Someday, we’ll all be explaining the concept of a “phone booth” to our children. Perhaps that day is already here, now that the first Skype booth has been installed in the Tallinn Airport in Estonia.
It’s a modern spin on the outdated concept of a payphone. You can use the booth in much the same way you would use Skype from your personal device. When you sign-in to your account at the terminal, calls can be made on a 22-inch touch screen using Skype credits. A sensor of the floor detects when someone is in the booth and it’s enclosed behind a wall to help maintain privacy. There’s also a headset included to keep others from eavesdropping on your conversations.
Although the Estonian capital might seem like an odd choice, the location was chosen because it’s where the company got its start back in 2003.
“It was quite logical that the initial home of Skype would have a Skype station in Estonia at Tallinn airport, which is named after Lennart Meri, the former Estonian president, who urged people to find some useful innovation to put Estonia on a map,” Merilin Parli of Estonia Enterprise, one of the companies behind the booth, told Deutsche Welle. “If that isn’t Skype, then what is?”
The company plans to place Skype booths in malls, hotels, and hospitals throughout Estonia, as well as other airports around the world.
Meanwhile, Skype has recently reached a milestone. On Monday, the company announced that it had a record 30 million people online at one time.
Author : Leslie Horn
