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Public Multimediastations
Federal Chancellery
Austria

The Problem

In general there are three needs
that converge and are satisfied with this project:
• the decline of the use of the public telephony and therefore
a need for re-structuring the public payphone
services to multimedia access points
• necessity re-designing outdated telephone
booths
• convenient access to public Internet and telecommunication services for all citizens,
independent of their social, demographic or education level
Despite technological progress and enhanced competition, more than one in three Europeans is still excluded from fully benefiting from the digital society.

Solution and Key Benefits

 What is the initiative about? (the solution)
More than 850 terminals are installed throughout the country. Those terminals are more than telephone booths, but showcases for public internet services with a DSL connection. Multimediastations are complete new solutions for public communication with a stable business model. This Austrian project was a starting point for public terminal networks in Germany, and smaller roll outs in France, Slovenia and Bulgaria. The multimediastations are accessible 24 hours a day and offer free access to multilingual citizen information and eGovernment applications for all citizen, they also offer public telephony, SMS, Mail and internet services.

Newer terminals are enrolled with a card reader so that they work with Austria’s ‘citizen card’ (Bürgerkarte).Terminals on local administration level already in the field will be upgraded with this functionality. The citizen card is a concept which can be implemented on any suitable data medium, such as a bank card, health eCard, an employee ID etc. It serves as a mean for digital signature and identification. So at any time citizens can identify themselves in many public places to the authorities. They can, for example, claim grants and lodge various applications in a legally valid way without any paperwork and at any time of the day or night.

This is a further step towards local eGovernment. Using this municipal terminal with the citizen card function, helps to deepen the relationship between the administration and the citizens, while making a worthwhile contribution to reducing waiting times and physical appointments at the administration.

Actors and Stakeholders

 Who proposed the solution, who implemented it and who were the stakeholders?
The Federal Chancellery operates the ICT strategy unit of the federal government. The group is responsible for the eGovernment and signature law, and also for the implementaion of the central citizen portal. In order to communicate defined strategies in a more target-oriented way and to speed up their implementation, the group sets examples to diffuse the Austrian eGovernment strategy by education programmes, monitoring activities, cooperative working groups and marketing initiatives.
APC interactive solutions was set up in April 2000 after a merger of Philips Multimedia and LB-Data. APC interactive solutions offers overall solutions for interactive terminals with a focus on multimedia payphones, multimedia terminals and POS/POI/POP media for indoor or outdoor use. Its purpose is to create interactive networks of public screens reaching across national borders. The most important business areas of APC interactive solutions AG are landline telecommunication, tourism, eGovernment and retail. In this best practice case, APC is responsible for the hardware and software solution of the multimediaterminals.
The Telekom Austria Group is the largest telecommunications company in Austria and has also successfully positioned itself internationally. With its fixed net and mobile communication operating segments the Telekom Austria Group is a full service provider of multimedia solutions.In this best practice case, Telekom is responsible for providing the Internet access and telephone network.
Entity website (URL) (if available)
http://www.apcinteractive.net/
http://www.bka.gv.at
http://www.digitales.oesterreich.gv.at
http://www.multimediastation.at/
http://www.telekom.at

(a) Strategies

 Describe how and when the initiative was implemented by answering these questions
 a.      What were the strategies used to implement the initiative? In no more than 500 words, provide a summary of the main objectives and strategies of the initiative, how they were established and by whom.
The project achieves following main objectives and strategies:
• Free 100% access to citizen information and eGovernment applications for all citizens
• Communication channel between administration offices and citizens
• Increase of productivity of public officials
• Reduction of transactional costs by the use of electronic services
• Reduction of printing costs by information display on demand
• Improvement of the corporate image of the administration office
• Citizen surveys can be conducted easily
• Waiting times and appointments at the administration can be reduced
• Robust business model, which offers cheap internet services
• Reference project, which sets a standard in public communication

The project partners are described in one paragraph above. The implementation steps are described one paragraph below.

