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All calls from phoneboxes to local landlines will be free from now on.
JT say that they have carried out the community initiative to make sure that Islanders can use their 104 phone boxes – including one at the General Hospital and one at the Harbour – to reach out to people, especially in an emergency.
The company spends £100,000 per year on maintaining the phone boxes, but they say that their usage is dropping all the time because everyone is using mobile phones.
Tim Ringsdore, Chief Relationship Officer at JT, said that despite that, they felt that the phoneboxes were a valuable community service.
He said: “We are aware of the decline globally in phone box usage and while it means high ongoing maintenance costs, we believe there is still a need within our community to provide payphone services. To recognise this important role we have decided to provide free local landline calls from all our public phone boxes.
“We have certainly seen a decline in usage of payphones in Jersey over the last ten years, primarily due to mobile phone ownership increasing and our investment in mobile infrastructure leading to greater coverage and accessibility for all. However, that’s not to say there is no longer a need for them.
“From our research and listening to customers throughout the community, we recognise phone boxes are still used and we hope by offering local calls for free we are helping people who rely upon them for day-to-day communication and to the wider community.”
One group who will be noticing the change is the Island’s Scouts – they have been traditionally taught to carry coins for an emergency call, either for themselves or to lend a hand to someone else.
Island Commissioner for the Jersey Scout Association, Paul Tucker said: “Traditionally Scouts are encouraged to be prepared to lend a hand in any situation and part of that has been to carry coins for an emergency phone call.
“Today with more and more owning their own mobile phones this is no longer as relevant, however, in the spirit of being responsible citizens we recognise the value in JT introducing free local calls from public phone boxes.
“This is great news particularly for young people and we are pleased to support JT in publicising this free service.”
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