The BBC reported that he completed the 52 calls in just under two hours.
That might sound quick, but the experience was made considerably more difficult by the weather.
Outside, the wind was howling and rain was coming down heavily.
Inside the kiosk, the floor was becoming increasingly wet.
The contrast was almost cinematic: a man standing inside a bright red telephone box on a remote Scottish island, surrounded by bags of coins, speaking to dozens of people through a communication system that most of the modern world has abandoned.
And every call was helping demonstrate that the phone line was still being used.
Why Public Phone Boxes Can Still Matter
At first glance, Arnold's project might appear to be mainly about nostalgia.
There is certainly a nostalgic element.
The classic red telephone box is deeply associated with Britain's cultural landscape. Its appearance has become so familiar that even people who have never actually used one can immediately recognise what it is.
But nostalgia is not the only argument for keeping some of these phones connected.
Ofcom itself describes public call boxes as a potential safety net for people who do not have access to a working landline or mobile phone.
This can be particularly significant in locations where mobile coverage is poor.
A mobile phone is only useful when it has enough battery power and access to a network.
A public telephone box can provide an alternative.
Ofcom's rules specifically recognise situations in which a phone box may be reasonably needed because of local emergencies or because mobile coverage is unavailable.
This is especially relevant to rural and island communities.
Remote locations can experience severe weather, power failures, transport disruption and other circumstances in which communications infrastructure becomes particularly important.
Arnold pointed to his own experience in Cornwall, where severe winter weather had caused power and water outages in villages. In some locations, he argued, mobile coverage could also be unavailable, making public communications infrastructure more significant during an emergency.
That does not mean every old telephone box needs to remain connected forever.
It does, however, illustrate why the question is more complicated than simply asking whether people still use payphones every day.
Sometimes infrastructure has value precisely because it is rarely needed.
An emergency telephone may sit unused for months.
That does not make it worthless when an emergency finally happens.
The Economic Argument
There is another side to the story.
BT has argued that maintaining thousands of public payphones is expensive and that money spent operating outdated equipment competes with investment in newer telecommunications infrastructure.
According to the BBC, BT said roughly 9,000 public payphones remained operational in the UK at the time of its report, compared with around 20,000 two years earlier.
The company also said that maintaining and operating such a large estate costs millions of pounds each year.
From that perspective, removing little-used phones can appear logical.
If a kiosk receives almost no calls, maintaining the equipment, line and physical infrastructure may not make financial sense.
Technology has moved on.
Most people now communicate through smartphones, messaging applications and internet-based services.
But public infrastructure is not always judged solely by average usage.
The challenge is identifying which locations still need a fallback service and which do not.
That is precisely why Ofcom's rules include several criteria rather than simply allowing all low-use phone boxes to disappear.
The rules recognise that usage is only one part of the picture.
A Telephone Box Becomes a Symbol
Arnold's project therefore became more than a story about one phone box.
It became a small demonstration of a much larger question:
What should society preserve when technology changes?
Old infrastructure is often easy to remove because its original purpose appears obsolete.
But buildings, bridges, public spaces and communication systems can acquire new meanings over time.