ABACUS SOFTWARE: International Youth Hostel Federation pilots
worldwide kiosk-based comms system
( M2 PressWIRE )
The International Youth Hotel Federation, the
organisation at the centre of some 4,500 hostels in
more than sixty countries worldwide, is piloting an
innovative kiosk-based international communications
network (ICN), which is believed to be the world's
first all-encompassing communications service for the
budget traveller. ICN will provide travellers with a
variety of communications and information-retrieval
facilities, including the ability to make low-cost
international phone calls, collect and send emails,
retrieve and send voicemails, send faxes, send
telegrams, view and book accommodation. The system
will be housed in purpose-built kiosks, located at
major youth hostels worldwide.
The pilot system, which will run until a major review
at the end of this year, is being installed in twenty
youth hostels throughout Europe and the Pacific Rim
countries. The ICN system has been designed and
implemented by Netherlands-based Backbone Systems NV,
a consortium of which London-based Abacus Software is
the lead technical partner, responsible for all the
programming and management of the central servers.
all communications and billing software both across
the network and in the individual kiosks.
Rawden Lau of the IYHF said: "The new kiosk system
forms the basis of our communications strategy for
the next ten years, and confirms the Federation's
commitment to the use of the latest technology to
provide flexible, easy to use, internationally-
seamless communications services to our members."
In the early 1990s, the IYHF introduced the Inter
rational Booking Network, which enabled travellers to
book hostel accommodation around the world from any
other hostel. This proved to be very successful, and
was the only real-time accommodation booking service
of its kind, handling about half a million
reservations each year.
Mr. Lau: "The problems we encountered and hands-on
experience we gained with the booking system has
stood us in good stead when it came to designing the
new kiosk system. We are working closely with Abacus
Software and its partners at Backbone Systems, who
are very experienced in both worldwide communications
protocols, and in kiosk information systems."
Travellers currently use a IYHF phone-card for the
new system, but it is planned to replace this with a
smart card when the system rolls out next year. The
kiosks contain a PC with a touch-screen and three
primary software components: the user interface
(written in Delphi), and the applications and
communications software (both written in Java, by
Abacus for the IYHF).
Using the pre-paid card (which comes in denominations
of 40 or 100 units), travellers can make use of the
range of communications services at up to 30% less
cost than standard costs. The card-holder can set up
a special email address which can be reached via any
telecommunications network, meaning that friends and
family at home can always reach the traveller by
sending a message. This can be recovered at any
hostel kiosk on the traveller's route, without having
to worry about different or unfamiliar services in
foreign countries.
Each kiosk also provides a local home page at the
hostel site which offers information for travellers,
a 'what's on' guide for that particular region, a
bulletin board where travellers can leave messages
for each other and a link to the original hostel
booking network which shows bed availability for all
participating hostels. Hostellers can also access the
World Wide Web. The user inserts his card and then
enters his PIN number in order to access the network,
which is provided by SITA, the largest data network
supplier in the world, who also handle the network
management through their subsidiary, Equant. All
communications elements of the system, including
billing, email, voicemail, Internet links, and links
to fax gateways, are handled by Abacus, running on a
pair of Sun Netra servers (a not inconsiderable job
considering that the members require four and a half
million individual mailboxes).
Steve Feigen, managing director of Abacus: "This new
system for the International Youth Hostel Federation
is designed to be resilient reliable and as easy to
use as possible for members, regardless of their
location anywhere in the world. Inevitably, the
apparent simplicity of operation for the user hides a
wealth of technical challenges. For example, we
needed to be able to incorporate a freephone
functionality for travellers who wish to take
advantage of the discounted calling facilities, but
who are not actually in a hostel. This meant
integrating our card billing system with one at
Worldport (who are based in Omaha), and at the same
time maintaining the minimum performance targets
essential to hostel kiosk users."
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