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Thursday, April 15, 2004
Ng: Cool tickets, IP phones
By WILSON NG
WIRED DESKTOP
TECH STUFF. I have been doing some traveling in the past 10 weeks, and I would like to share some of the new tech things I noted.
My last trip involved six plane rides, all of which this time, I only had paper tickets.
The paper ticket means it is confirmed through a website or a call center, and all you have to do is print out the ticket on your own printer, or have the airline email or fax the paper ticket to you.
This is really cool, because after all, if the records are already in their computers, why do they need to make sure that your ticket is authentic? (I heard those formal plane tickets they issue cost a good amount as well).
SELF-SERVICE. But what is really cool is some of the self-service kiosks you start to see in many airports.
In this one instance, instead of facing a person, I faced a computer. The computer asked me to put into the computer any one of my credit cards. I put one in, and it read that I am Wilson Ng. It searched its database and came up with my flight for that day. Then it asked me if that was the flight I was taking. I said yes, and it printed out for me a boarding pass with the seat already selected!
Then it asked me whether I had checked-in luggage and how many. I pressed in the kiosk one piece of luggage. It printed out one baggage tag for me.
So I put the baggage tag on my luggage, and went to a counter where they weighed and processed my baggage, as well as checked my boarding pass against a picture ID, and that was it!
Face time with the airline lady probably took less than a minute, and you can imagine the efficiency it brought.
Of course, American firms are famous for squeezing efficiency (many to the detriment of customer service, but then their salaries and costs are so high they probably cannot afford more than a fair amount of customer face time).
I remember another flight with SouthWest Airlines.
You present a paper ticket only at the gate (if you don’t have luggage), and after checking your identity, they don’t even give you a boarding pass!
They just give you a plastic number token that you surrender when it is time to board. No seat number, you just take any seat you want. That means they save on printing even the pass as well.
Of course, SouthWest Airlines only has short-haul flights (not getting the right seat
number or a good seat is a big deal for long-distance travel), so that suits their model well.
QUICK ANSWERS. One of the other cool things happened in the Cisco Convention. They gave all the delegates a wireless IP (Internet Protocol) phone!
What was the use of the IP phone? They were able to run some applications, and the delegates could use the IP Phone to answer.
For instance, the speaker (and there were over 2000 delegates) will ask all the delegates what is the technology they think will have the best chance of growth. You could use the IP phone to answer.
You press 1 for IP telephone, 2 for wireless, 3 for network security, 4 for video stream etc. Then within five seconds, their server will serve up the answer, like 40 percent of delegates voted for IP telephony, 30 perent for wireless etc.
With the growth of wireless, you will see many of these small wireless devices increase in functionality, and writing applications.
These wireless devices, which work through WiFi technologies, are going to be a big thing—maybe even competing with the GSM technologies and some of the applications we are now using in cell phones.
Since the Philippines has some of the most avid users of text messaging and mobile devices, I think we can also excel in writing applications for all these wireless devices. More on the next column.
(email: wilson@esprint.com.)
(April 15, 2004 issue)
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