TALK the talk: Payphone Booth in Malaysia (part 1)

The following article is about the study of payphone booth in Malaysia.


Outdoor public phone booth in Malaysia mostly can be found in big city or small town. It is usually designed in partially enclosure shelter. The number of public phone booth in Malaysia is decreasing due to the rise of usage of mobile phone, which make public phone unlikely often used by citizen nowadays. Most of the public payphone found are branded helo, a product by Pernec, a corporation leads in telecommunication and information technology. Other phone booth brand included TM (Telekom Malaysia), a government-run telecommunication company.


Pernec Pay Point

It is Malaysia’s premier public phone company with over 35,000 public payphones in operation throughout the country. It is a sub group from Pernec. Pernec Paypoint also created helo spot wifi platform which allowed user surf the web, send email and check web based email account, send text messages to mobile phones as well as make telephone calls. All of its more than 35,000 payphones in the whole of Malaysia can be utilised to provide wireless broadband network using the Group’s revolutionary eRas (extended radio access system) 1.8 system. (Pernec, 2010)

helo phone booth

helo is a brand for payphone found in Malaysia, founded by Pernec. It is well-known for its iconic red with white dots designed. According to Pernec stated on its official page, its new helo public phones has been upgraded and well maintained for public facility thus, it's able to accept phone cards and coins. Nevertheless, an opening introduction to GSM public phone's at rural area where wireline facilities are limited. GSM payphones help to increase network population throughout the country. (2010) Figures below show helo payphone.

image resource: http://www.flickriver.com/photos/tags/jesselton/interesting/

Materials of Current Public Phone Booth in Malaysia

The following article is about a research done on public phone booth found at Nilai and Seremban in Malaysia. Public phone booths found are all with partial enclosure design. Phone booth is separated into two parts to identify the material, the stand and main body. Main body of phone booth is mainly plastic while the stand can be either concrete or aluminium.



Main Body of Phone Booth

The main body of phone booth is usually made up by 5 panels. The material used is mainly plastic. Two panel can be found at the side of phone booth, one at the middle serve as the place to hold a payphone, one at the top as the roof and one is at below of payphone. All panels are jointed together. (refer figure below to understand the main body of phone booth)

Materials

The material used is mainly plastic, possible type of plastic used is acrylic, fiberglass and polypropylene which are usually hard and withstand weather.

i. Fiberglass

Fiberglass is also known as GRP, Grass Reinforced Plastic. It is a composite material fused by plastic matrix and fibers of glass. It is lightweight, sturdy and strong in tension and compression. Its raw material is less expensive, which make fiberglass considered as an economic material. Thermoplastic and thermoset can be the plastic matrix used in fiberglass. When compared to steel, it has far more benefits.

ii. Acrylic

Acrylic is a tough and rigid plastic, often may have little bit of flexibility. It comes in many thicknesses and either can be opaque or transparent. It is weather resistant. Acrylic can be strengthen and being used in aircraft window which need to be really strong to withstand pressure.

iii. PP (Polypropylene)

PP is hard, rigid plastic but still has bit of flexibility. It usually opaque and or colored using pigments, however it also can be made translucent. PP is often economical and has a wide variation of used in application. Its melting point is varying, but usually melts at very high temperature. UV light present in sunlight is a treat to PP, as it will degraded under UV light. A UV-absorbing additive is used for external application of PP product to prevent the degradation.

*This research is a part of assignment of my HND study in university.More information will continue at part 2..