“It’s a phone box Jim, but not as we know it.”

You’re miles from home, you left your mobile on the train and it’s vital you make contact with someone as soon as possible.

No problem, there’s a phone box – a Vodafone Quickphone box – where you can buy a handset plus pay-as-you-talk SIM as easily as if you were punching buttons for a can of Coke.

Sounds odd? Genuine innovations often do at first. Like 3G, text messages and mobile phones themselves – all Vodafone firsts. Most people said ‘terribly cumbersome but probably OK for emergencies’ when Ernie Wise made the first Vodafone call in 1985. And do you remember wondering why anyone would thumb-type a message letter by letter, when it was so much easier to talk? That was 1994, when Vodafone ignored the doubters and brought us SMS.

Truth is, Quickphone will soon become the way most people buy a pay-as-you-talk mobile if Vodafone’s record as rule-breakers is anything to go by. Already, installations are planned, starting with some of Vodafone UK’s 347 shops, where Quickphones will slash waiting time and selling costs. Later, they’ll turn up in department stores, shopping malls, airports, rail stations and, we shouldn’t wonder, at Glastonbury and Reading.

Today Manchester, tomorrow the world

For all its novelty, Quickphone is no leap in the dark. Vodafone, Fujitsu and other technical partners tested the concept and the kit in Manchester before deciding to go national.

The response was enthusiastic. People (especially young people) know what they want in a phone these days and don’t need a ten minute consultation with an expert to decide what to buy. Most were delighted to save some time and trouble.

Fujitsu inside

As you’d expect, the box itself is a clever piece of equipment. There are four touchscreen displays, a chip & PIN system, a banknote reader, receipt printer and 3G connections that monitor stock levels and request replenishment from the remotest of locations.

Inside, driving it all, is a Fujitsu-Siemens PC, optimised for the application, with special cooling and components. The mother board, for example, is designed and built in Germany by Fujitsu-Siemens engineers. No other PC maker has this much control over their innards because no other PC maker actually builds its own boards.

…and outside

Fujitsu’s involvement doesn’t end inside the box. Looking after the Quickphone kiosk network is a Fujitsu support desk and a team of mobile engineers on a 2-hour response SLA.

And if current discussions go well, Vodafone will eventually hand all operational aspects of Quickphone to Fujitsu, from siting to stocking, finance to fulfillment.

Innovation through collaboration

When Quickphone succeeds, it will be down to Vodafone’s vision - they do seem to see further ahead than most of us. But visionaries need pragmatic partners to bring their ideas to life and this project has more than its share of them.

UTL are the logistics experts and it was at their suggestion that Vodafone decided to test the idea of kiosk sales. FAS are the Italian vending specialists and Quickphone boxes are a development of their Easy5000 machines. Vianet are the business systems players in this team and Fujitsu does the IT. And the systems design. And the support. And the break-fix. And, before too long, just about everything else.

This article has been reproduced courtesy of Fujitsu Services Europe.

For further information, please contact