Fennetec
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Just to let you know, I have now removed the “prototype” pedestal from north of the Spire and replaced it with a newer type. I think SDCC are going to let me place two or three of these on the pavement between the colums directly outside the GPO on the footpath!
I am replacing the pedestals in Grafton Street and Henry Street with the same product but I still think that all companies should have a uniform design. Smart Telecom Payphone division is up for sale so maybe some of you should buy it.
Tom
QUOTE FROM ABOVE “Eircom are indulging in a phone kiosk installation extravaganza on OC street at the moment…. You better get in their quick Fenetec”
Well, I did place a second one at the O’Brien Monument but your observation could not be missed as regards Eircom. As is usual in these matters the goalposts are on a moving rail. At the beginning of discussions with DCC Mr. Skay told me that NO PHONES, were being placed on the footpaths. I agreed with that and located on the central median. Then, directly opposite, Eircom planted theirs on the footpath ! Next, Smart Telecom (or now not so smart telecom) placed one of theirs directly opposite my unit and about ten metres south of Eircom’s – where? On the pavement where we all agreed they would not go.
The gas thing about it is that both Eircom and Smart are in a well publicised war at the moment and both are offering calls to anywhere in the world for 10cent per minute including Vat ! Is it any wonder that the poor unfortunates who invested their last few bob in savings lost so much money in shares in these companies? Ask them will they give you calls for the same price and see what they will say!
Worse news for you guys who (rightly) seem to care about O’Connell Street is that when I asked a certain Architect in DCC yesterday what the hell was going on he said that the phones on the pavement had to be allowed as there are seven more to go up! Some obviously without dial tone!
On an aside issue, I am removing the one from beside the Spire and replacing it with the same design as the one beside Mr. O’Brien. Then, before I erect anymore I am refurbishing all my existing installations with the same type. So, I haven’t gone away, just trying to do things half right, but sometimes I wonder why?
News: (Copyright Sky News)
Payphone Installed on Liffey due to increasing demands from immigrants.
Architects attack payphone in O’Connell Street.
Stephen, and all who replied.
First of all I want to thank everyone who replied. It is impossible for me to address all the various comments. I will try and get time to post a comprehensive outline of what has happened since Telecom Eireann lost their monopoly on payphones on a web page and create a link to that page later. That is as fair as I can be and my intention when I made my fisrt post was not to instigate a slanging match between us. Having said that, I can’t blame any of you for making some of the comments made since you are not familiar with the High Court cases that have taken place over the last ten years on this issue. The law is not alone an ass but the very people who run this country are donkeys and I am not referring to the officials of Dublin City Council but to the statutes and planning laws.
One quick point I will make about Planning Permission in reply to Stephens last post. In 1996 I applied for permission to erect ten payphones in Dublin because I thought it was the correct thing to do. At that time there was no payphone from Christchurch to Westmoreland Street, Temple Bar or Grafton Street. I wanted to agree a design. I had to nominate my locations to Eircom to assure line availability. Eircom went out at 4am on a Sunday morning and placed phones on each site without any permission. They sprung up like mushrooms all over the City overnight one weekend. Their claim ” a payphone is a Public Utility under an old Posts & Telegraphs Act and is exempt from Planning Permission.”
This resulted in Dublin City Council engaging Moore McDowell and Peter Bacon to conduct (at very large expense) a report on payphone requirements for Dublin City. (I would say at that time McDowell and Bacon knew as much about payphones as I do about architecture) While the study was being undertaken Eircom continued to erect payphones when they liked, where they liked and how they liked. The gas part of it was that the study concluded that there was a requirement for 42 payphones in Dublin 1 & 2. Not 30 or 40 now lads, but precisely 42. DCC took a High Court Injunction and placed a Moratorium on payphones in Dublin City.
It might be worth remembering that areas like Rathmines are as important as Dublin City Centre and when the Moratorium was placed Esat, ITG, Eircom, Smart all headed up to Rathmines and look at the state of the place now.
They (DCC) also banned advertising on the Kiosks which as you will see is also ignored. An English company, with an English titled Lord on their board of directors got permission for fifteen sites while I still awaited mine. They then sold the sites to another English company, Esat BT who in turn sold them to Smart. All the time the millions involved in the transactions was IMO effectively a game of monopoly with sites that were on Dublin City Councils property. So, when someone tells me, an Irishman from Laois that I can’t put a payphone in Dublin and a British company can put them outside the GPO with advertising for an English owned Radio Sation I get a bit tetchy, notwithstanding the fact that I obey the rules about not advertising McDonalds and do not create kiosks that look like showers to advertise shampoo or punk radio stations.
