The new kiosks were designed to be easier to maintain, to keep clean, and stronger to protect against vandalism. There were four variants, the 100, 200, 300 and 400. This promised to modernise the network with a series of new kiosks, prefixed with the letters 'KX'. Within a year British Telecom announced a £160 million payphone investment programme for the network. The most recent kiosk was the K8, first installed in 1968. The network inherited from the General Post Office (GPO) included K1 and K2 kiosks dating back to the 1920s. In 1984 control of the public telephone network was assumed by the newly privatised British Telecom. The early KX100 kiosks had smoked glass panels, but later kiosks were fitted with clear glass. With the first KX100s this was a yellow dotted 'T' logo, which was used until the BT 'Piper' logo was introduced from 1991 until 2003 (as shown above). The upper glass window panels carry the BT logo. By 1991, BT introduced their new 'Piper' logo, which introduced a red moulded handle, a colour still in use today. Originally this was bright yellow on the first KX100 kiosks, while 'Phonecard' versions of the KX100 featured a bright green version. The door of the kiosk features a bright-coloured moulded plastic panel and handle. With the exception of the back panel, the sides of the kiosk stop short of the ground to provide ventilation. Except for the back panel, which is formed of stainless steel panels, the three other sides of the kiosk make extensive use of glass with two large window panels set above and beneath a slim, black plastic modesty panel, with black plastic trim around the windows. Its general form is a four-sided rectangular box with a flat roof. The KX100 kiosk is of light-weight construction and uses an aluminum frame clad in stainless steel panels with anodised aluminium edging. Yet even the number of these kiosks has reduced with the rise in mobile handset ownership. The KX kiosks were introduced at a rate of 5,000 a year with the BT network reaching 137,000 kiosks by 1999. The first, the KX100, was the most commonly installed variant of a new series of kiosks. In 1985 the recently privatised British Telecom announced a £160 million modernisation scheme for the public telephone network inherited from the General Post Office.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |