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Bric-a-Brac: R is for...

Rabbit Phone Network, The

With your incessant talking...A ‘revolutionary’ cordless (note – never ‘mobile’) phone system introduced by Hutchison Telecommunications (geddit?) in the early ’90s, which relied on the user being in close proximity to a ‘Rabbit point’ (at home, or in a shop, station, etc.) for the phone to be useable. Died out quickly, but the stickers (upside-down capital ‘R’ made to look like a rabbit’s head) can still be spotted on the doors of shops who’ve forgotten to take them down.

6 Comments

6 Comments

  1. johnnyboy

    December 16, 2009 at 12:16 am

    Wasn’t there another major drawback in usage, outwith having to be near an actual Rabbit point, in that you could only make a call, not receive a call, as you didn’t have a separate phone number to be called on?

    That’s my recollection.

  2. Adrian

    December 16, 2009 at 9:28 am

    Mobiles are still called ‘Cellphones’ in the US.

  3. Adrian

    December 16, 2009 at 9:29 am

    Come to think of it, whatever happened to pagers? No self respecting businessman or drug dealer was without one in the 80s..

  4. Richard Davies

    August 10, 2010 at 5:49 pm

    The computer technician at my college had one, aloing with a box plugged into a normal phone socket to help with reception.

    I remember pagers were all the rage about the same time when they become affordable & proper mobile phones were still contact only & needed a decent credit rating.

  5. Andy Parker

    October 3, 2011 at 11:49 pm

    Mickey Pearce / Dougan from ‘Scum’ did the adverts for Rabbit. No wonder it flopped.

  6. Will M

    September 20, 2018 at 11:01 am

    Pagers, I remember there being 2 types, the one that showed the number so you could call them back when you got to a phone, and the other being just a beeper, OK if you were a doctor and it indicated you should get to the hospital for an emergency, but the ordinary tradesperson had to find a payphone and phone the family, then his boss, to see who was looking for them.

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