BT rolls out cash-dispensing phone boxes

The public phone box, which has been demoted in status in recent years by the ubiquity of mobile phones, has received a fresh lease of life through a joint venture between BT and Travelex.

The companies are currently trialling the next-generation phone kiosks, which double as ATM cash points. If successful, they will roll out a further 300 later this year.

The Travelex-branded trial kiosks are already in place in Portsmouth, Southend and Sutton in Surrey.

This is just the latest attempt by BT to reverse the downward trend in its payphone business.

While Paul Hendron, director of BT payphones, claims the business is still healthy, with 21 million customers per year, he did admit to a 50 per cent decline in business over the past three years, brought about largely by widespread mobile phone use.

The kiosks are being placed in town centre locations where there isn't a cash point in the immediate vicinity but according to Hendron the deal is more about "location sharing" than about targeting a very specific customer who wants to take out some money and make a phone call at the same time.

However, when asked whether these dual-use kiosks may appeal to the seedier phone box customer who can now respond to a prostitute's calling card and then make full use of the cash point functionality all in one, Hendron laughed and said it wasn't something BT had considered.

"You could make that connection but it's really not a link we'd like to make or encourage," he said.

On a more serious note, Hendron did say the criminal abuse of phone boxes is an issue BT takes very seriously and one which cost the payphone business £3.4m last year. He also added that the company has helped secure a number of convictions against illegal fly-posters placing ads - typically for prostitutes and sex-chat lines.

Despite this he is confident of the value in these new joint venture phones and said in his experience more advanced payphones - such as multimedia phones and Wi-Fi enabled phone boxes - are no more at risk from vandals than the old-style, phone-only boxes.