Boss

Boss

Boss, 4 Criterion Buildings, Portsmouth Road, Thames Ditton, Surrey, 2002 • Looked as if it was for the chop in 2002 but is still there, now with a new sign but retaining those nice old windows (which so often get replaced with flat plate glass).

No-one else going to mention the ‘Rabbit’ sign… No? last chance…. OK then! Actually I’ll let Alexei Sayle explain… “[…] The Rabbit phone came just before the spread of the mobile phone and it used CT2 technology which now only exists in your home digital cordless*. The “Rabbit “was your home phone but also if you took it out in the street with you, and then stood within a 100 metres of a “Rabbit” sign, a sign that denoted you were near a “Rabbit “ base station, you could then make a phone call. Of course if you tried to ring home nobody could answer, because you were walking around the street with your phone. They also said you could use it in a station so I’d take my “Rabbit” with me on trains and would sometimes be able to talk for 45 seconds or so in a very crackly way until the train left the station. Occasionally you can still see the “Rabbit” sign on newsagents doors but the whole network collapsed and they gave me a mobile instead.”

See Blog 15 at http://www.alexeisayle.me/home/?currentPage=14

* Sorry Alexei you might be very funny, and have a career, and be respected, and have lots of fans, but you’re wrong, CT2 was killed by the abject failure of Rabbit and Phonepoint (the rival system) and all digital phones soon after were DECT. I think I need help….

2 replies »

Stuart says:

2014/04/15 at 16:13

No-one else going to mention the ‘Rabbit’ sign… No? last chance…. OK then! Actually I’ll let Alexei Sayle explain… “[…] The Rabbit phone came just before the spread of the mobile phone and it used CT2 technology which now only exists in your home digital cordless*. The “Rabbit “was your home phone but also if you took it out in the street with you, and then stood within a 100 metres of a “Rabbit” sign, a sign that denoted you were near a “Rabbit “ base station, you could then make a phone call. Of course if you tried to ring home nobody could answer, because you were walking around the street with your phone. They also said you could use it in a station so I’d take my “Rabbit” with me on trains and would sometimes be able to talk for 45 seconds or so in a very crackly way until the train left the station. Occasionally you can still see the “Rabbit” sign on newsagents doors but the whole network collapsed and they gave me a mobile instead.”

See Blog 15 at http://www.alexeisayle.me/home/?currentPage=14

* Sorry Alexei you might be very funny, and have a career, and be respected, and have lots of fans, but you’re wrong, CT2 was killed by the abject failure of Rabbit and Phonepoint (the rival system) and all digital phones soon after were DECT. I think I need help….

- Vici MacDonald says:
  
  2014/04/15 at 18:37
  
  Well said, I did notice the Rabbit sign but didn’t know how to explain it. So now you have done it for me. You do still see them around.