The Government has offered Australia's three mobile operators, and vividwireless, renewal of their existing spectrum allocated on 15 year licences in the late 90s and early 2000s at set prices, while the Government expects to rake in $3 billion.
Telstra hoped to set up deals that would enable users to pay bills and book tickets via the terminals, with the ticket being printed out on the spot by the terminal's printer. It also hoped that most of the revenue generated by the units would come from advertisers and information and service providers, not directly from Internet access and phone call charges. An initial, six month, trial of the terminals was carried out with the Health Insurance Commission which installed them in pharmacies to provide online claims for Medicare benefits.
Just under a year after the product's announcement Telstra called for expressions of interest from companies interested in manufacturing 10,000 units for the local market and up to 40,000 for export. But the project was later abandoned and all units removed from the network.
Then, in 2001 Telstra has announced a limited trial of a broadband version of the multimedia payphone as part of its Launceston B-eLab. 20 multimedia information kiosks were installed around Launceston and surrounding suburbs for a year. They enabled users to send email messages as well as images and video clips and were to be used as information portals for businesses and government agencies providing services such as directories, maps, bus timetables and guides for restaurants and entertainment.
In early 2005 Telstra unveiled the first of 10 new public payphones to be trialled for 10 weeks in Sydney's CBD "to help determine the sorts of features customers will find most useful in the future." They allowed customers to browse the Internet via broadband and send emails, text, picture and video messages.
It also trialled Internet kiosks from Perth-based Pie Networks at 10 installations around Australia as the result of an initiative from technology consultancy, SMS Technology and Management. SMS CEO, Tony Stianos, claimed that SMS had "conceive[d] an opportunity, architect[ed] a solution and take[n] the concept to the client in an unsolicited way."
David Bass
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