The KX series of telephone boxes in the United Kingdom was introduced by BT (British Telecom) in 1985. Following the privatisation of BT in 1984, the company decided to create a newly designed and improved take on the British telephone box, which at this point consisted of predominantly red telephone boxes which BT had recently acquired, the most common being the iconic K6 box. These red boxes were considered flawed in parts by BT for several reasons, including cost, lack of ventilation, accessibility and maintenance. After a series of trials and an earlier aborted project, BT announced they were to spend £160m on a series of new phoneboxes, new computer chip controlled payphones and the phasing out of all older red telephone boxes. The KX Kiosk range was designed for BT by Warwick based David Carter Associates DCA_Design - at the time 'DCA Design International', but were engineered by GKN in Telford. The main model of the KX range is the square upright rectangular KX100 kiosk with or without a door. Upon launch, there were two further production models - the open pedestal 'KX200' and the triangular 'KX300'. The housings were initially produced at a rate of 5,000-6,000 a year between 1985-1986, with production intensifying to around 3,000 a month between 1987-1989 before slowing down in the early-to-mid-1990s once the older kiosk estate was replaced and the number of public payphones had more than doubled. In 1987, the smaller 'vandal resistant' KX410 and KX420 pillars joined the range (but both were built by smaller companies than GKN with low production numbers). In 1990, the indoor KX500 pillar/wall range was designed, having several sub-variants, and production of the KX200 and KX300 dropped off. In 1996, the KX100 was adapted into a 'new' upgraded model called the KX+. At the peak of BT's public telephone network's popularity in 1999 the company operated around 140,000 payphones. The figure includes phones housed in the red heritage models from the GPO and Post Office era, within/on the KX range (including thousands of the pillar and wall mounted KX500 series which could host between 1-4 payphones on one unit). Exact numbers of KX housings produced are not known but research is underway and likely to be announced in a forthcoming book about the KX housings in late 2026. New production of KX kiosks and housings largely ceased in 2001, with BT contracting GKN to refurbish recovered models for re-use. From 2002, BT began a programme of identifying and removing thousands of underused payphones and the redundant housings. By 2024, BT's own figures placed the remaining payphone estate at just 15,000 and the company intends to reduce the number to somewhere between 2,500 and 5,000 kiosks with working payphones by 2027. Whilst the updated functionality of the KX housings were praised, the designs were criticised by the Design and Architecture establishment as utilitarian; functionality over form; and stylistically inferior to the red telephone boxes. Critics missed the point that in order to make the payphone service profitable and more robust against the constant idle and criminal vandalism BT had asked specifically for housing that cost less to maintain; did not require repainting every two-years; could be accessed by disabled users, children and the elderly (the old GPO kiosks had very heavy doors), and did away with the need for 72 panes of glass, having between 0, 3, and 6 depending on KX model. The plan to replace the red boxes was heavily criticised from a heritage perspective, and this led to a successful public campaign by the c20th Society (at the time called 'The Thirties Society' to save many of the red kiosks. The c20th Society later ran campaigns to secure the listing of the K8 models in the late 2000's and in 2024, campaigned for the listing of a handful of KX models for their important contribution to public telecommunications - and indeed, because the arrival of the KX models caused the initial campaign to list the older red GPO kiosks. Most of the main KX series had their branding livery revamped after BT changed their corporate logo in 1991. Occasionally old branding resurface on elevations hidden for decades when one of a pair of kiosks is removed. Production of the KX100/200/300 range stopped in 1996 when the KX+ was launched, attempting to address the criticisms that the original KX100 had received by lowering the door handle, brightening the interior and enlarging the upper windows. The biggest revision was the addition of a red roof dome - reminiscent of older phone boxes. Later versions of the KX+ incorporated broadband connection and blue domes. BT was reported to have stopped making enclosed telephone boxes altogether in 2001. From 2007 BT Payphones continued to be installed in modified KX100/KX+ that had been converted to ATM cash-dispensers. From 2007 BT started to introduce the semi-open JCDecaux advert pillar called the ST6 (Street Talk 6). Later advertising pillars followed, with side mounted keypad public phones, then digital touchscreens.
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