Written questions, answers and statements

Public Telephones: Repairs and Maintenance

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Question for Department for Culture, Media and Sport

UIN 52533, tabled on 11 November 2016

Question

Dr Alasdair McDonnell
Social Democratic & Labour Party
Belfast South
Commons

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps the Government takes to monitor how BT complies with Ofcom regulations in maintaining public telephone boxes and ensuring that those telephone boxes remain operational.

Answer

Matt Hancock
Conservative
West Suffolk
Commons

Answered on

16 November 2016

Under its Universal Service obligations, BT must provide public call boxes in order to meet the reasonable needs of users in terms of geographical coverage, the number of public call boxes and the quality of call box services. The Government provides the powers for Ofcom to set such conditions under section 45 of the Communications Act 2003.

Compliance with Ofcom regulations is a matter for Ofcom and any evidence that BT is not complying with its published criteria should be presented to Ofcom to investigate.

Answered by

Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
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