A telephone booth, phone booth, telephone kiosk, telephone call box, telephone box or public call box is a structure furnished with a payphone and designed for a telephone user's convenience; typically the user steps into the booth and closes the booth door while using the payphone inside. In the United States and Canada, "telephone booth" (or "phone booth") is the commonly used term for the structure, while in the Commonwealth of Nations (particularly the United Kingdom and Australia), it is a "phone box". Such a booth usually has lighting, a door to provide privacy, and windows to let others know if the booth is in use. The booth may be furnished with a printed directory of local telephone numbers, and 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 (known as a silence cabinet) may have more elaborate design and furnishings. Most outdoor booths feature the name and logo of the telephone service provider.
History
The world's first telephone box called "Fernsprechkiosk", was opened on 12 January 1881 at Potsdamer Platz, Berlin. To use it, one had to buy paper tickets called Telefonbillet which allowed for a few minutes of talking time. In 1899, it was replaced by a coin-operated telephone. William Gray is credited with inventing the coin payphone in the United States in 1889, and George A. Long was its developer. In the UK, the creation of a national network of telephone boxes commenced in 1920, beginning with the K1 model which was made of concrete; however, the city of Kingston upon Hull is noted for having its individual phone service, Kingston Communications, with cream coloured phone boxes, as opposed to classic royal red in the rest of Britain. The Post Office was forced into allowing a less strident grey with red glazing bars scheme for areas of natural and architectural beauty. Ironically, some of these areas that have preserved their telephone boxes have now painted them red. In the 1940s, at military bases during WWII, outdoor booths started to appear. But in general they were most commonly placed indoors, as they were mostly made of wood and didn't handle exposure to the elements well. This changed in 1954, when the Airlight outdoor telephone booth was introduced. Being made of glass and aluminium, they were designed especially for the outdoors and originally intended to serve motorists traveling on the highway.
Public Call Office
A public call office (PCO), also known as a call office or public telephone room, is a shared public telephone facility, typically operated from a storefront or kiosk containing multiple telephones or coin phone booths attended by a clerk or operator. Public call offices were established in areas where private telephone ownership was limited, allowing members of the public to make and receive local or long-distance calls for a fee. Early public call offices were commonly located in shops, hotels, railway stations, and post offices. The concept existed in many countries during the expansion of telephone networks in the late 19th and 20th centuries, particularly in communities where household telephone service was uncommon or unavailable. In later decades, the term became especially associated with the widespread network of staffed payphone facilities in India and Pakistan until the growth of the mobile phone and an expanded network made them essentially obsolete by the late 1990's.
Design
Starting in the 1970s, pay telephones were less commonly placed in booths in the United States. In many cities 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 disabled people. However, in the United Kingdom, telephones remained in booths more often than the non-enclosed setup. Although still fairly common, the number of phone boxes has declined sharply in Britain since the late 1990s due to the rise in use 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. The Jabbrrbox, an enclosed structure for installation in open plan offices, was inspired by the telephone booth.
Cultural impact The ubiquity of the phone booth led to its depiction in fiction. In comic books published by DC Comics, the telephone booth is occasionally the place where reporter Clark Kent discards his street clothing and transforms into the costumed superhero Superman. Some films and television series have reused or parodied this plot device. The 1965–1970 television series Get Smart used a phone booth, among other devices, as a secure means of entering CONTROL headquarters. The 2002 film Phone Booth takes place almost entirely in a telephone booth; a 2023 retrospective article notes that "the obsolescence is to the film's advantage." La cabina ("The Telephone Box") is a 1972 Spanish television film directed by Antonio Mercero, and written by himself and José Luis Garci, starring José Luis López Vázquez. It first aired on 13 December 1972 on Televisión Española. In the 35-minute film, a man becomes trapped in a telephone booth, while passersby seem unable to help him. The film won the 1973 International Emmy Award for Fiction, the only Spanish programme to have won it. The 1986 comedy film Clockwise features John Cleese's character vandalising a phone in a booth in frustration after it malfunctions. The scene played on the public perception in Britain at the time that telephone booths were frequently out of order. The cover photograph of the album Deadlines (Strawbs) shows an upside-down man trapped inside a telephone booth full of water. The background shows a flat landscape during sunset circumstances. Photo Hipgnosis.
Privacy Phone booths have been subject to wireless surveillance by law enforcement. For example, the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case of Katz v. United States involved the Constitutional question of whether the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) could install a listening device outside of the booth.
Recent developments
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