Requiem for the phone booth

I heard the other day via the 3G Portal that Finland is decommissioning the phone booth. Nobody uses them any more. And so I reflected on the phone booth and its role in our culture.

So to kick off here are the lyrics to Blondies Hanging on the Telephone

I'm in the phone booth, it's the one across the hall If you don't answer, I'll just ring it off the wall I know he's there but I just had to call Don't leave me hanging on the telephone I heard your mother now she's going out the door Did she go to work or just go to the store? All those things she said I told you to ignore Oh why can't we talk again? Don't leave me hanging on the telephone It's good to hear your voice, you know it's been so long If I don't get your calls then everything goes wrong I want to tell you something you've known all along Don't leave me hanging on the telephone I had to interrupt and stop this conversation Your voice across the line gives me a strange sensation I'd like to talk when I can show you my affection Oh I can't control myself! Don't leave me hanging on the telephone Oh hang there unrelieved!

And of course without the phone booth we would not have had the immensely popular Dr Who who for over 30 years has travelled the universe in a Police phone booth.

Who can remember standing in the freezing cold phone box waiting for the phone to ring? I did whilst I was a student. We did not have a phone in the house. Love or lust drives us do some strange things. Can you imagine your kids standing in a phone box, or hearing a public pay phone ringing at which point the entire household scrambles out the door because it might be for them?

And remember the cash guzzling beep beep beeps as the phone booth sent your heart rate in to orbit as you raced to tell your lover how much you loved them, or to finalise that all important meeting before you were ruthlessly cut off. Or an important argument cut off because yoou had run out of money. Now unresloved, open like a wound.

I even have a very funny story about a 10 pence piece, beer, a phone booth and a best friend. Just ask my friend Ian Smith.

And I can think of umpteen films where the phone booth has played a role. Even the Matrix used the phone booth. we can all remember the classic close-up shot of the hanging phone swinging and a voice calling out "is anybody there?" Or the inumerable; phone booth explosions, assinations in phone booths, sex in phone booths, the drug deal done in the phone booth.

So goodbye phone booth - your job is done. Gradually the phone booth will disappear from all countries - but you have played an important role in inspiring songwriters, filmmakers, broadcasters, writers, poets, and many others besides.

Banishing the Angels from In The Surgical Theater by Dana Levin

And then the cloud passed and a light came rushing down the steps

of the subway, and blazed up against the phone booth

standing in the corner, and inside it was a girl

talking on the phone, all lit up amid the grime

of the subway, and when I saw her I wanted her to be

an angel, I wanted her with wings inside the station, to say

"the angel on the phone" and see it softly beating, old newspapers

at its feet and no one noticing, white and gold in the dirty glass,

blazing religious in the piss and exhaust, an oddity bright in the life

of the phone booth, an angel in a box in the filtered sun,

where I was straining to look back at the light rushing down,

at the girl who was not an angel talking on the phone,

in the real light of the unmystical sun, thinking

the girl who is not an angel is something to believe

the phone booth in the sunlight, something to believe

Comments

[NJAR]

Ironically I only ever use phone boxes as a booth from which to make mobile calls (with less sound disturbance). Contrary to what BT has been doing with them, I'd tend to turn them into MP3 download centres or vending machines of some other form.

NjaR

[Tom]

Hi Tomi,

I disagree concering what I read from Germany. T-COM will build another 10.000 public phones (actual 110.000) within 2006/2007 because of the EURO. I guess they will use/upgrade them as WLAN hotspots later, because they will offer a dual phone (WLAN/GSM) in mid 2006 which can be used at public hotspots as well (at fixed line costs but with your personal/clean/own handset). Currently they have over 5.000 hotspots in hotels/restaurants in germany

TOM

[Tomi Ahonen]

Hi Tom

I don't doubt the German incumbent Deutsche Telecom still thinking this way - Germany is behind the average of European mobile phone adaption, about a year behind - while Finland is two years ahead of that European average. A few years ago many fixed line operators around the world were still imagining big growth opportunities out of phone booths. So the German announcements are still in line with the biggest incumbent fixed wireline operator in Europe, and one that operates in a market that is quite behind the European average for mobile telephony.

I am totally convinced that the Finnish examples around mobile telecoms radical innovations to not only the telecoms industry but the economy on the whole, will be all copied around the world. That is what happened with SMS (now a 60 billion dollar industry worldwide); that is what happened with ringing tones (already a 5 billion dollar industry); that is what is happening with SMS-to-TV interactivity such as SMS-to-TV chat, games, voting etc; that is what happened with the use of mobile phones to pay for vending machines; to pay for public transportation; to do airline check-in etc. All of these were first done in Finland and all are now spreading all around the world.

Finland was also the first advanced country in the world to have more mobile phone subscribers than fixed landline subscribers (this milestone was reached in Finland in 1998, while the world average hit that point in 2003). Finland then became the first country where more revenues were earned by mobile networks than fixed, and now in 2005 Finland again became the first country where total originating voice minutes on the mobile networks exceed that in fixed networks. And as all Finns have mobile phones today, Finland is also the leading Western country where fixed line penetrations are falling, with over 40% of all households already having abandoned the fixed landline connection altogether.

All major operators, and all major analysts, agree that these trends are now happening in all other advanced countries.

Now, Germany is behind the European average. They can still be "forgiven" for not spotting the trends, and still try to make money out of the payphone network. Why not. But I am 100% convinced that Germany too will announce it will discontinue supporting phone booths. When will that happen? Probably the announcement will come in the next four-five years and obviously the payphones themselves will then be phased out over time. It might take ten years. But trust me, it will come. All of the trends go against the payphone business model (in advanced countries at least)

But time will tell. Maybe this will be the one trend in mobile telecoms where Finland led but nobody followed, ha-ha..

Tomi Ahonen :-)