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Landline / Public Telephones

The cheaper option for communicating by telephone is using landline telephones. There are public phones in shopping centres, around the town centre, and although not quite on every street corner most residential addresses in Oxford are usually only a short walk from a public telephone box. Some pubs and restaurants also have phones for customers use. Peak rate calls are 8p per minute approx, although this can vary depending on who, where and when you are calling. If you are using a public phone 20p is the initial connection charge. Calls from public phones can be paid for using coins, credit/debit cards and telephone cards. A display on the phone usually gives you clear instructions on how to make a call and options for how to pay for the call and generally speaking 'telephone boxes' as they are known are coloured red. You are able to purchase phone cards from most newsagents, supermarkets and some grocery shops and if you are paying for your call with cash phones generally accept coins from 5p and upwards. There is no charge made for emergency ('999' or '112') calls. To make a telephone call you may need to enter up to four different sets of numbers and they are: The international dialling code (to UK is 00 44) The country code The area code (Oxford is 01865) The persons individual number If you are from overseas it you should take into account time differences when making your calls. This will apply more to those of you from further away, a mid afternoon call here could get your nearest and dearest up at some very unsociable hours if you don't appreciate time-zones. To find telephone numbers you can look in a number of telephone directories widely available, or telephone directory enquiries (available 24 hours) on 192 for local and national numbers or 153 for international numbers. With all this information you should be able to locate and make a telephone call, but as with anything the telecommunications business is constantly updating itself and so charges may only be approximated and numbers, whilst correct at the time of writing this, may have changed.