In the 1970s the GPO did install some ladderless steel poles. This one served the house I grew up in
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.52...7i16384!8i8192
What is also evident from that image is ironically, that "modern" pole has nowhere to mount the new FTTP distribution kit so the individual fibre drops have to be flown to this pole from its wooden neighbours and then onwards to the properties, leaving an even bigger "third world" looking rats-nest above the street.
Of course all the Nynex (now Virgin Media) distribution is neatly concealed in ducts below the pavement, but nobody except me thinks that is a scandal.