For each post I make there are about twenty different arguments one could make in reply and I understand that. I did not, as suggested come on this board to solicit free services from anyone and perhaps whoever made that suggestion would like to withdraw it. I would be quite happy to locate my phones anywhere else in the City providing nobody else was being allowed to put theirs on O’Connell Street either. I am determined, and if any of you had to go through what I have been through in the last ten years, you would be determined, that if phones are going on O’Connell Street, and they are, that I will get my share. Outside of that I am only trying to set a standard that should have been set for me by the bigger hitters.
I will be unable to reply to any posts at least for a few days but I will take a peek in here again.
Thanks to you all, no hard feelings, relax I won’t destroy your street.
Thanks again.
Tom
A Boyle
I agree wth you about some of what you say. The debate is not about where they should go whether a tourist is to be up around Cathal Brugha Street looking for a phone on the side of a building or trying to get into the GPO at 3am in the morning to ring somebody after getting off an Aircoach is another matter. There is no point in telling me they should not go there because they are going there and that decision has already been taken. Most phone calls from public phones are made with call cards and these last for up to thirty minutes sometimes. A suggestion that they could be incorporated into bus stops would not endear me to standing trying to talk on a phone trying to compete with the clattering of a 97D engine and inhaling its spew while trying to talk is not the issue I raised. All I wanted to know, assuming there are qualified people on this board to tell me, is what would be more acceptable, not where they should go.You make the point (correctly in my opinion) that something small like the Eircom phones in Grafton Street. Incidently, these were not installed in ’88, they were erected in 1996 one overnight in circumstances that I won’t go into. The “proto-type” I have made myself is designed around the same size. The complete unit is made of stainless steel to match the bins-spire-street furniture. There is no “paint”. Graffiti can not be written as I have designed each panel that a word will not fit, even the base is tubular as is the outside frame.
All I am asking, once more, is that if there is someone qualified on this board who would look at the phone when it is erected. If they have a better plan, and I am sure someone will, I will gladly avail of their services. There seems to me to be an awful assumption by three or four people who constantly write letters to the Evening Herald that O’Connell Street belongs to them alone (and a few more) and everything is wrong unless they agree while at the same time they agree to nothing even if it was paved with gold bars.
After (again) this mornings incident at 3am there is more concern for what is happening on O’Connell Street than phones. In the next week or so Smart Telecom and Eircom will erect what they like without any consultation wheras I am trying to consult, install, remove, replace and upgrade until the most appropriate design is provided. Therefore I am not interested in comments about where the phones should be located, but how they are located. The phone I install this week will be simply bolted to the ground to an existing plate. I would expect there will be changes at which time a new dessign is manufactured and the units changed in half an hour. On the other hand, if Eircom are prepared to go to the same trouble as I am, and, they produce a better design I would have no problem whatsoever conforming to that as I feel that all the phones throughout the city should be exacly the same.
A Boyle.
DCC took the decision to clean sweep all the footpaths on either side of the street and relocate the furniture on the central median.Regarding aesthetics. something neat like the kiosks on grafton street would be a apropriate. But in a style that matched the materials used in oconnel street.
“Having examined your website , it would appear that you already have a design for oconnell street. Why not let us have a look and we could give you some feedback.”
Jeez, you weren’t long sussing that out !!
I can’t give you a look at what I have because I would have to assemble it. I am not sure which phones in Grafton Street you are talking about, is it the Eircom ones?
And yes, my company is that small because Esat BT and ITG played monopoly with DCC property by acquiring sites and doing paper transactions and selling them on while I obeyed the rules and waited eight years to get my few sites. I could not afford to wait another week let alone a year or else I would become one of the beggars that people complain about !!
Finally, I really appreciate any help I am getting here and I did realize before I posted that I was letting myself in for a pasting. I welcome criticism if it results in a facility that O’Connell Street deserves.
Thanks again.
Tom“
Tom, to clarify, are you looking for help in future designs for your phone pedestals? And has the standard DCC design to be installed next year been decided on yet?
Graham,
I am sorry I did not answer your question. Yes, I am looking for help in the future and I base that request on the fact that architects are better at desiging a pedestal than Eircom or myself. I feel that Smart, Eircom and myself should install the exact same approved pedestal throughout the City and I am not talking just about O’Connell Street.