(b) Implementation

 b.      What were the key development and implementation steps and the chronology? No more than 500 words
The first rollout started in January 2004 with more than 1000 multimediastations planned at the final stage of the project. At the moment there are more than 850 terminals installed throughout Austria, which have more than 370.000 user and more than 2.5 million page impressions per month. They are placed on heavily frequented public places and at information points, points of sale, etc. These terminals are owned by Telekom Austria.

(c) Overcoming Obstacles

 c.      What were the main obstacles encountered? How were they overcome? No more than 500 words
The main obstacles encountered were to get all necessary permissions for all terminal locations on time and to coordinate all involved business partners.
The obstacles along the way were overcome on the one hand through negotiations with all parties involved and on the other hand through a project management team, that organized and managed the resources (e.g. people) in such a way that the project was completed within defined scope, quality, time and cost constraints.

(d) Use of Resources

 d.      What resources were used for the initiative and what were its key benefits? In no more than 500 words, specify what were the financial, technical and human resources’ costs associated with this initiative. Describe how resources were mobilized
In order to satisfy the project requirements apc has developed an integral turn-key-solution of multimedia terminals consisting of end devices (terminals), management system (remote maintenance, content management) as well as content and commercialization concepts, which is supposed to be an effective instrument for modernizing of public terminals-networks.

This complete package was for the first time applied in Austria in co-operation with Telekom Austria, where approximately 850 (projected 1000 until end of 2007) multimedia payphone terminals have been installed until today all over the country.

The financial recourses were mobilized through funding, venture capital and business partners.

The Federal Chancellery supports the terminals for free public web access to eGovernment services.

Sustainability and Transferability

  Is the initiative sustainable and transferable?
It has been developed an integral turn-key-solution of multimedia terminals consisting of end devices (terminals), management system (remote maintenance, content management) as well as content and commercialization concepts, which is supposed to be an effective instrument for modernizing of public terminals-networks. The manaement system allows for nearly automatically surveillance of a large pool of terminals, for automatic configuration management including updates and for monitoring of system compoments. Furthermore the software allows that administrative work can be done via a web interface.

This complete package was for the first time applied in Austria in co-operation with Telekom Austria, where approximately 850 multimedia payphone terminals have been installed until today all over the country. Furthermore the technology is deployed with T-Com in Germany with 1100 Payphone Terminals. Overall these are the biggest networks of multimedia terminals in Europe and the best demonstration of functionality of the system - both technically and commercially. In Austria Mc Donald’s deployed close to 200 Multimedia Terminals in all of their restaurants using the same technology without phone functionality.

Lessons Learned

 What are the impact of your initiative and the lessons learned?
The project is profiting from three convergend trends of the modern information society:
• Reduction of use of public telephony and the restructuring demand of public telecommunication services
• Demand of changing old telephony cells to modern public multimedia terminals
• Convenient public access to the information highway (internt) and their services (Internet, eGovernment) for all citizens regardless of their education and social level.

First, the project was one solution to meet those new trends and therefore grounded on several arising needs. Second, the eGovernment functionality did not have to build a completely new infrastructure, but used effectively the infrastructure installed troughout the country by just adding eGovernment functionality. Third, for outdoor infrastructure, specials solutions have to be found to handle environmental conditions to ensure 24 hours of operation throughout the year. Fourth, although the visibility of multimediastations is high through the widespread installations, it is still necessary to communicate actively the new services available.

Contact Information

Institution Name:   Federal Chancellery
Institution Type:   Government Agency  
Contact Person:   Gregor Eibl
Title:   Dr.  
Telephone/ Fax:   +43 1 53115 2539
Institution's / Project's Website:   +43 1 53109 2539
E-mail:   gregor.eibl@bka.gv.at  
Address:   Ballhausplatz 1
Postal Code:   1014
City:   Vienna
State/Province:   Vienna
Country:   Austria

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