Monday, January 04, 2021

BRIGG TELEPHONE EXCHANGE: IS A CALL FOR NEW SIGNAGE IN ORDER?


Brigg Telephone Exchange is still listed online in this age of modern superfast communications, but these days you've got to look closely to identify the purpose of the building alongside the A18 on Scawby Road - a couple of hundred yards outside the town.
Just a few letters of the name remain on the gate, although there is a small sign on the front wall of the building which says 'BT Premises'.
Back in 1919 the fledgling telephone service for our area had only 20 local subscribers.
Things have moved on since then, with the original Brigg phone numbers of only 1 or 2 digits being successively extended and our area gaining its 01652 prefix to accompany five- and then six-digit personal and business numbers.
Then the internet, email and mobile phones developed to overtake landlines and traditional handsets as a way of communicating.
As it's a leader in the communications sector, perhaps a call for BT to improve the signage at its local premises might be in order.
This company is rightly proud of its heritage - stretching back to The Electric Telegraph established in 1846. British Telecom was launched in 1981, becoming BT 10 years later.
A solitary company van was on site when we took these recent pictures, but note the presence of a modern communications mast behind the building.
Brigg Blog contacted BT a week ago with request for comment about the exchange - reply awaited.