There were a few speculations earlier this year that the mom and pop shops who sell prepaid cell phone and long-distance cards might lose a source of income when the service providers behind the service consider adopting new technologies such as
RFID. With RFID-enabled kiosks, subscribers would be able to easily prepay for more minutes without having to purchase cards.
Phone cards are already such low profit margin items, so such new technology might be beyond the budgets of convenience stores. At least that's the hypothesis. Well, Kyocera and Microtel Electronica are offering one possible new source of income: a
CDMA-based cellular payphone [Cellular News]. The phones are targeted at the Latin American and Carribean markets. Venezuela will be the first country to have it.
Call cost is tabulated after the call is finished, and the store owner just bills the customer. Of course, since the item sits in-store, there isn't a lot of privacy, but if you are making a call out in public anyway, it's probably something you're used to. I assume it's near-neon bright yellow exterior is to make it stand out amongst all the candy bar wrappers on the counter that it'll be sitting on. Then again, if you're rich, you might prefer to have a
Vertu Ascent Motorsport, one of the most expensive phones in the world.