Coral Gables Florida is one of the first
cities to employ the PayMint phonecall billing method for
curbside parking meters. When you park at a meter, you dial a number, enter your license plate and walk away. The
system keeps you "on the meter" until you call back to say you're leaving or hit a pre-determined maximum time, say, 2
hours. The system uses CallerID to identify callers already registered in the system. I don't know why this is limited
to cellphones, couldn't you use any phone to dialup? This is not, as I first thought, a Bluetooth or SMS payment system
that's so popular in parts of Europe. But for the TXT-deficient U.S. residents, it's still a step away from our loose
change economy. NPR has an audio segment
about the system or click the link to read about it.
This niche blog has now been merged into the The Wireless Report (www.thewirelessreport.com), which covers all things wireless.
1. This has already been implemented in Zagreb for a couple of years now.
Posted at 5:25AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Davor