There are a number of features I would like to incorporate and if you “Google” Digital Frames I think that these could provide all the information required to make a phone call without building a big monstrocity to hold a small payphone that thugs will congregate around.
I would also contemplate giving something back to the city and I am sure you are aware of the problems that existed with drug dealing on O’Connell Street and the never ending problem of chewing gum. Each location could be fitted with a web cam saving thousands of pounds that could be taken off the existing line and this could me monitored by a dedicated litter watch or whatever but at least act as a deterent.
If you can help my mail address is tom@fennetec.com.
Killian Skay is the architect for the street and he is a gentleman. Sure there will have to be improvements to what I have prepared and thats why I’m here. I can not do drawings or AutoCad but I am sure the right person could look at my idea, go back to his drawing board and provide the right design.
Thanks again,
Tom
“”Payphones sometimes fail to provide the service they should in return for the space they take up.As soon as they break, they stop providing the service and become street junk or street thieves, swallowing coins into some device to be collected later by some urchin.
There should be service level agreements on payphones to allow for removal of payphones that are too frequently out of order.Many payphones do not display the price of calls, just a ‘cost per unit’ like a hotel phone. None provide freephone directory inquiries as they used to. No phones return change, despite other vending machines having this capability.
They could be more useful and still comercially viable.””
That is exactly the type of response I would expect to get elswhere. I was trying to solicit ideas on the type of pedestal that would be most suitable, not a running commentary on the commercial aspects of running a payphone company.
To the other replies, thanks for your input. The long term idea is indeed to incorporate the phone pedestals into the kiosks and this will be done at the O’Brien Monument. I am talking about small neat pedestals as opposed to “kiosks”. For the last six years DCC have instructed Eircom not to advertise on their kiosks but they continue to do so. That is why they want to erect their own kiosks because they are more interested in the advertising space. My contention is that in the event of a bomb threat (and that is an everyday possibility) a quick scan of O’Connell street, and other streets should allow the gardai to determine what areas are safe without looking in the type of Kiosks at the corner of Abbey Styreet, or opposite Trinity.
As far as phones being out of order – they are linked to a central computer and an out of order phone flags the system. I am a small operator and I do not have Babcock & Browns millions of other peoples money to waste. On my phones the cost of the call per minute is displayed when you dial the first four digits. If you are blind you are told by a voice prompt but this has nothing to do with the design of the pedestal.
All I am trying to do is do the thing right. Sure it won’t satisfy each individual from two million people but open consultation is surely better than the Gung Ho attitude of other companies.
Thanks for your replies.
TomFirst of, I am not involved in Architecture and have no such qualifications. I need your help please.
The refurbishment of O’Connell Street included the clean sweep of all street furniture along the footpaths and these included the phone boxes. Dublin City Council provided for these to be relocated along the central median with sites being allocated to Eircom, Smart Telecom and my little company.My suggestion was that we should all sit down together and agree a standard design which most people would consider logical as opposed to one company erecting something akin to old petrol pums with a light on top or a big box like what is on the corner of Abbey Street, College Green with adds for McDonalds.
Eircom, (Babcock & Brown) ! and Smart being full of their own importance want to erect their own design. Dublin City Council are going to insist (correctly) on a standard but they will not be in place for a year. They have given my company permission to proceed with my own pedestal and this will be installed on Tuesday North of the Spire. Before there is an avelanche of protest from all you professionals let me explain:
Payphones in the city are a requirement.
The fixing method I use is that the pedestal is bolted into a plate that is inserted at the time of paving. This is existing but unseen about fifteen meters north of the spire. The pedestal can be removed and a different one erected in less than half an hour with one single spanner. Eircom did a big hole and throw in a few barrows of cement.
The design I am trying to create – or want you to create – must include the following:
No sharp edges if someone walks into it.
Preferably stainless steel.
Small, it only needs to house a phone and not a shower.
Must compliment existing street furniture.
Base and central pillar (I propose) must be round so as debris and paper will not collect around it.I will install the unit I have made (with permission from Mr. Killian Skay) this Tuesday north of the spire. If any of you guys wander by I would really appreciate your criticism and assistance. Working together we can get it right or near enough, imposing some of the existing monstrocities on this new street with their Bronx style advertising is not the way forward.
If anyone thinks they can produce the Real McCoy for a fee I am prepared to discuss.
(My phones are Smart Phones (not Smart Telecom) and the digital display and operation are line powered so no electricity is required)
Thanks very much.
Tom
