Telecoms: Italy

3 Italia and Seat Pagine Gialle launched a video-based directory services available via UMTS mobile phones.

With this new service, 3 Italia’s customers can place video calls to a human operator and view pieces of useful information on their videophone display. For example, customers can take a virtual tour of the rooms and public areas in the hotel where they want to reserve a room, view images from restaurant dining rooms of their choice and the map to get there, or take a virtual tour of the major historical sites of a city.
In addition, through an agreement with Infoblu, Seat Pagine Gialle can deliver live images of 80 webcams located along the Italian highway network managed by Società Autostrade, enabling customers to monitor traffic in real time directly from their videophones and see how much traffic there is on a particular segment before hitting the road.
Siemens Communications has supplied the technology providing these services on 3 Italia videophones.