U.S. West, a Baby Bell serving much of the Western United States, on a trial basis, has installed Internet. kiosks in a number of 7-Eleven stores. The trial, which will involve eight stores in the Seattle area, offers store customers public access terminals from which they can send and receive e-mail and access the Web. The menu-driven kiosks are connected to the Internet by digital phone lines that transfer data at the rate of 128 Kbps per second-faster than the devices in most of the libraries in the area. Customers can activate the kiosks with a credit card. Access fees are $.35 per minute, or blocks of time can be purchased at $2.95 for the first ten minutes and $1.95 for each additional ten minutes. The pilot program is not the first for U.S. West. It has already successfully installed such kiosks in airports and shopping malls. There is no announced completion date for the trial.
[Contact: www.uswest.com].
