David Wilkins
Britain’s famous old telephone boxes are usually bright red but in Kingston-Upon-Hull (better known to its friends as just plain Hull) they are white. For some obscure reason, Hull got left out when municipal phone companies in the UK were consolidated under Post Office ownership. These examples are in the pretty nearby town of Beverley rather than in Hull itself. I like the way the illuminated white box (right) gives off a ghostly vibe on a dank autumn evening. #Hull #dwprovincialbritain
Nov 29, 2023 at 2:28pmWeb
Show threadMats Holberg 🇺🇦 🇵🇸Nov 29, 2023
@davidwilkins Very tangentially: I think that town of Beverley might be the reason UK media misspell Beverly Hills more frequently than I'd expect.
Show threadDavid WilkinsNov 29, 2023
@Holberg Possibly! It’s a very nice place but very understated compared with BH…
Show threadMats Holberg 🇺🇦 🇵🇸Nov 29, 2023
@davidwilkins Haha yes
Show threadSteve CookNov 30, 2023
@davidwilkins They weren't left out. A lot of councils ran their own telephone companies, but most gave up and handed them over to the Post Office. 'ull, as it's pronounced, chose not to. Eventually OFCOM insisted it be privatised and prices went up and the service standards fell.
Show threadDavid WilkinsNov 30, 2023
@JorvikAngler Yes, the best bit of the story was when sleepy KCOM for a brief period became a hot telecoms stock during the first Internet boom, when investors bought literally anything they thought might have the slightest online money-making potential.
Show threadSteve CookNov 30, 2023
@davidwilkins I was told that, prior to the WWW, Hull had a lot more people using the internet than most other cities in the UK because their prices were so cheap. You had to pay by the minute then. No internet providers existed in this country at the time.
Show threadDavid WilkinsNov 30, 2023
@JorvikAngler I've always been fascinated by KCOM (before I became a car journalist, I worked as a telecoms industry analyst, so I used to be really deep into this stuff!).
Show threadSteve CookNov 30, 2023
@davidwilkins It must have been fascinating stuff in the eighties into the nineties as the internet then WWW barricaded and BT didn't really seem to know what to do.
Show threadJoe TannerNov 30, 2023
@davidwilkins is this part of the same story that gave us Kingston Communications?
Show threadDavid WilkinsNov 30, 2023
@stuffaboutcars Yes - later called KCOM