No more pay phones?

• Position: ENGLAND - Brief article

The red "telephone box" is a treasured symbol in the United Kingdom. But its days are numbered: With the rise of cellphones, calls from public pay phones in the U.K. have plummeted 80 percent in the past five years, according to British telecom provider BT. Today, only about 48,000 public phone boxes remain in the U.K., down from 92,000 at their peak in 2002; and fewer than 10,000 of the classic red booths are left in London. (The U.S. now has about 240,000 pay phones, down from more than 2 million in 1999, according to the FCC.) But just because...