A telephone booth, telephone kiosk, or telephone box is a small structure furnished with a payphone and designed for a telephone user's convenience. Such a booth usually has a door to provide privacy and a window to let others know if the booth is in use. The booth may be furnished with a printed directory of local telephone numbers, and a booth in a formal setting such as a hotel may be furnished with paper and pen and even a seat. An outdoor booth may be made of metal and plastic to withstand the elements and heavy use, while an indoor booth (once known as a silence cabinet) may have more elaborate architecture and furnishings.Most outdoor booths feature the name and logo of the telephone service provider.
19th century long distance telephony suffered from high losses, so "silence cabinets" were built to allow hearing faint voices from distant places and shouting across a country without disturbing neighbors. Most were on telephone company premises, and luxuriously appointed, until the turn of the century when they began to appear in railway stations, hotels and other places where well-heeled customers were expected. [1]. They became commonplace, though less luxurious, in industrialized countries in the 1910s.
Starting in the 1970s pay telephones were less and less commonly placed in booths in the United States. In many areas where they were once common, telephone booths have now been almost completely replaced by non-enclosed pay phones. In the United States, this replacement was caused, at least in part, by an attempt to make the pay telephones more accessible to the handicapped. However, in the United Kingdom phones remained in booths more often than the non-enclosed set up. Although still fairly common, the number of phone boxes have declined sharply in Britain since the late 1990s due to the boom of mobile phones.
Many locations that provide pay phones mount the phones on kiosks rather than in booths — this relative lack of privacy and comfort discourages lengthy calls in high-demand areas such as airports.
Special equipment installed in some telephone booths allows a caller to use a computer, a portable fax machine, or a telecommunications device for the deaf.
Paying for the call
A Telstra phone box in South AustraliaThe user of the booth pays for the call by depositing coins into a slot on the telephone, by entering a payment code on the telephone's keypad, or by using a telephone card. Coin-operated phones usually take the money before the call is made, and return it if there is no answer on the receiving end. Other phones, such as those used in the UK until the early 1980s, take the money after someone has answered at the other end by blocking the call until money has been deposited. Some pay phones are equipped with a card reader that allows a caller to make payment with a credit card. A caller who possesses no means of payment may have the phone company's operator ask the call recipient if the recipient is willing to make payment for the call; this is known as "reversing the charges" "reverse charged call" or "calling collect". It is also possible to place a call to a phone booth if the intended recipient is known to be waiting at the booth, however not all phone booths allow incoming calls. Long before "computer hacking" was a common phenomenon, creative mischief-makers devised tactics for obtaining free phone usage through a variety of techniques, including several for defeating the electro-mechanical payment mechanisms of telephone booths--early methods of phone phreaking.
Recent developments
Phone boxes are often vandalisedThe increasing use of mobile phones has led to a decreased demand for pay telephones, but the increasing use of portable computers is leading to a new kind of service. In 2003, service provider Verizon announced that they would begin offering wireless computer connectivity in the vicinity of their phone booths in Manhattan. As of 2006 the Verizon wifi telephone booth service was discontinued in favor of the more expensive Verizon Wireless's EVDO system. This allows a computer user to connect with remote computer services by means of a short-range radio stationed within the booth. The caller pays for usage by means of a pre-arranged account code stored inside the caller's computer. Wireless access is motivating telephone companies to place wireless stations at locations that have traditionally hosted telephone booths, but stations are also appearing in new kinds of locations such as libraries, cafés, and trains.
A rise in vandalism in certain regions has prompted several companies to manufacture simpler booths with extremely strong pay phones.
Most telephone booths in Northern Ireland are able to accept two currencies. They are able to accept both pound sterling and euro, due to the proximity to the Republic of Ireland. Similarly, mainly in large cities in Great Britain, certain telephone booths accept both sterling and euro. Other services provided by these booths are internet access, SMS text messaging and ordinary phone services.
In 2004, Jordan became the first country in the world not to have telephone booths generally available. The cellular phone penetration in that country is so high that telephone booths haven't practically been used at all for years. The two private payphone service companies, namely ALO and JPP, closed down and currently there's no payphone service to speak of. In 2007, Finnet companies, and TeliaSonera Finland discontinued their public telephones earlier and the last remaining operator Elisa Oyj did that during the beginning of the year.
Following the commencement of the Smoking ban in England, it became illegal to smoke in most telephone boxes. The smoking ban requires owners to display no smoking signage, which has resulted in BT displaying a no smoking sticker which refer to the telephone box as "premises."
