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June 3, 2006
Save your dimes, these booths
take cellphones
Firms see market for a quiet place to call
Michael Salemi hates it when other diners' cellphone conversations interrupt his intimate dinners, but  he concedes that he is equally annoyed when the background noise in a restaurant interrupts his own calls.
``You can't even hear yourself talk or think, let alone talk on a cellphone," he said.
So Salemi, a 47-year-old former general manager of a medical devices firm, invested in a new twist on an old idea, partnering with three brothers and a friend to develop the CellZone, a soundproof booth where chatty patrons at restaurants, nightclubs, and libraries can talk freely without bothering anyone. It's a phone booth for the wireless set.
His company, Salemi Industries Inc. of Woburn, began marketing CellZones for between $2,400 and $3,500 at last month's National Restaurant Show in Chicago. By his estimation, the market is ripe: Every one of the nearly 700,000 restaurants and 40,000 nightclubs in the country is a potential customer.
And that's before you get to librarians like Kathryn Ames, who's considering buying a trio of CellZones to quiet the babble of cellphone-addicted students who frequent the library she runs in Athens, Ga.
``We're doing a 20,000-square-foot addition and I might just do a whole long row of cellphone booths," said Ames, who found Salemi's company by Googling ``cellphone booths" and giving the firm a call. Salemi thinks nightclubs and construction sites are potential customers, too. US Cellular ordered two CellZones to install at promotional booths it plans to run at a series of concerts this summer.
But not everyone is ready to install the next-generation phone booth. Greg Den Herder , co-owner and managing partner of 33 Restaurant & Lounge in the Back Bay, said his patrons expect to be able to use their phones as they please, but generally they have to make calls from his vestibule because reception inside the building is spotty. More formal restaurants, Den Herder predicted, might find the idea of a CellZone more compelling.
Even some librarians balk at the idea. Officials considered building three or four such booths into the plans for a new Mattapan branch of the Boston Public Library, but scuttled those plans before they spoke to any vendors, said a spokeswoman, Alexandra Merceron . The Mattapan branch and most Boston libraries have rooms where cellphones can be used without risking a librarian's ``shhhh!," Merceron said.
Some restaurants already have noise-abatement strategies in place -- some taken from antiquity, some, like 33 Restaurant & Lounge, through signal-blocking architecture. At Doyle's Cafe in Jamaica Plain, patrons occasionally duck into the pay-phone booths to use their cellphones. A sign at the cash register of the new Upper Crust pizza on Newbury Street asks patrons to finish cellphone calls before ordering.
Brick Loomis , assistant manager at Aujourd'hui restaurant in the Four Seasons hotel, said patrons have grown more accepting of cellphones. But he still finds open use of the devices in restaurants rude and said he would consider installing CellZones if they matched the establishment's decor. ``We'd certainly entertain the idea," he said.
Restaurant patrons' reactions were mixed. Outside Vinny T's of Boston in the Back Bay, Alyssa Vincent , 18 , said she hoped restaurants would install the booths and that they would prevent incidents like the one she witnessed at a New York restaurant. ``Someone was screaming on their phone and they threw it across the restaurant. It was pretty scary," she said.
Jen Bernstein, 28, of Boston , said she'd love to see them installed in restaurants, but doubted rude guests would use them. ``I don't think the people doing it would have the courtesy to walk into a booth," she said.
Scott Arden, 22, of the Back Bay, proves her point: He said he'll talk on his cell whenever and wherever he pleases. ``The purpose of having a cellphone is to use it wherever you want. I feel like restricting the areas where you can use it defeats the purpose," he said.
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|  By Olivia Barker, USA TODAYJust in time for his return to the silver screen, Superman's trusty phone booth is back. Only this time, there's a bit more room for his biceps. Because the pay phone itself is gone, today's booths are BYOC — bring your own cellphone. WHAT YOU THINK: Are you in favor of the cellphone booths? In an effort to appease patrons and etiquette police, restaurants, bars, movie theaters and libraries are carving out spaces to separate yakkers from other customers. Dennis Raney acknowledges that he has contributed to talk pollution. "I get on the cellphone and I do talk louder," says Raney, who last year launched Fort Wayne, Ind.-based C.P. Booth, a manufacturer of Clark Kent-era cabinets in clubby oak ($2,995) or diner-compatible melamine ($2,650). Cingular took the initial step toward cellphone civility in 2002 by designating Courtesy Zones, with couches or counters, in about 50 Loews theater lobbies across the USA. Then in 2003, The Biltmore Room, a Manhattan eatery turned bar, became famous for its leather-walled cellphone booth, and Chicago's Boka restaurant unveiled its velvet-cushioned version. The cellphone booth's other benefit, proponents point out: a place to have a quiet conversation in a noisy venue. Last month, Michael Salemi and a partner in Woburn, Mass., introduced the nightclub-friendly Cell Zone. The steel, sound-resistant cylinder ($2,400-$3,500) has a clear door. Proprietors "don't want anything going on inside there" other than cellphone chatter, Salemi explains. Jim Rogers is eyeing a Cell Zone for his upstairs bar at Michael's Harborside in Newburyport, Mass. With up to 400 people packed in, "this would really be put to use," says Rogers, the general manager and a co-owner. He's also considering one for the downstairs restaurant, where he has had complaints from customers about nattering neighbors. But some manners maestros say cellphone booths are about as welcome in restaurants as, well, cellphones themselves. "You're really just enabling the bad behavior," says Tom Farley, editor of Town & Country Modern Manners: The Thinking Person's Guide to Social Graces. "To the extent that they encourage people to get up in the middle of dinner and place a phone call, I think that's a bad thing." Manuel Simpson of Winchester, Va., regularly dines alone, chatting on his cellphone while he waits for his meal. He has gotten the hairy eyeball from other diners for it, but he has never been verbally chastised. Still, he says, he can't imagine ducking into a booth. "It seems sort of dramatic," says Simpson, 28, who works in retail. After all, getting from table to booth requires conversation: "Wait one second! I'm on my way to the booth!" |  |  Can phone booths go wireless? Startup hopes bars warm up to device for cell-phone users
By TOM SPOTH, Sun Staff
Tony Ferranti, vice president of sales & marketing at Salemi Industries in Woburn, demonstrates the  startup's sound deadening booth, ideal for cell-phone callers' privacy. SUN/BOB WHITAKER
WOBURN -- By now, you've probably experienced some kind of discomfort involving the use of cell phones in public places.
