Ray Van Eng (10/01/97)
US West Inc. and The Southland Corp., owner of the worldwide chain of convenience stores, will launch an Internet kiosk trial at eight Seattle stores. Pending user responses, the pilot may be expanded to other cities. In the past few years, the chain has replaced Pac Man and pinball machines with bank ATMs and money order equipment. The Net kiosk is just another way to try out new market potentials like prepaid phone cards that were also introduced in Seattle back in 1992 that are now available nationwide. The kiosks are connected to the Internet via ISDN (integrated services digital network) lines running at 128 kbps, or at several times faster than a conventional modem. By inserting a credit card, customers can access the Net for 35 cents a minute or $2.95 for the first 10 minutes and $1.95 for an additional 10 minutes. Once they log on, they can send and receive e-mail, browse the web and engage in other online activities. Although it only involves eight stores in this northwest corner of the United States, the pilot program could provide US West with valuable data to help determine the acceptance of Internet kiosks in non-business settings. There is no agenda on how long the trial will last, but as a 7-11 spokesperson said, "If the customers don't like them, we'll take them out." Some American city like San Antonio, TX is implementing Internet touch screen kiosks for the citizens to interact with the government. The service is free to the public. In the Texas trial, other than obtaining official information or doing a job search from the home pages of the various municipal departments, you can even use your credit card to pay for property taxes, garage sale permits, fines for parking and speeding tickets etc. |