UK has prepared criteria to keep five thousand phone booths 
streets of the country.
Ofcom believes that payphones are still in demand among the British. According to the regulator, from January to May 2020, about five million calls were made from telephone booths. The emergency services were called 150 thousand times, the Childline counseling service for children and young people – 25 thousand times. At the same time, due to the availability of mobile phones, the number of calls is decreasing – in 2002, 800 million minutes were spoken in payphones, and in 2020 – 7 million.
Ofcom has banned the disposal of telephone booths if they meet at least one of the criteria : Payphone location is not covered by all four mobile networks; it is located in places where accidents or suicides have occurred; over the past year, more than 52 calls were made from it. Even if a payphone does not meet the specified criteria, exceptions are possible in each case.
There are 21,000 telephone booths in the UK. About 5,000 payphones will meet the updated criteria.
In May, London-style telephone booths were installed in the Novosibirsk correctional colony No. 8. Prisoners painted the main sights of the British capital on the walls. The Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN) said that the design innovations in the colony are designed to restore “socially useful ties.”