TietoEnator and Tampere City plan to offer municipal services over digital television

TietoEnator and Tampere City plan to offer municipal services over digital television TietoEnator, Tampere City and eTampere have launched a joint development project that it will offer local government services over digital television. The "From Waiting Room to Living Room" project will start with a thorough analysis in order to determine which municipal services would be most suitable for implementation through digital TV. "Tampere City has made a strategic decision to make use of the latest information technology to develop its services. At the moment, there is clear room for improvement in the way in which municipal services are made available to the local population. We see digital television as an interesting option when looking for new channels for the services", says Project Manager Jorma Lehtisaari of Tampere City. Digial television can facilitate contacts with municipal service providers, give advice and guidance and improve the efficiency of the service organisation. If routine matters can be handled over the television, the work input of the municipal personnel can be directed at more important issues. The From Waiting Room to Living Room project is part of a more comprehensive digital television scheme included in the eTampere Programme and co-ordinated by e-Business Research Center eBRC, a research institute set up jointly by the Tampere University of Technology, and the University of Tampere. One source of funding for the From Waiting Room to Living Room project is the Communications Competence Center Programme administered by Oy Media Tampere Ltd. Currently Tampere is one of the most active cities in Finland in the exploration and development of digital television. From the very beginning, TietoEnator has been closely involved as a consultant in the development of the Finnish digital TV. "Now we have reached a point where it is important to demonstrate the potential offered by this new service channel - to make appropriate and useful information-society services available to ordinary people", says Director Timo Hammar from TietoEnator Media Business Unit. "At the same time, we will be able to prove the efficiency of digital television as a natural and secure access to various public and private services," he says. The first phase of the From Waiting Room to Living Room project will be completed in January, to be followed by the pilot phase in which one particular service provided by the city's welfare and health department will be implemented over digital television. For more details, please contact: TietoEnator, Timo Hammar, Director of Media Business Unit, tel. +358 3 235 9200, +358 40 709 2090. Tampere City, Jorma Lehtisaari, Project Manager, tel. +358 3 219 7301, +358 50 590 2196. eBRC, Marko Seppä, Director of the Research Centre, tel. +358 3 3115 3661, +358 400 638 780. With almost 12,000 employees and annual net sales of EUR 1.1 billion, TietoEnator is a leading supplier of high value-added IT services in Europe. TietoEnator specialises in consulting, building and hosting its customers' business operations in the digital economy. The Group's services are based on a combination of deep industry-specific expertise and latest information technology. www.tietoenator.com eTampere programme is a large development project carried through in co- operation with universities, research institutes, private companies and public organisations in the Tampere region. The objective of the programme is to make Tampere a global leader in information society development by strengthening the knowledge base, by creating new business and by producing new public online services that ease the daily life of all citizens. www.etampere.fi TIETOENATOR CORPORATION DISTRIBUTION Principal media ------------------------------------------------------------ This information was brought to you by Waymaker http://www.waymaker.net The following files are available for download: http://www.waymaker.net/bitonline/2002/10/14/20021014BIT00480/wkr0001.doc http://www.waymaker.net/bitonline/2002/10/14/20021014BIT00480/wkr0002.pdf