Spare a thought for the parents of tomorrow, sitting at home watching a vintage superman film, when Junior asks, what's that box on the street that superman has used as a changing room? Sure as anything, Junior will laugh uproariously when told that's where telephones were once kept.
The sad reality for the old reliable utility, that first made its appearance on an Irish street when placed on College Green in 1928, is that these days it's more likely to be used as something to lean against when chatting on a mobile, rather than as a medium of communication.
The two main public pay-phone operators, Eircom and Esat Fusion, refuse, for commercial reasons, to release any figures on usage of their networks.
However, both admit that mobile ownership, now at 72 per cent, has eaten into the revenue from fixed phones and especially pay phones. In Britain, a recent report by the independent telecom watchdog, Oftel, found that only 12 per cent of the public use street phones on a regular basis.
While Eircom, which manages over 7,500 units, and Esat, with its 1,000 call boxes, both state that they have no plans to pare back their existing networks, they none the less reserve the right to remove any unit that is deemed to be unprofitable.
However, the future of the public phone remains somewhat uncertain, especially at a time when the bulk of the country's fixed-line networks are up for sale.
If a decision was taken to remove public phones from our streets, most of us, if we realised they were gone at all, would express little more than nostalgia for the passing of an old friend. In its report, Oftel identified particular groups of people for whom the loss would mean a considerable lot more.
The largest single group of payphone users, Oftel found, were those whose incomes were so low that they were unable to afford a home telephone line. The second group, comprised of emigrants and tourists, used the telephone boxes to avail of the cheaper rates when making international calls. A third category were those in low-end, rented accommodation, where no residential phone is supplied.
While these groups may be the most frequent users of public phones, it is unlikely that the revenue they generate will be enough to maintain the network in the future. In its attempt to arrest the decline in pay-phone usage, Eircom is pinning its hopes on its SMART phone initiative. Already the company has installed 60 Web, email and fax-enabled phones on a trial basis in airports, bus and train stations throughout the country. Esat Fusion is also experimenting with their version of the smart phone at one location in the Stillorgan shopping centre.
This refashioning of the phone box into a miniature, high-tech office has much to recommend it. By placing innovations, such as Internet access, email and fax in public spaces, the new style phone box may be seen as merely continuing in the original role of its predecessor: in making technologies that were once accessible only to the few, the property of all. In addition, pay-phone technology has certain advantages over the mobile handsets. It is easy to install a readable screen for surfing the Net in a pay phone. They don't require recharging, and broadband connections can be easily supplied.
On the downside, multi-functional phones, due to the high installation and maintenance costs, are unlikely to make much of an appearance outside a few selected locations that can guarantee high usage. Also, while people may use facilities such as email and fax, are they likely to stand up for an hour's surfing of the Web? And if they are, is the reaction of those queuing in the cool outside likely to be pleasant?
Apart from the latest electronic gadgetry, the humble phone box has one other weapon in its fight for survival against its mobile cousin: phone-box call charges are considerably less, especially at peak times, than mobile rates.
Indeed, a certain amount of mobile users have their handsets only for incoming calls, and use the more economical pay phone when making calls. In the future, such a trend may become quite significant, especially if 3G phones fail to live up to the hype. As a consequence, phone operators may become less inclined to subsidise handsets and free air time.
In Britain, BT has moved somewhat outside the conventional business model when it comes to getting pay phones to pay for themselves. Not only are advertisers being sold space on the boxes, but also mobile operators are being encouraged to rent out the roofs of telephone boxes as sites for mini-transmitters to boost radio signals. This latter initiative, argues BT, will not only save the environment from the erection of unsightly pylons, but will also create a symbolic relation between mobile and box-phone network.
Those whose job it is to plan the future role of the public phone box certainly can't complain about a lack of options. In addition to BT's strategy, technology already exists that would make it possible for the phone box to become the smallest shop on the street, where the customer could pay for goods over the net via a call card. Also, telephone boxes could supply the added service of hosting electronic street maps and tourist information.
Whatever the reincarnation devised for the phone box, it will be interesting to see if it engages the public as well as its first introduction did in 1928. But will Superman be able to connect with his new dressing room layout?