dealers were using the kiosks as a dry and snug office, with it's own landline, and were relying on it allowing incoming calls).

  3. Stumpy

    Many local authorities refused permission for the InLink booths due to their association with criminality — specifically the drug trade.

    So, what's the difference between a traditional BT Phonebooth and the InLink booths that would merit this reason for rejecting planning permission? I mean, it's been many years since I last had call to use a public phone, but last I recall, a BT payphone didn't require any form of registration or proof of ID so would be just as susceptible to this form of use.

    Genuinely curious...

    [... and just pipped to the post by the previous poster :) ]

    1. Stuart Castle Silver badge

      The likely reason might be it's already there. You only require planning permission for a phone box when it is being built, or replaced. It's much more difficult to get something removed, if it has been built than it is to refuse permission to build it.

      Also, I don't think drugs and gang culture were quite the problem a few years ago they are now. Drugs and gangs aren't new by any means, but they weren't as prevalent. So, it's likely that they wouldn't have thought of drug and gang problems if planning permission were requested for a phone box, even 15-20 years ago. Of course, if they make any changes to those phone boxes that require planning permission, they might well consider drug and game problems now.

      1. TRT Silver badge

        On the other hand, if the drugs gangs realised that the cable thieves were wrecking their trade... Or is that rather too Ankh-Morporkian?

    2. Natasha Live

      There was one outside a business I worked at. It was very popular with the street people. They would huddle around it, make a call and the run (yes run) to wherever the meeting point for their dealer was. Why did this happen? The machines allowed for very short FREE calls. Supposed to be for one off emergency calls to friends and family (no credit on mobile type calls) but the street people found it more useful for short dealer calls.

      1. Stumpy

        Makes sense. Didn't realise that they offered free calls.

    3. katrinab Silver badge

      Calls from traditional payphones cost about 60p per minute. Calls from these things are free.

      1. Stumpy

        Ah. That now makes more sense.

      2. Gerry 3
        Facepalm

        Wrong. 60p for half an hour.

    4. juice

      Well...

      > So, what's the difference between a traditional BT Phonebooth and the InLink booths

      Free phone calls to landlines and mobiles.

      Anecdotally, the only time I've seen InLink booths being used for calls, it's been by people clutching tins of special brew and having a high-volume argument with the person at the other end.

      OTOH, this does demonstrate how important low-cost infrastructure is to the economy, even - or especially - the black market. Be interesting to see how the local economy in Whitechapel etc were affected before and after the crackdown...

  4. Jimmy2Cows Silver badge

    This leaves BT with a £6m hole in its finances every year.

    Aw bless their little cotton socks, that's... what? A few minutes' profit? Come on now, everyone feel sorry for poor hard-done-by BT.

  5. Detective Emil

    Externalizing costs

    I wouldn’t be surprised to find that £6m is in the same ballpark as the figure local authorities have spent fighting this stuff.

  6. JulieM Silver badge

    Simple Solution

    The way to prevent payphones from being used for drug deals is to ban something more popular than drugs, and thereby squeeze drug dealers out.

    Suppose they made coffee illegal. There is a greater market for coffee than crack cocaine, so more people would wind up using the phones for setting up illegal coffee deals.

    Drug deals could then be conducted in code on Facebook and Twitter, e.g. Picture of ginger kitten = heroin, animated GIF of two black and white cats chasing each other = MDMA, death threat = meet me in the cemetery in half an hour.

    1. TRT Silver badge

      Re: Simple Solution

      "The way to prevent payphones from being used for drug deals is to ban something more popular than drugs"

      Ban mobile phones. Simples. ;-)

      1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        Re: Simple Solution

        A noted historian did suggest that if it had been easier to carry cocoa leaves but not beans on C17th sailing ships. We would now be enjoying our morning lines of marching powder at the breakfast table while calling for stricter sentences for chocolate users

        1. Phil Endecott

          Re: Simple Solution

          > cocoa leaves but not beans

          Cocoa is not coca.

    2. This post has been deleted by its author

  7. mark l 2 Silver badge

    As well as traditional BT phone booths, you can still buy pay as you go SIM cards from places like pound shops and top them up with cash and so there are still plenty of way of making anonymous calls, text etc without having to use an inlink phone box. Although now we have a majority Tory government expect a lot more of your civil liberties to be taken away in areas such as that.

    Where I live there are a few BT phone boxes and I do still see them getting used by people to make calls. I do know what surprises me more, people using the phone boxes or just people actually using a phone for speaking to someone rather than sending a text message.

