Friday 14 November 2008

Disappearing Phone Booths and The Rise Of The Mobile Phone.


Disappearing Phone Booths and The Rise Of The Mobile . Red Phone Box   
                                                                                                                                                 
The speed with which Lononers (and Britons in general) have taken to the mobile phone has been truly astonishing. Barely ten years ago, the whole of London was covered with telephone booths. Every High Street had some, and there was one available within walking distance in every residential area.
However, the arrival of the mobile phone (or "cellphone" as the Americans call it) soon meant that the many of the telephone booths rapidly fell into disuse. Whereas the then- Conservative (and recent Labour ) governments'
obsession with the wholesale privatisation of long-established public utilities had spawned a host of competing telecoms companies,each with its own phone booths, the mobile phone's arrival meant that there was soon a glut of empty, desolate boxes littering the streets.
It now seems that the long-established red phone boxes may disappear altogether---probably to be sold off one by one for those who want to decorate their gardens!

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