'State-of-the-art' BT Street Hub could be installed in Eastbourne
A BT Street Hub could be installed in Eastbourne town centre if plans are approved.
A planning application for a BT Street Hub in Terminus Road has been submitted to Eastbourne Borough Council (EBC).
The hubs, which provide ‘ultrafast’ public wifi, USB charging and free phone calls, would replace existing BT payphone kiosks.
They display emergency awareness messaging and provide advertising for local businesses – including 876 hours of free council advertising per year.
A spokesperson for BT said: “In today’s digitally enabled world, many phone boxes are sitting unused making them prime sites for anti-social behaviour and vandalism.
"Following the success of our Street Hub programme where we brought free digital services to high streets across the UK, we’re further transforming our legacy payphones into state-of-the-art, fibre-connected digital community hubs by continuing our rollout through our partnership with Global.
"Not only does this remove old payphones, freeing-up space and reducing anti-social behaviour, but each Street Hub gives entire communities access to an unprecedented suite of essential free services.
"It’s also a platform for future technologies – air quality monitoring, emergency messaging, 4G/5G mobile coverage and more.
"Since June 2017, over 900 Streets Hubs have gone live in cities throughout the UK, connecting over a million unique devices to Wi-Fi every month, with tens of thousands of free calls each week.
"Wherever a Street Hub is installed we work with local stakeholders like councils and the police to ensure they’re a positive contribution to the area. We’re committed to addressing the few users in limited locations who abuse this service.”
For more information see application reference 250594 on the EBC website.