  8. Timbo

    Free calls ?

    Are free local calls still the "norm" in USA?

    If so, why not allow any UK payphone/phone booth to offer this, maybe with a time limit per call of say 5-10 minutes. This would help anyone who has run out of credit on their PAYG mobile or if your battery is dead.

    One could even put in some USB charging ports too - maybe on a 10 minute timer (to prevent mis-use) as a public service?

    And while they are making a call, or charging their phone, they can show a nice advert or two?

    1. Alister

      Re: Free calls ?

      The availability of free calls from these booths is precisely the origin of the drug-dealer problem.

      1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        Re: Free calls ?

        We could introduce a law requiring drug dealers to pay for calls.

        It's no drafter than most drug legislation

      2. Timbo

        Re: Free calls ?

        Quite...and it was clearly obvious from the article that this is the case.

        (And another reg reader has made the point I was going to make).

        However, the question remains: are landline calls in USA still free to local numbers. And if so, do they have a similar drug problem due to this?

        1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

          Re: Free calls ?

          IIRC in the 80/90s New York did ban touch tone on public phones so you couldn't send messages to pagers.

          Drug deals were the major use of pagers after medics got cell phones.

          I assume there is no more illicit drug use in the USA now that pagers have gone away

    2. JohnFen

      Re: Free calls ?

      "Are free local calls still the "norm" in USA?"

      Not from phone booths (and yes, they still exist, although they're increasingly rare).

  9. sbt
    Thumb Up

    Good.

    Getting sick of the creeping alienation of the commonweal by advertising hoardings, signs, bus shelters, etc. It is the ugly face of consumerism, writ large.

    Don't get me started on corporate sponsorship of public facilities.

    1. Rich 11

      Re: Good.

      (This message was brought to you by Toilet Duck.)

      1. sbt
        Coffee/keyboard

        F*ck.

        You would owe me a new keyboard if only I hadn't been drinking Tea-in-a-BoxTM, now with sippy straw.

        1. Rich 11

          Re: F*ck.

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          1. sbt
            Happy

            Thanks, Rich. You know, here at Tea-in-a-Box...

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            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Thanks, Rich. You know, here at Tea-in-a-Box...

              Thank you for your purchase of a Sippy-straw.

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  10. Sgt_Oddball
    Windows

    I did wonder...

    Why the ones around Leeds suddenly had the black covers back on them this past week.

    Never thought to try using them as they're open air and always looked like you'd need to decontaminate your hand after touching the dials...

    1. KarMann Silver badge
      Joke

      Re: I did wonder...

      Well, sure, now that we've gotten rid of the telephone sanitisers.

  11. tiggity Silver badge

    non existent problem

    If short free calls used for drug calls then police can work with kiosk providers and get tp find dealers mobiles (and then locate them via phone location) - a lot of intelligence work done for them.

    Should be treated as opportunity by police instead of as a problem

    .. Though if weed were legal then a lot of those calls would stop, and even better, police intel would be further focused on "hard" drugs such as smack & crack.

    If kiosks shut then drug buyers will just get burner phones or SIMS and dealing will need a lot more police effort to locate.

    FFS why throw away drug dealing intel that is useful?

    Obviously that would mean risk of being caught for certain dealers who give a few police sources the occasional brown envelope to stay in business, maybe pressure from those bent plod causing branding of this as a problem?

    1. Timbo

      Re: non existent problem

      Exactly...this is why I was asking my previous question.

      There's no point driving the drug dealers to the dark net (or via other routes), when one can use the intel to find out who they are and what they are up to.

      1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        Re: non existent problem

        Or you could legalise them and tax them.

        Or in the USA you go one step further, legalise them, have them form large companies and then avoid taxing them.

  12. ozreg

    These were never "phone booths", but were an end-run around planning laws to get more advertising shoved in front of our eyeballs. The sooner they're gone the better, as which idiot thought that animated adverts on bright LCD screens next to roads (where people *SHOULD* be looking whilst driving, instead of at the advert) won't cause crashes?!?

  13. Jamie Jones Silver badge

    "London Streets"?

    They are all over Swansea streets, too.

    I assumed that if Swansea had them, everyone did...

    1. TRT Silver badge

      Re: "London Streets"?

      Drug dealers?

      1. Jamie Jones Silver badge
        Happy

        Re: "London Streets"?

        Probably them too!

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