New telephone design criticised

Press, 29 August 1984, Page 24

New telephone design criticised

PA Auckland Auckland cartoonist and design consultant, Peter Bromhead, is not impressed with push-button telephones. He says the expensive new telephones are riddled with basic design flaws — the cord is too short and the base too light, so that they slide about and sometimes off the user’s desk. Also the telephones often rang again when the receiver was replaced after a call, he said. “My concern is for my clients putting in the new unit,” said Mr Bromhead, who designs corporate offices., "It is a most impractical phone.” Other complaints: when he was offered the system only red or “duck-egg green” were available and a dictaphone attachment for the units had a one-year waiting list. Installing a two-line system in Mr Bromhead’s Queen Street offices cost almost 51000 and those us-

ing one line could hear callers on the other. Mr Bromhead said that in Australia or the United States, where a Government body did not have a monopoly on the service, he could buy an “infinitely better” telephone off supermarket shelves for about ?25. The Post Office’s acting manager of telephone services, Mr Alan Smith, said the new telephones were being promoted because they were suited to electronic intercommunications systems. He had had no report of the telephones’ not meeting customers’ expectations. The new telephones could be mounted on or fixed to a wall to prevent movement, and the problem of the “phantom ringback,” was overcome by correctly replacing the receiver after use. “It is partly a case of educating people to the new system," he said.