SMS Weblogs / Textually / 2005 / 02 / 23

Phone in for Free Electricity

Prism Holdings of South Africa has piloted a project that allows prepaid electricity consumers to access their free basic electricity entitlement using a mobile phone, reports allAfrica.com.

"The pilot saw consumers send their meter number via cellphone. The information was rerouted to the company, which then validated the user from their dabatase.

A token was then generated and a unique 20-digit number was sent via SMS. The user entered this number into his meter.

In the current system people have to go to a vendor to receive a prepaid electricity token, which is inconvenient and costly, especially in remote areas. The system is also open to exploitation because many vending points operate in an offline environment."

The mobile solution allows users to get tokens without having to leave home."

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