Finns Use Wireless Telecom To Wash Cars

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February 03, 1998 (1:31 PM EST)

By David Moloney,

Electricity and water utilities have been talking about bundling telecom services into their billing systems for a while. But now a European telecom operator has beaten them to it.

Last week, Telecom Finland announced it was adding car washes to its range of services. Two Esso service stations in downtown Helsinki are trying out a GSM-based ordering feature in their drive-in car washes.

Global System for Mobile Communications, or GSM , is a digital cellular phone system that is widely deployed in Europe.

Mobile telephone users will be able to activate a car wash by dialing up one of two premium-rate numbers when they drive onto the washing platform at the garage.

By dialing 0600-8000-50 on their mobile phones, customers will get a standard wash. If they want a wax too, they punch in 0600 8000 60. The numbers are significant -- the wash costs 50 Finnish Marks ($9), the wash and wax costs 60 Finnish Marks ($10.90).

The GSM call is routed onto Telecom Finland's intelligent call-handling network, which activates the car wash by sending a return signal to a small terminal on site at the garage.

Customers are billed by Telecom Finland, which reimburses the service station operator periodically -- after taking a fee of 5 Finnish Marks (91 cents) per wash, of course. The telephone company plans to give users the choice to be billed on their telephone bill or through their credit card account.

Customers do not have to get out of their cars and do not have to go to the cashier's booth. No tokens or cash are required.

This latest mobile value-added service is based on technology that Telecom Finland originally developed to allow vending machine operators to order new stock for machines by entering data into a GSM keypad and connecting to an inventory database.

The company employs about 150 staff in the mobile value-added services development group, whose job it is to keep new applications coming online.

Before the new service is put to use in Finland's 660 service stations, Telecom Finland needs to ensure the premium rate numbers can be used across forecourts in the same area without a user accidentally activating the wrong car wash.

Jari Viitanen, project manager of mobile value-added services at Telecom Finland, said his development group was working on ways to ensure car washes were not started accidentally, by using user location techniques.

And the trial-site manager for the project pointed out that using a mobile phone to get your car washed means other security features are built in.

"The customer has the advantage of an extra safety feature," said Caj Gillberg, manager of the Esso stations in the pilot. "If ever anybody got stuck in the machine, they could call for help."