You've either a.) been inconvenienced by a rude or unwitting patron in a restaurant or library, jabbering on a cell while others try to enjoy some peace and quiet, or b.) tried helplessly to carry on a conversation amid the din of a concert or sporting event. Even more likely, you've been on both sides of the coin. The makers of a new product called the Cell Zone claim to have the solution to both problems. Designed to emulate that historical curiosity called the telephone booth, the Cell Zone is a cylindrical soundproof enclosure that provides privacy for those looking to chat on the cell away from the madding crowd. The Cell Zone, composed of two layers of steel sandwiched around "acoustical materials," is designed to decrease noise by 30 to 40 decibels. This means that background noise would be significantly muffled (but not eliminated) and "nothing comes out of the booth unless you're screaming," said Tony Ferranti, vice president of sales & marketing at Woburn-based Salemi Industries. The company was born last year out of a conversation over dinner between three brothers -- Tony, Michael and Steven Salemi -- and Ferranti, their brother-in-law. "We all stood out front of the Cafe Escadrille in Burlington for 45 minutes after dinner talking about it," said Steven Salemi, a Billerica resident. "We came to the conclusion that, heck yeah, we could pursue this, there's something here." The foursome got to work developing a product. In May, they introduced the Cell Zone to the world. Ferranti said they've since received more than 10,000 inquiries and issued hundreds of quotes to potential buyers. The devices range in price from $2,400 to $3,500. The outside of the booth can be used for advertising -- that revenue would be split between Salemi Industries and the venue, meaning "the Cell Zone could turn into a profit center" for customers, Ferranti said. The company has a few potential customers in Massachusetts, but none in Greater Lowell, Ferranti said. Representatives of the Cell Zone's target markets contacted by The Sun were intrigued by the idea, but somewhat skeptical. "It's kind of interesting," said Tom Economou, owner of the The Dubliner, a Lowell bar. "But in our place, I don't know if it'd be worth it." Economou said that while it is difficult to talk on a cell phone in the Dubliner, many patrons are content to go outside and chat. Dora St. Martin, director of the Pollard Memorial Library in Lowell, said the Cell Zone is "an interesting idea," but she also had her doubts. "We use phones differently now," St. Martin said. "I'm not sure if we could get people to stand in a booth and use a phone." She also wondered whether Salemi Industries could provide a Cell Zone that fit the library's historical motif. No problem, Steven Salemi said -- the Cell Zone comes in multiple colors and designs, and can even be outfitted with a wooden veneer. While the Cell Zone may not be for everyone, Ferranti said that with more than 700,000 eateries and more than 40,000 nightclubs in the U.S., "the market, we feel, is enormous." "We see it growing very fast," Steven Salemi said. "Right now, there's nothing out there like it." A similar product called the C.P. Booth does already exist, but Salemi said it is not sound-resistant. The Cell Zone is 86 inches tall and ranges in diameter from 30 inches to 66.5 inches (the handicapped-accessible version). It's equipped with a motion detector that turns on interior lights when somebody enters, and has a sliding door. Steve Salemi said he wants Cell Zone users to have privacy -- but not too much privacy. "We don't want to see any mischief going on in a nightclub," he said. Tom Spoth's e-mail address is tspoth@lowellsun.com.
|  Jun. 2, 2006 12:00 AM A phone booth for the cellphone This idea is right up there with decaffeinated coffee - the phoneless phone booth.
It's the Cell Zone, a soundproof capsule designed for phone conversations, only it's BYOP.
Let's say you're in a restaurant having an intimate conversation with the woman to whom you are about to propose marriage. Suddenly your cellphone rings, and it's not a simple electronic beep, but one of those oh-so-trendy ring tones that everyone but you finds annoying.
In olden days, you would have continued the conversation as if nothing happened, because nothing did happen - cellphones didn't exist. But now that the phone has rung, you're obligated to answer it, because the cellphone has hunted etiquette to extinction.
Rather than carry on this conversation in public as a nod to your self-importance, step into a nearby Cell Zone, about the size of those old-fashioned phone booths, close the door and seal yourself off from the world. Everyone will be happy.
The Cell Zone is $2,400 to $3,500, depending on size. Though designed for restaurants, theaters and other public places where cellphones have become so darned essential, anyone can buy one. Use it as a guest room when your brother-in-law visits. thecellzone.net.
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