Press Releases

Budapest, November 4, 2009 14:15

Additional new and innovative services are now available for residents of Szolnok's Szandaszőlős district in the framework of the T-City program launched by Magyar Telekom in May 2009. Enterprising subscribers can test the Home Security System, the Alarm Button for use in medical emergencies or the IP camera broadcasting system, through which they can view events and sports programs held in the city's sports hall. Using the intelligent entry system, parents can keep track of when their child arrives at or leaves school.

Following the rollout of Mobile Payment and Purchases and technologies and packages offered to organizations and businesses, additional applications have been added to the T-City launched in Szolnok this spring: the Protect Home System, the Alarm Button, the IP camera broadcasting and the RFID (radio-frequency based) entry system of the Szandaszőlős Primary School have become available, while the selection of additional applications and services continues and preparations are being made for their testing.

The essence of the "digital city" concept is that Magyar Telekom involves citizens, businesses and institutions of Szolnok city in designing and adapting the new services making everyday life easier, in identifying future needs and finding the business models that can be mutually beneficial and offer good value for money. One of the missions of T-City is to make the services being introduced accessible to the widest possible groups of the city and that the T-City developments should strengthen the city's long-term development strategy.

Speaking about the background of the program Róbert Pataki, Magyar Telekom's chief business development and strategy officer explained: "New services are first tested in a live test environment we call Home Lab. This enables us to test in cooperation with the citizens developments that focus on four major areas: health, education, security and entertainment."

"Szolnok city has embarked on a uniquely complex city development program under the name "Szolnok Épül" (Szolnok is Growing). We are spending over HUF 14 billion to build a modern and attractive city where every age group will feel at home. Magyar Telekom's T-City program is fully aligned with our growing city, and it makes Szolnok outstanding in IT and mobile communications. I think our growing city is an excellent test ground for one of the largest communication companies," said Ferenc Szalay, the Mayor of Szolnok City.

Security is ensured through the Protect Home system, providing a round-the-clock supervision of the homes of program participants and in the event of unauthorized entry or some other danger the sensors of the system, which can be easily installed without any external help, send an alarm immediately by e-mail or telephone to the owner. If the owner happens to have access to the Internet, they can convince themselves through web cameras of the validity of the alarm and decide whether or not the police or the neighbors should be alerted. An important advantage of the system is that it continues to operate even when there is an electricity cut or interruption in the Internet connection. This application has successfully passed the first test round and it will probably be introduced in the overall Hungarian market in 2010.

Magyar Telekom has been testing the Alarm Button since September 1 in cooperation with the Unified Welfare Institute of Szolnok Multi-Purpose Micro Regional Partnership. The system offers help in the case of an unexpected medical problem by contacting a medical dispatcher centre where medical specialists receive calls round the clock. If the situation is an emergency, they immediately alert the ambulance service, the caregivers and the relatives and until help reaches the location, they give what can even be life-saving advice.

Culture and entertainment is served by IP camera broadcasting via the Internet, with the help of which those interested can view sports and other events held in the city's sports hall, in the form of real-time or delayed broadcasting either in an edited version or in unedited, live pictures. The images stored in the archive can be searched subsequently, which may come in handy not only for the athletes, but also for their coaches who, after their access right is checked, can repeatedly view not only the match but also the training sessions.

The success of the RFID technology based entry system introduced in the framework of the Home Lab at the Szandaszőlős Primary School has far exceeded expectations. It precisely monitors when pupils participating in the test arrive at or leave school. If parents ask for it, they are informed by SMS or they can simply follow entries and departures via the www.t-city.hu website. The system enjoys the support of the school, the parents and the pupils, who continuously contribute ideas for its improvement. Such enhancement can be, for example, the connection of the school to the video surveillance system planned to be installed soon or some other modules that are useful for the school, such as an advanced schedule of lessons or e-Diary module.

In addition to the services already introduced and the tests underway in the Home Lab area, Magyar Telekom pays a great deal of attention to educating the residents within T-City and to showing them the benefits use of the Internet can bring to their everyday life. Among others, an Internet academy has been launched and IT study circles are being organized for children. A highly popular series of lectures, the first of which was held on October 20, gives participants a free introduction to use of the Internet and the computer. Children's study circles will be launched in December 2009 and will introduce children through play to technological innovations and the possibilities they offer.
Preparations have already started for testing additional new applications and services in T-City. Among others the shop of the future and the municipal info-SMS will be set up next year in the framework of Home Lab.

Apart from the services developed in T-City, Magyar Telekom makes available the most advanced products and services within its range of offers, like the T-Home services offered on the optical network, T-Mobile's Mobile Pay and Purchase services as well as the Virtualoso service of T-Systems.

Those interested in the tests and initiatives can find more details on the www.t-city.hu website.

About Magyar Telekom
Magyar Telekom is the principal provider of telecom services in Hungary. It provides a full range of telecommunications and infocommunications (ICT) services including fixed line and mobile telephony, data transmission and non-voice as well as IT and systems integration services. The business activities of Magyar Telekom are managed by two business units: Consumer services (the home-related services brand T-Home and the mobile communications brand T-Mobile) and Business services (T-Systems brand). Magyar Telekom is the majority owner of Makedonski Telekom, the leading fixed line and mobile operator in Macedonia and it holds a majority stake in Crnogorski Telekom, the leading telecommunications operator in Montenegro. Magyar Telekom's majority shareholder (59.21%) is MagyarCom Holding GmbH, fully owned by Deutsche Telekom AG.
For further information visit www.telekom.hu.