STRATEGIC PARTNERS
February 20, 2002
PENROSE, New Zealand - New Zealand online provider Zip Internet is preparing to bring the World Wide Web to a wider national audience courtesy of deals it has reached with property developer Westfield and the Quality Hotel chain.
Westfield, which has been testing Internet kiosks at several malls since March of last year, will install at least 15 kiosks at shopping centers in Auckland, Christchurch, Hamilton, and Wellington.
Meanwhile, Quality Hotel will deploy 30 terminals at hotels throughout the nation. The chain deployed kiosks at two Auckland hotels in a trial earlier this year.
The kiosks will provide limited free Internet access and coin-operated general Web access. In addition, Zip Internet will charge advertisers $125 per month for an on-screen link to their Web sites, and about $650 per month to paint kiosks to an advertiser's specifications.
Raj Bhandari, Zip Internet sales and marketing director, told the New Zealand Herald that the combination of access charges and advertising fees would make the kiosks a financial success.
"(Internet kiosks are) not a new idea, but kiosk companies have been working with unsustainable business models," Bhandari said. "Simply providing an Internet access terminal and then getting coins out of it is not going to work."
