News

NY City installs kiosk ''phone booths'

November 16, 2003

NEW YORK, N.Y. -- New Yorkers and people just passing through town can now to go into a nearby phone booth to surf the Internet, check e-mail or have their pictures taken by a Web camera, city officials said.

According to an article in Newsday, the cost to the consumer is 25 cents a minute for Internet and e-mail use, 50 cents to have a digital photo captured by the booth's Webcam and sent via e-mail, and $1 to create and send a video e-mail.

Twenty-five high-techology phone booths have been set up in Manhattan, each equipped with a keyboard, tracking ball, touchscreen and a Web cam, in addition to a regular ol' telephone charging 25 cents for three minutes for local calls.

The terminals were unveiled yesterday by the president of telecommunications provider TCC Teleplex, as well as the city's commissioner of information technology and telecommunications.

The booths, approved under a city franchise agreement, allow users to go on line to government or tourist web sites free of charge, according to the article.

"I think it's a great thing and very easy to use," said Mar Figuera, who sent her parents in Barcelona an e-mail message with a video showing her blowing a kiss from a streetcorner booth at 43rd Street and Fifth Avenue.